Among the Harper governments list of secrets: Soldiers on Viagra

2014/09/16 Leave a comment

Not exactly in keeping with the spirit of the Accountability Act:

There were 61 complaints last year to Suzanne Legault, the country’s information commissioner, about the cabinet confidence clause, almost twice the number in 2012. Figures from the commissioner’s office show it used the exclusion 2,117 times in 2012-13, a 20 per cent increase over the year before.

More recent data won’t be available until end of 2014, Legault told The Canadian Press in an interview.

She is concerned, however, about how wide-ranging the definition of a cabinet secret has become, especially since once the exclusion is declared, not even she can see the documents in question.

“When you look at the scope of the exclusion, it is extremely broad,” Legault said.

“It’s very, very broad. It basically catches anything that mentions a record that’s a cabinet confidence. In my view, the actual scope of this does not respect fundamental tenets of freedom of information.”

Media outlets aren’t the only ones for whom the flow of information in Ottawa has slowed to a trickle. Watchdog agencies like the auditor general, the military ombudsman and the parliamentary budget officer are also complaining.

Auditor general Michael Ferguson said last spring that his attempts to audit the long-term health of public pension plans had been stymied by bureaucrats at Finance and Treasury Board.

Ferguson said he was “surprised” at the scope of information officials refused to disclose.

Kevin Page, who took the Harper government to federal court when he was parliamentary budget officer, said the law needs a major overhaul.

“Under my time as the budget officer we were told on numerous occasions — from crime bills to elements of the government’s economic forecast to departmental spending restraint plans post budget 2012 — that Parliament and the PBO could not get access to information because it was a cabinet confidence,” Page said.

“The stakes were high. The government was asking Parliament to vote on bills without relevant financial information and were hiding behind the veil of cabinet confidence. This undermined accountability for Parliament and the accountability of the public service.”

Among the Harper governments list of secrets: Soldiers on Viagra.

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India: Why archaic citizenship laws must go – The Hindu

2014/09/16 Leave a comment

On some of the apparent inconsistencies between Colonial and present-day India citizenship laws, and a call to repeal the former, particularly as they apply to the Indian diaspora (over 20 million):

Today, persons of Indian origin face problems due to marital disputes with spouses of foreign origin or nationality issues arising out of foreign domiciles. The desirable approach, therefore, would be to create appropriate forums or authorities within the legal system that would address such issues by granting opportunities for hearing and redressal. Accordingly, deportation or removal of a person to a foreign jurisdiction would be an abject surrender to a foreign dominion.

Having resolved to be a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic Republic, we in India are capable and competent of adjudicating our nationality issues to provide redressal for persons of Indian origin. Our post-independence laws provide the solutions which our vibrant judiciary interprets to protect fundamental freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution. Hence, pre-independence laws in conflict with rights today must be revoked.

Why archaic citizenship laws must go – The Hindu.

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How not to be ignorant about the world

2014/09/15 4 Comments

For those interested in data and cognitive biases, this TED video by Hans and Ola Rosling on ignorance and cognitive bias worth watching. The four general “rules” to follow when faced with uncertainty:

  1. Things are generally getting better;
  2. Assume the majority situation is in the middle;
  3. Social progress precedes economic progress; and,
  4. Sharks kill few (we exaggerate risk)

Worth watching (19 minutes)

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Jason Kenney and a guy at the Fraser Institute trade blows in Twitter cat fight | Press Progress

2014/09/15 Leave a comment

A great example of how to use Twitter to debate, and another demonstration of why Jason Kenney is such a strong minister (his series of tweets with Bob Rae is another example Jason Kenney Blasts Bob Rae’s ‘Obscene’ Temporary Foreign Workers Tweet).

Kenney  engages equally with those on the right as with those on the centre and left:

Jason Kenney and a guy at the Fraser Institute trade blows in Twitter cat fight | Press Progress.

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Blatchford: Kim-like takeover bid a terrifying twist in the Rob Ford drama

2014/09/15 Leave a comment

Best piece on the Ford family reality show I have read:

Rob Ford, hospitalized with a tumour this week and facing what he admits “could be a battle of my lifetime,” was withdrawing from the mayor’s race. He’s sick and scared, you see; he didn’t say that directly, but that’s what his decision to drop out meant, and fair enough.

But as it turns out, neither he nor anyone else in the family is so sick or so scared that they didn’t didn’t also set in motion the old bait-and-switch, with Rob simultaneously announcing his candidacy for councillor in Ward 2, his home ward, and that he’d asked brother Doug to “finish what we started together,” and that Doug would now carry on in the mayoral race.

Oh, and as well, even as Doug was being registered at the clerk’s office downtown, so was their nephew, Michael Ford, withdrawing as a candidate for the Ward 2 seat to make room for the mayor, and instead throwing his hat into the ring for school trustee in neighbouring Ward 1.

It was as though it was inconceivable that Toronto, like Pyongyang, should manage without a Ford for every citizen. As Kim Jong-un took over as Supreme Leader upon the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, the Eternal General, in 2011, who himself took over the reins of power from his old man, Kim Il-sung, the Great Leader, when he died in 1994, so were the Fords digging deep into their gene pool.

On the tube, no kidding, reporters were soon referring to the press conference Doug Ford would be holding that evening at “Mamma Ford’s house.” They might as well have called Diane Ford “Dear Mother,” you know?

To use a PM Harper word, it would be good for Toronto and the country if this “trifecta” of Fords would be given a time-out by the electorate, although Rob will likely win back his counsellor seat.

Blatchford: Kim-like takeover bid a terrifying twist in the Rob Ford drama.

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Not everyone who went to fight in Syria goes on to live life as a Jihadi: Some return fed up with the experience

2014/09/15 Leave a comment

A caution that some policies meant to reduce radicalization can be counter-productive:

“The whole jihad was turned upside down,” the militant recently told Shiraz Maher, a senior researcher for the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London. “Muslims are fighting Muslims. I didn’t come for that.”

The fighter’s disillusionment, experts say, has become a recurring theme among some of the thousands of young men and women from around the globe who have answered ISIS’s call for holy war but have found the reality is significantly less glorious than what they were promised.

For those trying to stanch the flow of fighters and combat extremism here in Britain, it’s a perspective that could be the perfect antidote to ISIS propaganda. And yet it’s one that is seldom if ever heard here, in part because of government policy that focuses on keeping Brits who have gone to war from returning home — and locking them up if they even try.

“A lot of them feel trapped by [ISIS] not letting them go, and by the British government not letting them back,” said Richard Barrett, a former counterterrorism director with Britain’s foreign intelligence service, MI6. “But if you want people to understand that it’s bloody terrible out there, you have to hear from these people.”

Not everyone who went to fight in Syria goes on to live life as a Jihadi: Some return fed up with the experience

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Citizenship act got it right | Editorial | Opinion | Toronto Sun

2014/09/15 Leave a comment

As usual, the Sun misrepresents the issue: it is mainly about where you are born. Those born Canadian extremists (e.g., Damian Clairmont, André Poulin, the Gordon brothers, John Maguire) would not be subject to revocation, given where they were born and lack of dual nationality.

Those who came to Canada as children, like Shirdon, would be subject to revocation, based upon dual citizenship, actual or potential. Some, again like Shirdon,  were part of the same Calgary cell.

Different punishment for the same crime.

Won’t stand up in court, which the Government’s track record on a number of crime and other issues highlights:

On Thursday morning a reporter asked the Liberal leader in a scrum if Canadians who go abroad to fight with terrorists should be stripped of their citizenship.

Here’s his response: “Canada has strong rules and penalties surrounding enforcing acts of terrorism. A two-tier citizenship system concerns me. The idea that some people because of behaviour, no matter how reprehensible, makes it conditional for anyone who gains Canadian citizenship without being born here. That is one of the principles that has made Canada great, that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”

First, let’s clarify a matter. It has nothing to do with where you’re born. It just matters that you’re a dual national.

But everyone should be upset with his closing line. Is Trudeau serious lumping everyone in together? Does he really think we can’t draw distinctions between people? What about Farah Mohamed Shirdon?

Citizenship act got it right | Editorial | Opinion | Toronto Sun.

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Glenn Gould In Rapture : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR

2014/09/13 Leave a comment

For fans of Glenn Gould (I do a lot of my writing listening to him), a great little article and video of him at work (3 minutes):

Whats going on here, I can only guess, but here’s what you’re about to see: In the video below, the great musician Glenn Gould, supreme interpreter of Bach, is sitting at his living room piano on a low, low chair, his nose close to the keys. He’s at his Canadian country house in his bathrobe.

Through the window, you catch snatches of his back yard. It’s a windy day and he’s got a coffee cup sitting on the piano top. He’s working on a Bach partita, not just playing it, but singing along in his swinging baritone. As he plays, he gets so totally, totally lost in the music that suddenly 1:57 from the top, smack in the middle of a passage, with no warning, for no apparent reason, his left hand flips up, touches his head; he stands up, and walks in what looks like a trance to the window. Theres an eerie silence. Then, in the quiet, you hear the Bach leaking out of him. He’s still playing it, but in his head, he’s scatting the beats. Then he turns, wanders back, sits down, and his fingers pick up right where his voice left off, but now with new energy, like hes found a switch and switched it.

Glenn Gould In Rapture : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR.

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Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent – NYTimes.com

2014/09/13 Leave a comment

Nice counterpoint article to the unveiling of iPhone 6 and Apple watch.

We were more liberal on tech and kids than most of the tech entrepreneurs:

When Steve Jobs was running Apple, he was known to call journalists to either pat them on the back for a recent article or, more often than not, explain how they got it wrong. I was on the receiving end of a few of those calls. But nothing shocked me more than something Mr. Jobs said to me in late 2010 after he had finished chewing me out for something I had written about an iPad shortcoming.

“So, your kids must love the iPad?” I asked Mr. Jobs, trying to change the subject. The company’s first tablet was just hitting the shelves. “They haven’t used it,” he told me. “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

….I never asked Mr. Jobs what his children did instead of using the gadgets he built, so I reached out to Walter Isaacson, the author of “Steve Jobs,” who spent a lot of time at their home.

“Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and history and a variety of things,” he said. “No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer. The kids did not seem addicted at all to devices.”

Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent – NYTimes.com.

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How political correctness erodes support for multiculturalism | CanIndia NEWS

2014/09/13 Leave a comment

From CanIndia News, Pradip Rodrigues on the culture of silence within the Canadian South Asian community, drawing uncomfortable parallels with the UK’s Rotherham scandal (Sexual exploitation: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil):

Political correctness is  a mortal enemy of multiculturalism and is responsible for leeching away support for it. In Canada the South Asian community, both Indian and Pakistani are grappling with issues of domestic violence, spousal abuse, elder abuse, a growing drug and gang problem. Yet you hardly hear about these sort of things in the media, there are no statements put out by politicians, there are no leaders with plans to deal with these issues.

When it comes to our view of women, South Asians here share a lot of similarities with a section of Pakistani Muslim men in Britain.The sheer scale of domestic abuse that occurs behind closed doors should be a scandal. But yet we stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it or discuss it openly.

And when a case of domestic abuse results in death of a woman or a case of honor killings make front page news, the community commentators who are invited on air to discuss it on national media use it as an opportunity to do damage control and deflect attention away from the community.

For instance following one horrific case of honor killing a couple of years ago, the South Asian head of a women’s organization refused to admit that honor killing and violence against women was an issue affecting a particular ethnic community. The guest on that radio program insisted that honor killing was no different from the problem of violence against women where the perpetrators and victims come from every segment of society.

I met her months later and asked her privately why she always took such a defensive position. According to her, mainstream interviewers are always looking to sensationalize news and bring down the community. She believed like so many in positions of authority in Rotherham, UK that it was the crime that should be discussed not the ethnicity.

…Few community leaders can be counted upon to be brave enough to stand up and draw attention to a problem facing the community without being brought down by the very community he or she loves and is trying to save. While no one wants to provide a stick to racists who will use it to beat up the community, it is time community members pick up their own stick and do the needful before someone else comes and does it for us.

How political correctness erodes support for multiculturalism | CanIndia NEWS.

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