May 23, 2006: #3

Greg Weston: New digs leave hole in wallet May 21, 06 via newsbeat1

Stephen Harper's new law-and-order strategy is evidently having quite an impact at RCMP headquarters where the brass are preparing to spend a fortune on that most critical of all crime-busting measures -- new offices.

[.... ] With almost a million square feet of office space to accommodate their every paper-pushing need, the Mounties may not always get their man, but they are about to get some of the biggest and poshest digs in the entire federal government. [the JDS Uniphase building]

By a fluke of perfect timing, Auditor General Sheila Fraser's latest report on government waste and mismanagement, released this past week, tears a strip off the previous Liberal government for its handling of office leasing, and details four cases where taxpayers have been soaked for millions of dollars in lousy deals.

Ouch, Weston.





William Watson: In TV policy, follow the Supreme Leader NatPost, May 20, 06

[....] The dead giveaway, of course, is when the credits roll and the telltale Canada logo shows up -- the one Chuck Guite and his team plastered around Quebec in the late 1990s. This indicates that the show has benefited from a federal subsidy or tax dodge. In many instances, there'll be both a Canada logo and an Ontario or Quebec or British Columbia logo, since paying for generic home renovation shows is evidently a shared constitutional jurisdiction.

If you visit the Canadian Heritage Web site, you see that despite the draconian budget cuts of the 1990s Canadian media can still benefit from: the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit (which the Department of Finance estimates cost $215-million in 2005), the Film or Video Production Services Tax Credit ($130-million), and seven other programs, including something called the Spark Initiative, designed to "accelerate the integration of culturally diverse filmmakers and producers in Canada's audiovisual landscape." (In most places in Canada, you integrate things into the landscape with a plow.) There's also Telefilm Canada, which gets $67-million in cash from Heritage Canada, and a number of other grants to various media-type activities. (Read all 251 pages worth of federal government grants at http://www.pwgsc.gc.ca/recgen/pdf/ transfer05.pdf.)

[....] But the policy puzzle remains. Why do we all put our tax money in a pot and then use it to buy each other television programs? The technology now exists -- or very soon will -- to allow us all to buy our own television programs. If you like something, you pay for it. If I like something, I pay for it. But you don't pay for me to watch something and I don't pay for you to watch something -- unless I think it's really important that you do, in which case I'll donate money to a foundation that supports, say, films about the history of free-market ideas in Canada.

Bingo!


Excellent suggestion: Ottawa gives advocacy groups $6B-$8B per year -- End Government Financing of Political Advocacy Groups CNEWS Forum

The CTF [Canadian Taxpayer Federation] is concerned the federal government has not moved to cut Ottawa’s funding of advocacy groups, and specifically, organizations that spend tax dollars to urge politicians adopt an institutional daycare scheme. [There are other advocacy projects funded, as well. ]

“Today, the CTF is calling on the federal government to review its funding of third party advocacy organizations,” said Williamson. “Each year Ottawa spends between $6-billion and $8-billion bankrolling the activities of special interest groups, non-government organizations and third party groups. Many of them use tax dollars to lobby Ottawa and the public to support their political objectives. This must stop. Organizations or citizens that wish to influence public policy should solicit voluntary financial support from Canadians and not do so with tax dollars. Ottawa must not compel taxpayers to support political advocacy work.”

www.taxpayer.com/main/news.php?news_id=2285

Barrett Xplore asks cabinet to intervene in CRTC plan David Paddon, May 18, 06

[....] Barrett Xplore Inc. of Woodstock, N.B., which provides high-speed Internet by satellite and wireless services to rural and remote parts of Canada, said the CRTC's decision will hurt smaller companies like it.

In February, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ordered the major telephone companies to spend $650 million on improved services for rural and disabled Canadians.

The money came from special accounts set up in May 2002 by the CRTC's order. The accounts collected operational savings that the phone companies were prevented from passing on to their customers in the form of lower bills.

Search: review a controversial 2005 policy on voice-over-Internet services , injecting subsidies to just a few providers, the CRTC , decision on May 5 to send back the VOIP policy to the independent regulatory commission

Would that have any influence on why BellGlobeMedia news is so negative on the Conservative government?


Comment: New Liberal leader nicklan, 5/21/2006

Only 2 of the stated Liberal leader candidates were willing to vote to finish the Job that was started by them. One of them is the same person who contacted his banking friends about the trusts just before the statement. There by giving them time to buy up the trust units before the news was released. That leaves only one that supported the action taken by them. I would have to say that they now only have this one choice for thier leader, the rest have showen their true leadership already. Only one is left who should be the next leader!

Ouch!



Lorne Gunter: Think Canada has less crime than the US? 12/1/2005

Here's a fascinating site, the U.S. National Association of Realtors' Relocation Crime Lab.

[ http://www.homefair.com/homefair/servlet/ActionServlet?pid=132&cid=homefair ]

[....] Vancouver, with a crime index of 241 has more crime per 100,000 residents than Seattle at 156. Calgary (116) is less crime-ridden than Salt Lake City (178), but Edmonton (198) beats Denver (191). Winnipeg (197), despite being Canada's per capita murder capital, still has less crime than Minneapolis (290, which is higher than L.A. at 263). Regina (216) has seven-and-a-half times as much crime as Bismarck, N.D.(29), while Toronto (48) is, despite its recent wave of shootings, significantly lower than Cleveland (348). Montreal (181) and Halifax (86) are lower, too, than Boston (222).

I can't speak to the methodology of this online calculator, but it's results are fascinating nonetheless. [....]

Heads up, Canadians

We Need Politicians Who Are More Concerned About Americans Like Ron White Than Illegal Aliens RightWingNews, John Hawkins

If you want to see how these pro-illegal immigrant politicians in Washington are hurting ordinary Americans, take a look at this story about an Arizona rancher named Ron White:

[....] ...White, 60, who has been confronted by large groups of immigrants, is convinced people are smuggling drugs across his land and has started wearing a pistol on his hip and carrying a rifle in a saddle scabbard when he rides his ranch, repairing the eight miles of fence cut at least monthly by someone he suspects is a drug smuggler.

[....] Ron White's wife and grandchildren can't even leave the house and White needs an "arsenal" just to defend himself on his own property? Why is that? So that some crooked business owner at a meat packing plant can get cheap labor? Because Democrats like Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy want to import a bunch of uneducated socialists into America whom they can turn into potential voters one day? Because Republican politicians have such a low opinion of Hispanic voters that they think the only way they can appeal to them is by rewarding illegals from Mexico for breaking our laws?

Well, while all this is going on, who's looking out for Americans like Ron White?

And who is looking out for Canadians? The mainstream media seem to be trying to bring back the guys who put us in the dicey security situation we are all in now? Remember Anne McLellan? Paul Martin? Jean Chretien? The whole gang?