Church of Atheism?

Here is an example of how unnecessary government interventions create unintended consequences.  According to this newspaper report, atheism is a creed that requires protections much the same as other religions do. So, atheism is equated to religion. In the actual paper copy, on the front page (see photo), the National Post makes light of this. I guess to pander to their social conservative patrons.

I'll skip over whether religions need protection, I don't think they do. I'd like to examine atheism as a creed.

According to Dictionary.com "creed" is defined as:

1. any system, doctrine, or formula of religious belief, as of a denomination.
2. any system or codification of belief or of opinion.
3. an authoritative, formulated statement of the chief articles of Christian belief, as the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, or the Athanasian Creed.

As far as I know, to be an atheist one is not required to join a group that has an atheist code or formula. Atheists typically don't meet regularly to fulfil belief obligations. They don't construct massive buildings as places of worship, nor do they get tax breaks from local governments for doing so. Calling atheism a belief system is a huge stretch and distortion. If I don't believe in fairies, is that a belief system? Hardly!

The news story above, reports on a decision by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO), a superfluous arm of government if ever there was (theoretically in Canada, Charter Rights are already protected). It seems a Mr. Choinard of Grimsby Ontario, wanted to match the Gideon's of bible distribution fame as a protest. He wanted to hand out an atheist text “Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children,” and of course was, as expected, refused. He made a case to the HRTO alleging that the District School Board of Niagara has “discriminated against them … because of creed.” Making such a protest is simple and costs nothing to the complainant, there is no barrier to frivolity, not that I think this is a frivolous complaint.

As a result, earlier in August, the HRTO ruled on the complaint saying that the school board's policy was biased.
“The policy was discriminatory because its definition of acceptable materials violated substantive equality by excluding the kinds of materials central to many creeds.”
The school board policy blocked atheist books and other “emerging or non-traditional creeds.”

In the end, according to the news article, the HRTO descision was:
“If [the school board] is prepared to distribute permission forms proposing the distribution of Christian texts to committed atheists, it must also be prepared to distribute permission forms proposing the distribution of atheist texts to religious Christians.”

The school board has six months to draw up a new policy “permitting distribution of creed and religious publications in its schools.” So atheism is a creed.

Throughout the process Mr. Choinard maintained his primary goal was to critique the board's policy and point out that government public schools should not be in the business of supporting a religious agenda. I absolutely agree, and that illustrates the real problem. If parents had the (affordable) option to send their children to their school of choice, religious or not, this entire case would not exist.

Ideally schools should be an extension of the home. The values that parents want to instil in their children should be a parental responsibility. Busy parents should be able to obtain a service, at an affordable price, that fulfils this need consistent with their values in addition to educating their children for the modern world. To have government public schools try to be all things to all people is impossible and undesirable; and to require an HRTO to enforce this is ridiculous. Here are two arms of the Ontario government that can easily be reduced or eliminated.      

Attention Shoppers...

Out doing a bit of food shopping this afternoon. I spent the first few minutes trying to liberate a shopping cart with my quarter. That comes from habit, the cart thingy would not budge, then I read the instructions (see photo).
I did not get the memo that things had changed at my local food store.

Two observations:

1. A quarter seems no longer worth as much as it was. I've noticed this on previous shopping trips. People don't return their carts to the right spot sometimes because their time is worth more than a quarter, OR it's raining, and again, not worth it.

2. The "Cart return islands" in the parking lot had disappeared, now shoppers have to march the cart all the way back to the store. That means that the entry level job of moving carts back to the store is gone. Casualty of the minimum wage? Maybe.
How long will it be before it takes a "two-ny" ($2) to liberate the carts?

Facebook - please "Like"

This week I created a Facebook page to highlight this blog TBL, soon to be in its fifth year. 

The Facebook page ought to allow more discussion and feedback, and I can post smaller items that do not warrant a full blog post but are still very interesting.

If you are already a Facebook user, I would appreciate a "like" (in jargon of Facebook) or a (civil) comment. 

You can find the TBL page here. 

If you don't use Facebook, but have libertarian leanings, why not air them out in the classic libertarian way, the dreaded online argument thread. Join up. Arguing on Facebook is not quite as interactive (or funny) as the video below, but fun nevertheless. 

 

Gas (plant) pains

Flooded Highway 427

By now the story of the big rainstorm that caused flooding and power outages in the western part of Toronto, earlier this summer (July 8, 2013) is old news. Certainly the severity of the storm was unusual, and with that much rain, flooding was to be expected. But most of the flooding was cleared by the following morning leaving behind considerable damage to property.

What was unexpected was that electrical power remained offline to thousands of homes and businesses for nearly two days which added (unnecessarily) to the destruction of property in freezers and refrigerators across the region. The Mayor of Toronto even appealed to citizens to conserve electricity because the city was “hanging by a thread.” Was this a surprise to authorities, an unnoticed flaw in the system? Who is in charge?

The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) is in charge of Ontario’s electricity infrastructure, and the disruption in service after the recent flood was foreseen years ago.

A report issued in October 2007, recommended “the siting of new gas generation in the southwest part of the Greater Toronto Area (Southwest GTA)” and that OPA intended to “procure such generation by 2013…to address capacity needs…expected by 2015 in the western half of the GTA.” Of course the proposed Oakville and Mississauga gas power plants that were supposed to mitigate the problem were canceled for political reasons.

The same report foreshadowed the recent power failure: “Extraordinary events or major failures on the transmission system could lead to inadequate supply capacity or voltage stability issues. The risk of such events is significantly reduced with internal generation capacity. As an example, New York City requires an installed generation capacity that is 80% of the city load.” How does Toronto, the financial capital of Canada, compare? Only about 10% of its electricity is generated locally. The city is on tenterhooks.

The best available guess is that the cancellation of the two aforementioned gas power plants cost about $600 million. The recent economic ($850 million) and societal losses during the power failure should to be added to that estimate. Indeed, the cancellation of those plants was not the decision of experts, and not done in the interests of the people of the Southwest GTA. It was a calculated decision designed to save two political seats weighed against the best interests of hundreds of thousands of hard working citizens.

In a recent committee hearing on the gas plant debacle, Dalton McGuinty reiterated his position that the power plant cancellation was “the right thing to do.” Yes, it was for the Liberal Party, but what about the ratepayers and citizens of western Toronto, and the rest of the province?

This is the Libertarian platform plank on electrical energy generation.

Convenience Cartel

 Most people think that the government sells all alcoholic beverages in Ontario. That's not exactly true.

The Beer Store (TBS) is a government sanctioned cartel (they call it a consortium) of three private companies (two of which are 98% owners of TBS). TBS is controlled under Ontario's Liquor Control Board Act which gives the LCBO the power to set price floors, set how much beer may be discounted during a "sale," and just about everything else to do with sales and distribution. TBS's employees are all members of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

Recently OCSA (Ontario Convenience Stores Association) paid for a study that showed "that the average price difference in a 24-bottle case of beer between (Ontario and Quebec) is about $9.50, or 27 per cent lower in Quebec.  This was blamed on the Ontario cartel, and the study implied that allowing convenience stores to sell beer would lower the Ontario price by creating "efficiencies." What a good idea I thought, at least a start to move away from government imposed monopoly. So I called up a spokesperson for  OCSA to see if they would be interested in providing a speaker and supporting a conference that I'm organizing. I told him the conference was apolitical but would have many libertarians that will support his cause. "No, not interested," and he went on to explain how liquor and beer sales are important income to the provincial treasury, about $1.7 billion in 2012. Right. It was a short phone call.

So what is OCSA trying to accomplish? They have a campaign on Facebook, and here, which purports to argue "Free Our Beer." They're plying the idea that most people want convenience and a bit of a lower cost, which is certainly true. As for competition, they don't really want to "free our beer" they want to get in on the action and become part of the cartel.

Celebrating our Liberty

Today, of course is Canada's 146th birthday, and this week our American cousins will be celebrating their birthday too.

I've been reading some of the postings on social media by my libertarian "friends," both Canadian and American. Many of the wishes are genuine expressions of hope that everyone has/is having, a "Happy Canada Day." 

There are a few of my friends who look at this as a celebration of the "state," so they are resentful that such a day exists. They say that this is an arbitrary celebration of a piece of property, divided from other properties by imaginary lines, where the people are forced....etc. etc. etc. I get it, in some ways it's a bit like saying that each of our personal birthdays should be viewed as being one year closer to death rather than of a celebration of birth. I'd hate to be a their birthday parties.

I'll be the first person to tell you that there is something wrong with our "state," our country and our various governments as they exist now. 

But, is it wrong to commemorate the actions of a group of people who came together voluntarily to enact a law (a constitution) designed to protect the natural rights of individuals? 

Is it wrong to have imaginary lines that delineate the territory where those individual rights can be protected and defended?

Is it wrong to set aside one day each year to celebrate that event?

It would be wonderful if there was no need for an arbitrarily delineated state, no boundaries, and the whole planet would be our country. Alas, that is not reality.

What would NOT be wonderful is, if laws that protect individual rights did not exist, and it would NOT be wonderful if people had to fend for themselves to protect their own rights, unassisted.

There is a purpose for our "state" at this point in human evolution, that purpose is to provide the framework for each of us to enjoy our liberty free of unwanted intrusions by others. Maybe one day we will evolve beyond that. 

Yes, we live in an imperfect state, but here in Canada, we still possess the freedom to fix it and that gives each of us purpose.

Be happy celebrating your liberty. Happy Canada Day!

WHIPPED: Just a more obvious flaw in our democracy.

Sean Holman is shopping around his documentary WHIPPED, The secret world of party discipline.

I saw it in Toronto (June 22/13) and stayed for the panel Q&A that followed.

Mr. Holman is a passionate well meaning individual with a clear idea of how our Democracies in Canada should operate. He used his journalistic training and nine years of experience covering the Legislature in Victoria B.C. to produce this documentary. It's very well done, as far as it goes. Mr. Holman will be on The Current (CBC) this Wednesday, and the documentary may be viewed on CPAC at some point.

Though the entire documentary is set in British Columbia, the concept of whipping and the party whip are common to all Westminster style legislatures in Canada and around the world (in Britain there is a bit more freedom). By way of contradiction, Canada has two exceptions: Northwest Territories and Nunavut, no parties, no whips.

During the Q&A, Mr. Holman pointed out he has no bias as to whether whipping is a good or bad thing, which I found disingenuous. Why bother making the documentary? Going to the trouble of making an exposé uncovering a "secret world," seems to me to be taking a side.

Mr. Holman, the Q&A panel, and the sponsor of the showing, all had an obvious bias. In fact I found the representative from the sponsor, Duff Conacher, somewhat biased toward the new Federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, but maybe that's just me.

By the end of the evening it was obvious that whipping occurs in most of Canada's legislatures and is not necessarily in the best interests of Canadians as voiced by the panel. Wherever it happens, MP's, MPP's, MLA's, MNA's whatever, all the elected representatives of the various legislatures, vote along party lines because they are coerced (whipped) into doing so. The coercion takes the form of ostracism from the party caucus, or having the possibility of advancement within the government or party hierarchy blocked if the party line is not toed. The general belief voiced by the panel and the audience at this viewing was, legislators should be able to vote their conscience or at least vote in the best interests of their constituents without coercion.

Sounds reasonable, wouldn't you say?

Of course this begs the questions what are the best interests of constituents on any given Bill presented by a government in a legislature, and how would a legislator know this? I suspect that most of the people present for the viewing would be satisfied and resigned to accept Churchill's famous comment that: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” But I wonder is that the best we can do? I prefer this Churchill quote: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." My view is, that practiced as it is now, democracy is overrated.

For example, in the most recent Ontario election only 49.2% of qualified voters bothered to vote, and the elected Liberal minority government attracted 37.62% of those that cast ballots, or just 18.5% of qualified voters. What kind of democracy is that? It was not quite a majority mob that formed this government, but a small cobbled together bunch of special interest groups that are dependent on the spend-thrift ways of the governing party. Clearly in Ontario at least, government is not really democratic at all, along with being apparently unlimited in its reach. Maybe the whole idea of being whipped is mere small potatoes? But its nice to know that the advocates of our democracy (at this viewing) can spot this flaw. There may be hope.

A Facebook comment from my Party colleague Jim McIntosh, sums up the situation that legislators are faced with very nicely: "[I]t isn't clear to me that your representative knows what is in your best interest, let alone what is in the best interest of all his constituents, or even the ones who voted for him. Typically any Bill he must vote on may help some constituents and hurt others. That is why the (Ontario) Libertarian Party advocates that the force of government only be used to protect life liberty and property of residents."

So maybe Sean Holman's next documentary should be about limiting the size and scope of government rather than unleashing legislators. That would really be in the best interests of all Canadians.

A Postscript: Just to be clear, as leader of a political party (Ontario Libertarians), if we had elected representatives in the Ontario Legislature, I would require those MPP's to vote along party lines. We advocate limited government and would expect those members of our Caucus to vote against any Bill that reduces choice or increases the power of government. However, in the present context, I would hope that any libertarian members of any other party make their position known to their Caucus and either vote against or abstain from Bills that reduce the liberty of citizens.

        

If you see something, say something....but don't worry its just the government.

By now, unless you live under a rock, you have heard or read about Edward Snowden. Just as likely, you have formed an opinion, he is either a traitor, a hero, or you aren't certain/don't care. That's the way people are lining up. Predictably the neocons think he is a traitor, the libertarians believe he is a hero, and most people don't give a rat's ass.

Edward Snowden is also either very brave, very naive, or possibly something more sinister that we aren't privy too yet. He has given up a healthy six figure salary at the age of 29, with a comfortable job while living in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Who would do that? Well, we don't know the whole story yet, but its got the makings of a book, or maybe a screenplay/movie eventually.

Is anyone surprised by Snowden's revelation?

I wasn't, it just confirms my belief that if something is possible, it's likely being done. My trust of government, let's say is non-existent, but you have probably gathered that by now.

I was on a family trip at the time that the NSA/PRISM story broke open, travelling to the New York City metropolitan area, the megalopolis that ranges between New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

Ten years ago, on a similar trip I was impressed by the number of magnetic "ribbons" attached to the all sorts of motor vehicles, flags flying on front porches, and yellow ribbons tied to trees. America was at war in Iraq and at war against terror. Today those magnetic ribbons are less obvious, faded with time, and far fewer flags fly on homes, people are tiring of the never ending war. Who can blame them?

Visiting rest stops on the Interstate highways I saw signs on the rest stop doorways - "If you see something, say something," followed by a phone number - a snitch-line. The whole thing is positively Orwellian or worse.

In fact that metaphor is probably lost on an entire generation or two who are now rapidly catching up, the proof being that Orwell's 1984 is a hit again. I wonder what the Google stats on Orwell are like these days?

We here in Canada must think ourselves lucky not to be spied on by all these acronyms. Not so fast folks, it's happening here too. Have you ever heard of Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC)? Neither have I until this past week, now its all over the web. Watch what you say, and to whom you say it.

Edward Snowden has done us all a favour, he said something. The Hollywood movies that depict government agencies spying on everyone are no longer fiction, maybe Shia LaBeouf was right.          

Political Gang Warfare

Whenever unpopular political decisions need to be made its best to overwhelm opponents, thats another rule of politics. Also, make sure you get some bipartisan support and the sheeple will think this is the ONLY way.

Take a look at that logo, any clue what it means?

It's the logo of the Greater Toronto Civic Action Alliance. In any political fight, another rule is: make sure your public face gives no clue to what you are really about. So, just looking at the name, its impossible to discern what these people are being active about. And the logo, well it's a freaking mystery.

Here is what its about. An agency of the Ontario government called METROLINX, has been tasked to build and run  an integrated a transit system in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area, the GTHA. All they need is $50 billion over 25 years - $2 billion per year, or about 1.6% of Ontario's current budget, chicken feed in government lingo.

Oh, the 32, what's it about? Well, currently the average commute time in the GTHA is 82 minutes per day, among the longest in North America. The Metrolinx experts say that will rise to 109 minutes in 25 years, but if you spend $50 billion, you will shave off 32 minutes, down to just 77 minutes. Yes, just 5 minutes less than we have now. Whoop-dee-doo!

Another part of the gang of political elites involved in railroading this idea through can be found here. That is their press release from the other day, explaining the "investment" strategy. Here is their video, which features some of the political elites and shows everyone just how bipartisan and diverse they are.

I hope after that you are ready to fork over the money. It should only cost the average family of four with two cars about $20,000 in fees and taxes over the next twenty years or so. You don't need the money anyway. Remember, in 2038 you will be saving 32 minutes off your commute, if you can afford a car by then.   

The Big Move Tax Grab

One of the first rules of politics is to try to minimize or at least obfuscate unpopular events or decisions.

Today, an agency of the Ontario government - Metrolinx - came out with their bag of "revenue tools" - taxes by any other name, to pay for a massive 25 year plan that will cost $50 Billion (at least).

So this could become one of the largest single tax grabs in Ontario, since Dalton McGuinty said he would not raise taxes, but instead created the Health Premium, a new "tax" in the 2004 budget.

What I find interesting and funny is this, in the week or so before the Metrolinx revenue tools announcement, the two most consistent opponents of these revenue tools - the Ford brothers Rob and Doug - were attacked by two of the largest newspapers in the country, and accused of various drug offences: smoking crack and pushing dope. Not only did those allegations create local headlines with daily ramifications, but Toronto politics became a joke on North American late night TV shows. So, I'll ask, is there a connection? Is this a smoke screen (pun intended) for Metrolinx?    

Metrolinx is supposed to alleviate the gridlock in the Greater Toronto - Hamilton Region. The average commute time in the area is now 82 minutes. When (and if) the plan gets done, that commute time will be 77 minutes - 5 minutes saved! Of course, the CEO of Metrolinx says that if it isn't done, his crystal ball says the average commute will be 109 minutes. Could it possibly be 108 or maybe 100 minutes? How can this guy predict what things will be like in 2038? Maybe we'll get those flying cars I've been waiting for. But with even more taxes piled up onto poor Ontario, who will be able to afford a flying car?