It's Justin....time

The Liberal Party of Canada has not had much luck with its leadership choices since the glory days of Jean Chrétien.

Paul Martin came next as leader and he was just too wishy-washy.

Then came Stéphane Dion, a convention compromise, and characterized as "not a leader."

Next Michael Ignatieff was literally shipped in, and he was "just visiting."

Each of these men led the party to lower and lower popular vote counts: Martin got 36.7% in 2004, then 30.1% in 2006, Dion 26.2% in 2008, and Ignatieff 18.9% in 2011. Down and down they went, from being the minority government, through to loyal opposition, then to a back bench third place finish for a once great political force. The current interim leader Bob Rae, a refugee from the socialist NDP, has already read the tea leaves, and will not run for permanent leader.

The stage has been set for the second coming of a saviour for the Liberals and by extension Canada, and this boy was born on Christmas Day too!

Yes, it's Justin Trudeau, eldest scion of the charismatic Pierre who led Canada to larger and ever more bloated government. Trudeau the father took office in 1968 when Canada's debt was 24% of GDP, by the time he left office in 1984, the debt was 46% of GDP, an increase of 83%. But of course the rest of the Western Democracies, did precisely the same thing during that time and it has become much worse. The evidence in Europe, America and Canada clearly shows bloated governments don't work.

How does the younger Trudeau - just Justin, thank you - propose to fix the country? I think he gets it right, sort of, lets reinvigorate the middle class. Here is a part of his leadership entry speech:

"A thriving middle class provides realistic hope and a ladder of opportunity for the less fortunate. A robust market for our businesses. And a sense of common interest for all.
The great economic success stories of the recent past are really stories of middle class growth. China, India, South Korea and Brazil, to name a few, are growing rapidly because they have added hundreds of millions of people to the global middle class.
The news on that front is not so good at home; I don’t need to tell you that. You, like our fellow Canadians all over the country, live it every day. Canadian families have seen their incomes stagnate, their costs go up, and their debts explode over the past 30 years.
What’s the response from the NDP? To sow regional resentment and blame the successful. The Conservative answer? Privilege one sector over others and promise that wealth will trickle down, eventually.
Both are tidy ideological answers to complex and difficult questions. The only thing they have in common is that they are both, equally, wrong.
We need to get it right. We need to open our minds to new solutions, to listen to Canadians, to trust them.
And as we face these challenges, the only ideology that must guide us is evidence. Hard, scientific facts and data. It may seem revolutionary in today's Ottawa, but instead of inventing the facts to justify the policies, we will create policy based on facts. Solutions can come from the left or the right, all that matters is that they work. That they help us live - and thrive - true to our values.
Because middle class growth is much more than an economic imperative."

So, Justin and the Liberals should eschew ideology, except where it is supported by evidence and hard scientific facts. Maybe that has been part of the problem with the Liberals, no principles, nothing but the ideology de jour, or as I heard this morning, there is no there, there. 

I don't know where Justin gets his facts, but it seems to me, he and the Liberals have absorbed the prevailing collectivist ideology so they don't even recognize that they have one. If putting a larger and larger tax burden on the middle class, then saddling it with huge debt, is not evidence for why the middle class is struggling, then I'm not sure what is. Maybe Justin should consider unburdening the middle class and stop trying to fix it. That is a second coming I can get behind.

Here is Justin telling the internet he is going to share his greatness with us:

    

Omar Khadr comes "home"

 Khadr in a video 2002....

The hue and cry over the last few days among conservatives in the Canadian media has been deafening.

Why? Omar Khadr has finally been shipped from GITMO to a Canadian prison, 10 years after he was captured by US troops in Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan.

In October 2010, Khadr pled guilty to war crimes as stipulated here. In Canada the entire story has had wide exposure.

For me this story has not yet warranted a mention in any of my postings. The very idea of a "war on terror"  like most government crusades (good word here), leaves me apathetic to the cause, yawning, except that it is yet another way government wastes lives and money by maladministration. The one thing governments should be doing, protecting our rights, protecting our freedoms, ensuring our safety from violence, they manage screw up by inappropriate international interventions. Does anyone in the West feel safer now that the war on terror has entered its second decade? I doubt it.

The Khadr story has been a political football in Canada. Conservatives see it as a cause célèbre for the fight against terrorism, collectivists (left liberals and socialists including the mainstream media) see it as an injustice verging on abuse, done to an innocent child. The collectivists have a point.

Khadr was 15 years old when the incident occurred. Canadian fifteen-year-olds don't arrange to travel 11,000 km (6800 miles) to Afghanistan to get into a firefight with American soldiers. Canadian fifteen-year-olds don't arrange for weapons and explosives training while in Afghanistan. Canadian fifteen-year-olds generally don't appear in al Qaeda videos with weapons in the background. These events are due to the actions of parents, and not parents that mean well. What kind of parent would bring their child to the centre of a military conflict? What kind of parent would put their child into the path of mortal danger? Certainly these actions would be considered abusive and we may never know what Omar the child's wishes were back then. Ten years at GITMO will change you, no doubt.

Which brings me to the prevailing conservative position in the Khadr case. Conservatives are often the first to stand up for abused children in a variety of situations. Why not Omar? Omar Khadr was a child by any definition used in Canada when these events occurred, yet he is vilified amongst conservatives as being beyond redemption, a traitor, and a murderer. Lets just throw away the key. Is that a reasonable well thought out position? Do the sins of one's father transfer to the child?

Sure, Khadr has made statements and confessions while in GITMO, but he may not have felt free to speak. How would anyone act if they were held captive in such a hostile situation?

So now what? Its hard to believe that Khadr has been rehabilitated (or will ever be) by being in a prison with older terrorist operatives. I doubt that in that time they have come to love America, the West and all that it stands for. Even before GITMO, Khadr's family saw to it that he was indoctrinated with the antihuman distortions of a fundamentalist Muslim upbringing. Any religious indoctrination in my view is abusive, this one was way beyond that. All of this was sanctioned and encouraged by his family, they didn't care. Why should we?

The Islamic traditions that Khadr's family cultivates are not going to blend readily into the so-called multicultural traditions of Canada. The lies that defend multiculturalism and relativism in Canadian society will stop right here. The very idea of Sharia, the moral code of Islam, is in many ways inimical to life in a free and culturally pluralistic society such as we have in Canada. I'm concerned that the story of this conflict has just begun.

The Innocence of YouTube

An incomprehensible YouTube posting called the Innocence of Muslims has created a furor in the Islamic world, I'm sure you are aware. This incident and previous such provocations show that it doesn't take much to incite violent protests in that part of the world. So when I first heard of the posting and the reaction, all I could think of was 'here we go again.'

I tried to watch all of this 14 minute video, but couldn't make it through without fast-forwarding to different scenes just to see if it got any better. It didn't. Is it an insult to a religion, Islam? I suppose it is, but the reaction that ensued is an insult to humanity that makes the video's purpose (if there was one) pale by comparison.

Our humanity, the central thing that makes us human, is our ability to use reason, and in many ways all religion is an insult to humanity. Humans have the capacity to reject blind faith (the foundation of all religions), to control their violent emotions, to act in their own rational self interest. The reactions to this video, are so much more damaging than the video itself, yet those protesting see themselves as defenders of the faith. It's a head shaker.

But worst of all were the calls to squelch the video, pleas to both Google and YouTube to remove or review it. Those calls came from some people sworn to defend freedom, but of course the freedom to speak out, to disagree, needs to be most safeguarded in times of turmoil. Sadly that reminder too often needs repeating.
Here is ReasonTV's take on YouTube freedom.

Why American Pizza tastes better...

I know that's a generalization, and of course it may not always be true. But that has been my experience when visiting my relatives in New Jersey over the past almost 40 years.

The pizza seems richer, more flavourful, definitely cheesier! I never understood or thought about why until now, and I have theory.

This week the CBC ran a story where members of the Niagara Regional Police Service will be charged for smuggling large amounts of mozzarella brick cheese across the US-Canada border.

Cheese smuggling!! Why would anyone smuggle cheese across the "NAFTA free-trade border" between two of the largest trading nations on Earth? Good question.

I have written about this before (here), Canadians pay a premium for dairy products because of a monopoly granted to dairy farmers in Canada, which is outside of the NAFTA agreement. This distortion in the dairy market occurs because the federal government allows farmers to collude on the price of raw milk by agreeing to limit production to allotted quotas. The government also creates a tariff wall that effectively prevents cheaper foreign dairy products from competing in the Canadian market. If milk is pricey, cheese will be too. What does this have to do with pizza?

Apparently after removing labour costs, 80% of the price of Canadian pizza is due to the mozzarella cheese. Who knew? Of course getting cheaper cheese allows the local pizza shop to either use more cheese or make more profit, or both. That is my theory, that is why those New Jersey pizzas are so much cheesier. Unlike their Canadian counterparts, Americans can be generous with their cheese without hurting their bottom line.  This story from Niagara Falls Ontario explains some of the cost realities involved. A pizza shop in Ohio spends $90 on cheese every day, a similar shop in Niagara Falls Ontario spends $290 for the same type, quality and roughly the same amount of cheese. Starting to see why there is a cheese smuggling racket?

Again the unintended consequences of government intervention in an economic area, has spawned a black market criminal class of cheese smugglers, the "mozzarella mafia." According to the CBC, a cheese smuggler can earn up to $2000 per shipment, so it's not as lucrative as drug smuggling, but neither are the penalties as onerous. This story has received wide publicity in the US and Canada, here is a report from NPR in the US.

When will things change? Only when Canadians become cheesed-off enough with how they are treated by their various governments.