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The Village Voice: A Hudson Blog Forum
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Federal Politics from the Blogs: The Bill C-15 Syndrome and Power Politics.
(Source: http://hudson.ning.com)
The Sky is Falling, Chicken Little!
Since Tuesday the Blogs and Social networks have been humming - Bill C-15 passed in the house of commons. What is it? In short a Law: Mandatory sentencing (rather than staggered, or "as fits the crime" sentencing) for drug related crimes. An Amendment: 196 allowing for police to detain, Photograph, Fingerprint people with no notarization , or due processing of application, of any particular charge at all. No kidding. It's in there - it's all about all the references it doesn't make.
Imagine this: You own a house and someone next door plants a Marijuana seed over the property line...you get the exact same sentence as the guy with 300 plants in his basement. Moreover, in the case of 196, you happen to be mistaken for someone else, and the police detain you to take your photo and fingerprints on their suspicion alone. Sure, who'd be scared of that? Worked great for the Third Reich in the 20's, after all.
Charming. And who helped this Bill Pass? The Liberal Party of Canada. The Great Hope Mike Ignatieff, who once held a post with Amnesty International. The Vote ended up 71-51 in the House of Commons, The bill is now passed. People all over the blogosphere are hanging their heads saying "I don't believe I thought he'd be different..." You could almost hear Jack Layton rubbing his hands together, because after all Gilles Ducieppe really has nothing to gain but a paycheck and a laugh.
Me: I'm left with Huh? What about C-51? (We'll get to that obscure thought, I'm being realistic.)
Anyone Got an Umbrella?
Now that Bill is on the way to the Senate: And for those of you who don't have a more than passing knowledge of the system here in Canada - the House of Commons does not have the power to unilaterally pass a Bill such as C-15. The Bill must first pass through the Senate; whose appointed members serve under the mandate, or more simply what their sole purpose of thought and existence is, to preserve the civil rights of the citizens of Canada, as first outlined by the Magna Carta of the 12th Century reformation for Britain, later defined by the BNAA (British North America Act), then most recently with our very own Constitution: The rights of Free citizens in a Free Nation as governed by elected officials (under the stewardship of a Monarch or representative Governor General). The choice of the appointees rests solely with the prime minister of the day, and is agreed by the monarch or governor general.
Yes the senate is old, but old ain't always a bad thing. Magna Carta's pretty old by now too, but it's still a law we shouldn't look at changing. If you don't know it - look it up, believe me, it will make you appreciate how hard people once fought for things like a senate much less a parliament.
Before I get too far away from the point: The senate is charged with examining every single law the House of Commons comes up with, solely from the viewpoint of how it will affect the life of common citizens under it's implementation. As such, see them as the teachers who mark the papers (laws) the MP's (namely the elected administration) write on our behalf. The have their 'mandated' checklist for civil liberties.
Given 196 this Bill is a dead duck already. The senate has no power to open the constitution: Only we the people have that - even if passed we would have to amend the constitution to allow for the dissolution of our basic rights with a general vote. That's not going to happen. It will be returned to the House of Commons for a re-write.
So...Huh?
So what's with C-15...why would you write a Bill doomed to die?
Rewind: Bill C-51, September 2008
Introduced in September of 2008 Bill C-51 is almost a Carbon Copy of Bill C-15...and some of you may be already thinking 'is this an insult to my intelligence?' to which I shall remain silently amused with you. C-51 transferred all power of decision making about new forms of 'therapy' to the minister of health, without any hope of recourse or appeal, and at the same time promised that the police would have the power to "phone in Warrants" meaning that they could just pick a number of a house - and if they could prove you were a resident of that home they could 'legally' search your premises. Equally Draconian, and even more demented, equally offensive to both civil libertarians and constitutional activists alike. This bill, too, was a dead duck. Never even made it back to the table later. Now we know why, they just wrote a new one for the occasion.
The election came in October. The NDP made record breaking gains, te BLOC QUEBECOIS also did exceedingly well. LIB's, well, we know the story. Stephane Dion was the unfortunate victim of that last jaded political maneuver...a bill which he was forced to vote for...which he tried vainly to counter and rekindle the left vote with the carbon cap which no one understood...a double whammy...and still they ended up opposition.
Bottom line? Who is still opposition by the skins of their teeth? And why?
Power Politics
So, here we go again. Liberals forced to keep parliament going by voting something completely unethical and without any real value because they need to be assured that the stimulus package to prop up our market economy has actually “Gotten out the door”. The other two parties continuing to keep the pressure on by voting with complete abandon against anything the CPC does. Believe me reader, I'm not taking any sides: except ours. This is a loop in our parliamentary system which needs to be accounted for. CPC tables ridiculous bill, Liberals must vote yes to keep the damn shop open. Fringe parties keep throwing monkey wrenches which serve only the incumbents and themselves.
And the popular vote continues to be fractured, as a throwback to the days when the Reform and Conservative parties were both back on their heels and the Liberals ruled the roost.
Liberal vote is a funny thing. They will never drop below a certain percentage. I will say Dion managed to scrape together 13% of his own doing. Even after all the missteps. Layton was the big winner, and Ducieppe only had 'Quebec' and Margaret Atwood to work with (Perhaps we should change that, eh, and let Canada vote for the Bloc when they aren't satisfied? Is that radical?)
So now we see C-15 with further Draconian measures the Liberals are forced by circumstance to agree with. This is power politics, folks. Dividing our votes to those 'more' concerned about our immediate concerns. A vote against C-15 would have forced an immediate election.
Why they don't speak out? That is the only question that I cannot answer. This is where my knowledge of what comes next ends. The rest is up to you personally, even if I know what I really want is a government that isn't constantly broken....
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
From 1,000,000,000 to 50,000,000 in 120 days
Defecit will be much Bigger than Forecast: Flaherty (CBC:May 25th, 2009)
Government on right economic track despite pessimistic reports: PM
IMF sees global economy shrinking 1.3% in '09
Opposition demands PM fire Flaherty over Ballooning deficit (CBC: May 27, 2009)
This has been forecast for some time now. I myself have seen it coming since October 2008. I think everyone knew that when the budget was delivered - it was a lame duck.
The whole point in a recession is that the threshold of supply to demand has been crossed too far, due in large part to the huge spike in gas prices during the summer of 2008 when people had to make concessions in their spending to make room for the extra financial (it was at least %50 more expensive here in Quebec)load of fuel essential for homes and transportation.
Inflation jumped %1.2 in that time(that's $12 on every $100 in common speak- passed on to us the consumer)
As this implies, it didn't stop there with consumers, though, the knock off effect was felt in the transportation sector as well, so goods became a whole lot more expensive to transport and in some cases produce. Prices started going up just at the time people found themselves with that much less disposable income, so they stopped buying frivolous goods - the simple truth is there were (and still are)not enough buying and too many were working to produce. The job losses started. The whole thing falling like a house of cards: more people lose their jobs, less people spending, more job losses...you get the picture. In technical jargon that is referred to as an 'recessionary spiral' and the last one we had was just before the Great Depression.
And this is why there is no Tax revenues: People still aren't spending.
Take into account also that, according to my October 2008 numbers (gleaned from the 2006 Census numbers) between %18 and %24 of the population of this country were earning (individually) less than $25,000pa and you begin to see where that threshold was. I myself as a seasonal worker earn roughly $9,000pa, then depend on EI for the next $3,000. Changes to the system meant I didn't receive it this year. My rented accommodation alone costs me $6,600pa, with increases in Hydro imminent. Then, food. No tax revenue there. Matter of fact they mailed me a big fat refund I used to pay down debts incurred over the income-less winter. I know there are many like me in Canada at the moment.
The opposition Parties are pushing for the EI reforms to try to create spending stimulus for the market economy, and hopefully curb lay offs - which the current administration still shows no signs of relenting to. The way they have done their books they expected %75 of the population to spend like %100 of it would. $49 Billion is a big gap and a big mistake, especially when you will not apply the remedy.
This is Grade 11 Economics with a failing grade folks, and it will push this country deep into a depression that will probably make the last one look tame because of a lot more mouths to feed in this era. - no matter how big your bank balance may be, no matter how much tax you save, it's money not in the hands of those who need it to create jobs - those who produce goods that no one can buy right now.
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Jeff Casselman
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