From Friday’s New York Times: “While we have been working on the economy, the opposition has been working on a backroom deal to overturn the results of the last election without seeking the consent of voters,” Mr. Harper told reporters outside of an empty House of Commons before declining to take questions.
Actually, Mr. Harper, while you’ve been IGNORING the global financial crisis and trying to create a one party ideocracy, the opposition has been doing their jobs as law makers.
Mulroney. Harris. Bush. Bush. Harper. Thatcher. There is a pattern here, folks.
The cost of a 2 cent cut to a tax you don’t even notice anymore? Click here to see the shape of things to come.
Seven years on, half a building completed, $22 million dollars spent by the Government of Canada, millions more by private developers, and still the citizens of Canada are no closer to seeing the millions of works they collectively own in any site.
The project has been doomed from the beginning. Introduced by Sheila Copps in 2001, the site chosen was the wrong one. Wellington Street is so densely packed with nothingness, and conversely so busy all year round, the site would have been insignificant in its context and been overwhelmed by pass-by tourists.
The old American embassy would be better used as a non-institutional building, providing much needed retail or restaurant to a large expanse of boulevard with nothing open to the public.
With thousands of political staffers and support staff working in the Parliamentary Precinct, the area could use something as simple as a coffee shop and newsstand. The building could also serve as an entrance to the new subway.
However, there is no doubt the Gallery should be in Ottawa. Not because of cost savings or convenience for federal bureaucrats, but because Canada is a nation divided and dispersed enough, it does not need to have its capital city lowered a notch by having a national institution elsewhere.
That being said, it is unacceptable that our national museums have no presence outside of Ottawa. The solution is a simple one that has been successful here in Britain, and I am shocked has not been discussed in a country far larger. All national museums in Ottawa should share their collections with a new network of exhibition spaces to be collectively called The Canadian National Museum with locations in Victoria, Vancouver, Whitehorse, Jasper, Banff, Calary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Yellowknife, Winnipeg, Iqaluit, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Windsor, Niagara Falls, Kingston, Montreal, Mont Tremblant, Quebec City, Moncton, Halifax, Charlottetown and St. John’s.
These 25 new museums would receive a rotating set of exhibits that would travel across the network after being professionally curated and exhibited in their principle installation spaces in Ottawa. Every region in the country would benefit from the exceptional work done on behalf of all Canadians by the staff in their nation’s capital, without degrading their own capital by selling out a national institution to the top bidder be they condominium developer or oil and gas magnate.
The system would be cost effective, provide the highest possible quality cultural programming to all Canadians, and help build a stronger national artistic infrastructure. As for the Portrait Gallery’s location, there could be no place more fitting than a boldly redesigned old War Museum, adjacent to the National Gallery of Canada, and on the capital’s premiere Sussex Drive.
This is unacceptable and would NOT happen on the Aviation Parkway because it doesn’t run through a dense neighbourhood in the city centre and is, yes it is, isolated from adjoining communities.
Some of you may be surprised to see me so enthusiastic about the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska. There’s no doubt I’m a Liberal, a liberal, a progressive, and certainly a Democrat.
But Sarah Palin is a pro-life, right of right, gun toting Republican? Why yes, she is. And she may just deliver Obama the presidency.
It seems clear to me that McCain’s campaign had two goals in choosing Sarah Palin over the more obvious choices: Mitt Romney (billionaire union-busting hypocrite), Mike Huckabee (believes humans and dinosaurs once co-existed), Governor Pawlenty (boring and barely electable in his own state), Rudy Giuliani (verb+noun+9/11), and my personal favourite, Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana (currently pushing for a law to PHYSICALLY castrate child molestors after his dealth penalty for child molestors was defeated by the Supreme Court and a right wing Christian who believes he once performed a successful exorcism -really.)
1) To appeal to the annoyed female Hillary Clinton supporters that are just looking for an excuse to vote for McCain.
2) To appeal to the conservative wing of the Republican party who dislike McCain’s now long forgotten maverick tendencies.
While I’m pretty sure this will be successful in helping with the extreme right, the women’s argument is absurd. Mrs. Palin doesn’t just oppose abortion, she would outlaw it. Not just elective abortions. Even in cases of rape and incest.
She is also a card-carrying member of the NRA, and opposes even moderate gun control policies to keep semi-automatic weapons off the streets.
As Hillary asked convention-goers on Tuesday, “Was it all for me?” or was it your commitment to the rights of women to choose and for the safety of your family on the streets and in their homes?
Ms. Palin is also under investigation for trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from his post in the state police after a particularly nasty divorce from her sister. While the charges aren’t yet proven, her statements to date are undeniably conflicting, which brings us to the old adage of the lie being greater than the crime.
The head of the probe in Alaska is ready to send summons for her to testify. I hope they serve her at the RNC mid-speech.
Obama-Biden 2008 is more secure today thanks to the undisciplined vetting from the McCain camp and the lunacy of the GOP.
Hey folks, I’m considering sending this for consideration for publication. Any feedback ahead of time would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Whether I’m reading the Citizen or any other newspaper from across the country, one thing is constant; there are always a number of journalists and citizens in the opinion pages ready to offer their two cents on how to manage the city, province or country.
Their arguments can be classified in two discrete categories. The first calls for government to STOP their wasteful spending/cut the “fat” from the bureaucracy with the ultimate goal to cut whatever tax rate they find to be oppressively high (usually all of them).
The second is equally one sided. They ask why another service hasn’t been implemented by the local government. “Anyone can see the merit in free doggy day care! Who wouldn’t accept a small tax increase to make sure Killer has the care he needs!”
Those who have worked in politics or government know, of course, that the reason letter writers #1 can’t have their way is because of letter writers #2. Right? Maybe not.
I used to believe that the reason we get mired down in debacles over budgets and taxes was the dichotomy of these two groups. But recent studies show that these discrete letter writing categories may infact originate from the same source of disgruntled people.
Daniel Yankelovich and others have studied voter preferences and found quite perplexingly that inexplicably wanted both tax cuts and government services expanded. This leads one to just a single thought: huh?
Bewilderingly, it would appear that many of continue to want to have our cake and eat it too: broad based tax cuts while waging two wars, expanded Medicare coverage and the elimination of the alternative minimum tax, a new freeway in for your subdivision and a call for an end to earmarks and political pork.
In Ontario, Mike Harris tried to be honest in one direction with the common sense revolution: tax cuts at the cost of major service cuts. I think we need to be honest again, and tell our politicians that we aren’t willing to give up transit improvements, better access to better healthcare, or funding for the arts. In other words, please raise my taxes.
That’s right, I said it. I think we need higher taxes because with all the wealth we’ve generated since the neo-conservative movement began wit Reaganomics and other attempts at less government, the buses don’t run on time, our cities are congested from increased car ownership and use to detriment of us all, we can’t get the streets plowed or a music hall funded. We have failed ourselves as we have allowed jobs to go overseas while losing our community identity and collective willpower to get the cities, environment, and government we deserve.
The solution isn’t to run government “like a business.” The very idea is contradictory. Government isn’t a business and can’t be measured with the same scale of efficiency any more than you can measure the clarity of a cell phone signal in litres. A government, incidentally, does not serve “consumers”, “users”, or even “taxpayers”. It serves citizens or residents, depending on its function. The use of other labels cheapens the role of government and the valour of its service.
Look at the evidence. In Ottawa, Mayor O’Brien tried for a “zero means zero” property tax increase, which ended up meaning 4.6% when service cuts turned out to be impossible after his fat cutting committee found only $2 million in savings, much of which was quickly found to be alarmingly shortsighted to cut at all for the sake of good public relations.
On Parliament Hill Jim Flaherty said he would find billions of “fat” to cut, but only found $200 million, which included a number of programs that provided incredible value for money such as the Canadian Book Exchange Centre, Exhibit Transportation Services, National Association of Women and the Law, West Coast Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, and Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. The money saved, incidentally, was less than 1% of total spending, which would mean a tax savings to you of less than a tenth of a percent of your income, or for the average Canadian family, a tax savings of $5/month.
The lessen to be learned from our experiences is that there is little fat to trim, and like a good steak, it’s impossible to cut all the fat out. If you try, you end up with a pile of hashed up pieces of beef.
Government is simply not “efficient” in the way a business ought to be because its citizenry is always larger and more diverse than any company’s shareholders or customers, and it has to be directly responsible to them all. And this, friends, is a good thing.
Today we are facing a serious shortfall in many areas. We need more revenue to adapt our economy to the three major challenges of our time: the aging population, extreme international competition for business and resources, and the catastrophic consequences of climate change. Just as when you are an entrepreneur who needs to make ends meet and figures balance, government must raise revenue to respond to the challenges it faces. Otherwise, like the failed entrepreneur, we’ll be just another body in the bread line.
Local developer Bill Malhotra of Claridge Homes says to city council: “If council does not accept our buildings and our plans, we are out of it, we won’t be bidding [for the National Portrait Gallery].”
Mr. Malhotra had proposed two 27-storey towers at Nepean and Metcalfe (across the street from another 27-storey building, full disclosure) above a modern abstract building to house the portrait gallery.
While I do not disagree with his proposal, and in fact I am for that kind of height in Centretown/Downtown if not even taller, I have no patience for developers who feel entitled to the support of city council. We don’t need you, Mr. Malhotra, you need us. I am disgusted in this man’s attitude and I hope council doesn’t cave. His buildings are shit-quality IMO anyways.
So, thanks to the undemocratic actions of Sheldon Silver, the Assembly Speaker, New Yorkers can look forward to another loss of $500 million per year in transit improvements, more congestion, more bad air quality, and more unreliable mass transit.
For those who feared this would plunge New York into some unfortunate circumstance, check out what’s happening in London: Highest luxury home prices over New York for the first time, and it has overtaken New York as the world’s financial centre. All this since they started charging $16 – double what Bloomberg was proposing – to enter their city centre (an area, by the way, that they expanded last year).
This is a terrible step backwards for New York. All areas of the Metro area would have benefitted under the plan – and only those wealthy enough to drive daily into Midtown would have paid the charge.
New Yorkers: given the kinds of comments left on articles about this in the MSM, I have to say that you might just have the government you deserve.
It’s been a while. but it’s time again for the world famous round up.
Today, a number of polls have come out and are available at talkingpointsmemo.com that show Obama has lost serious ground both against Hillary Clinton in the upcoming primaries, as well as to McCain in the general election in critical swing states like Ohio and Missouri.In fact, these polls show Clinton making up ground to the point of matching his numbers in states she was never considered competitive like North Carolina.This is certainly damaging to any hope of coming close to Hillary in Pennsylvania, but also, and much more importantly, to the DNC and superdelegates who will hold the balance of power.Of late, Obama has had the hypocritical stance of denying voters in Florida and Michigan any chance at having their voices heard (or more insulting still, to be divided 50-50 like M&Ms at recess) because those are the ‘rules’ all the while claiming superdelegates must vote with the pledged delegate plurality, whether or not that reflects the popular vote or any other consideration – even though that’s not the rule… So the question then is when do rules matter and when do they not? This simply cannot be. I predict Florida will be seated by the DNC but Michigan will not, short of a re-vote, or, god forbid, a caucus.But more important than this seemingly glaring inconsistency is the mess emerging from the Republican machine against Obama argued as little more than guilt by association. These critiques may well be unjust, but they are a political reality, and the sooner the Democrats accept this, the better off they will be.Obamabots will read this and argue their usual monotonous praise of a man with little experience or legislative accomplishment – but this is a meaningless activity.Obama has always been an untested product for us all. He seems like a great person, and I have little doubt that he is genuine in his desires and ambition for a better political reality for the United States. However, we need to look at what it means to be a Democrat running for President. The Republicans have incredible resources and a partisan 24 hour news network on its side to spread doubt and often lies about their political challengers. This week, we saw our first preview of just how easily Obama can and will be swiftboated in the general election.It is a shame. It is depressing. But it is real. The longer this unfortunate but well understood phenomenon is denied, ignored, or underappreciated we will lose more and more ground to an established nominee that is known as a maverick and will be much harder to label as a carbon copy of Bush than we are being led to believe by Obamabots and Clintonites alike.To the numbers. The most important figure released is that McCain beats Obama 50-44 in Ohio. Hillary, long believed or perceived to be less electable in the heartland than John McCain, in the same poll, beats McCain 50-43.This is a serious departure from polls of the past that showed both Democrats would beat McCain handily, though often to different degrees in swing states like Ohio. So, while we once thought we were lucky to have two wonderful electable candidates, it would now appear that the untested Obama product fails in the general marketplace.While some argue Obama will win many small states to make up the difference of losing Ohio, that is a mighty big gamble, considering that it would be a matter of a little targeted campaigning in pockets of these states that could quickly turn the tide against a figure that’s a risk (Obama) versus what is better known and considerably less foreign, John McCain.Hillary, on the other hand, may remain divisive in the small states Obama thinks are winnable, but she will take Ohio in a general, and is the likely winner of Florida. Arguments against health care, her largest memorable “gaffe” will fall on deaf ears in Ohio where many have lost their glorious “private” medical insurance, and in Florida where seniors on Medicare know the good of a government sponsored, not run, health plan can bring. Further, her decisive health care policy that makes no quibbles and doesn’t leave millions uninsured will sound better to poor blacks and hispanics than an almost plan by Mr. Obama.This week Obama was challenged on who he is, and it seems that outside of those who are engaged and have wisely seen the greatness of his character people didn’t seem to be sold where it matters.This isn’t partisan. This isn’t anything but my expression of concern that the Democrats may Mondale 2008.
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