Breaking Out of the Echo Chamber

Dan Leger of the Chronicle-Herald ran a thoughtful piece yesterday with the rather cumbersome title of "The insularity of Internet opinion factions".

As you might have guessed, this has only encouraged all the usual insular internet factions to spew forth in the comments section.

Leger's point - that the internet allows people to stay within their own self-reinforcing 'comfort zones' without ever having to hear or read a dissenting opinion - is one that has been made before. Somewhat more controversial is his assertion that mainstream media is somehow, by nature, the remedy to this. While I see his point, I have to disagree.

It is true that it's much easier to avoid stories you might disagree with on the internet than, say, while thumbing through a newspaper. Unfortunately, while most Canadian newspapers and broadcasters still make at least a token effort to present divergent points of view, one need only look south of the border to see how easy it would be for them to descend into tribal factionalism. Some would say it's starting already.

I know I've been guilty of spending time in the echo chamber myself. I tend to avoid reading articles in the National Post or watching documentaries I know I'll disagree with, and while on a recent trip to the States I kept the radio dial set firmly on NPR. I tell myself that I already know the other side of the debate and don't need to hear it again, but truth be told I just find it easier to tune it all out rather than try to sort out the crackpots from the voices of reason.

There is, however, one method I have found to make sure I do hear dissenting points of view. One venue where I am certain to hear a wide range of voices and opinions on just about any subject, and where I can debate and discuss the issues of the day rationally with others without rancour or malice.

It's called the pub.

It doesn't have to be a pub, of course. It could be a coffee shop, or a club, or anywhere where friends and acquaintances gather. In my case it's a local watering hole where a group of singers from our community choir gathers weekly after Tuesday night rehearsal.

You wouldn't think so, but it's a remarkably diverse group.

Some are from other parts of Canada and the world - Newfoundland, Kenora, Scotland, the Netherlands. Many are teachers and nurses. Some work for the Town of Milton. Some are commuters. Some are students. Some are retired. My friend Jim was in the Canadian military - I've learned a lot from him, although we still disagree on many things.

We are conservative and liberal, rich and poor, young and old. We talk about music, and sports, and our kids, and current events in our town and the wider world. We often disagree, but we're never disagreeable. I have learned a great deal at these Tuesday gatherings and have even changed my mind on a number of issues due to conversations with these good folks.

I like to think of them as my own personal focus group.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a group of friends like this, you might consider doing what one woman in Etobicoke did: she just started inviting her neighbours out to the pub. Or join a club. Or something - anything - just to open the doors and windows of your mind and let a little fresh air in.

The Logic of Margaret Wente

Shorter Margaret Wente:

All the blogs I read are by men.

Therefore, all bloggers are male.

Slightly longer Margaret Wente:

I read a few blogs.

All the blogs I read are political.

All the blogs I read are by men.

Men like to spout off opinions without thinking.

The bloggers I read spout off opinions without thinking.

Therefore, men blog because they like to spout off opinions without thinking.

Therefore, all political bloggers are men.

Therefore, there are no female political bloggers.

Therefore, none of you exist.

Begone!

Crossing the Line

I admit it. When I first saw the photo of Lisa Raitt on the cover of the Milton Champion last week, I laughed. And laughed, and laughed.

But then I started to think about it. And I stopped laughing, and I started to think like this person in the Letters to the Editor on Thursday:

DEAR EDITOR:

I’m writing in response to last Thursday’s article entitled ‘Raitt moved in MP shuffle.’

I found the choice of photo on the front page of my community paper very disturbing. The picture of Halton MP Lisa Raitt is horrible — unflattering to say the least. I think it was extremely rude and downright juvenile and malicious. I’m not sure who chose and/or approved that photo, but in my opinion it was a form of bullying. I almost felt that I was reading a gossip magazine.

In the three years that I have lived in Milton and read the Champion, I don’t ever recall seeing a photo of any member of our community that I thought one would be embarrassed by.

I don’t know much about politics and haven’t voted in 10 years, but I do feel that no one deserves to have a silly picture printed of them on the front page of their community paper.

Don't get me wrong. I think that Lisa Raitt is a terrible MP and an even worse Minister, and I was thrilled to bits when she was demoted to Minister of Labour. I've illustrated my blog posts with the Indecisive Lisa, the Pointy Lisa, even the 'I Almost Forgot My Binder Again' Lisa. And yeah, I've teased her a couple of times about the white suit.

But that photo crossed the line. It crossed the line because they didn't use it to illustrate a point about her political or ministerial performance, and it didn't just appear in some blog post read by a bunch of political wonks. This was on the front page of the Milton Champion. And the Burlington Post. And they just used it to make her look stupid.

Not cool.

I'm just a blogger. I have very few constraints on what I write aside from those I impose upon myself. I don't have any hard and fast rules beyond simple human decency, and sometimes I get carried away with my own wit and wander into the realm of spite. But I won't go after the family, I won't post the 'fat photo', and I do my level best to keep my criticism within the boundaries of political discourse. That's just the way I roll.

BTW, I was in the neighbourhood today, so I thought I'd stop by Raitt's constituency office and let her know what I thought of the photo. She wasn't there, and her staff had no idea when she would be back in the office.

I think that's worthy of criticism, even without a photo.

G&M Shuts Down the Haters

Jane Taber ran a piece on the Globe & Mail website this afternoon about Scott Brison's Christmas card, which has a lovely picture of him with his husband and their dog:



Right below it you will find the following:

Comments have been disabled
Editor's Note: Comments have been closed due to an overwhelming number of hateful and homophobic remarks. We appreciate that readers want to discuss this issue, but we can't allow our site to become a platform for intolerance.

First, kudos to the Globe & Mail for not just shutting down the comments but for saying in no uncertain terms why they did it.

Second, this is an extreme example of something I've been noticing over the past six months or so: commenters on news sites are lunatics who simply cannot be reasoned with.

There used to be some semblance of rational discourse and debate on these things, similar to what you usually find on the 'real' blogs. But now the voices of reason have been completely drowned out by the haters, the fanatics, and the most intransigent of partisans all trying to shout each other down.

I used to think that posting the occasional sane comment on news sites somehow helped to balance the debate and maybe win some hearts and minds. But now I understand that doing so only encourages the bedlam, and I refuse to participate any more.

Consider this my early New Year's Resolution: I will no longer post comments to any newspaper or television news website.*

Let them have it.

*just for clarification, I am not including Maclean's in this boycott - at least not yet. It's a magazine, they have real bloggers over there, and the discourse hasn't quite descended to the 'pissing in the wind' level yet

When I say 'Puffy', I'm not just talking about his weight

Watching Senator Mike Duffy's disgraceful performance on CBC yesterday, it's hard to imagine how he managed to keep all that bombast and vitriol in check for all those years as a journalist. It must be such a great relief for him to finally be able to let loose and tell us what he really thinks.



This is, of course, only the latest in a long series of embarrassing episodes since the appointment of His Puffiness to the Upper Chamber. From his crude and belaboured musings on the imaginary bedtime antics of the Premiers of P.E.I. and Newfoundland, to his participation in a fake 'town hall' promoting his Glorious Leader's political policies, Mike Duffy has probably done more to damage and denigrate the institution of the Senate in his few months tenure than years of attacks by those dedicated to its abolition.

And that, of course, is why he was appointed in the first place.

Meanwhile, Liberal MP Glen Pearson tells us about the real Peter Stoeffer, and points out exactly who is the faker here.

Prescription Drug Ads Come to Canada

I saw something rather disturbing this evening: an ad talking about erectile dysfunction. Hardly an uncommon sight in itself - except this one was on a Canadian station. I believe it was CTV NewsChannel.

Unlike those endless, annoying American drug ads, this one didn't mention any specific drug - just informed the viewer that (apparently) 40% of men over 40 suffer from E.D. and referred them to a website: www.40over40.ca. But when you go to the website and dig through the fine print, you discover that the whole thing is the work of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly - makers of Cialis, an E.D. drug.

The whole thing is pretty subtle. After you get through all the information about how common E.D. is and rate your tumescence with their handy self-diagnostic tool, you get to a chart detailing the pros and cons of the three major oral treatments - with Cialis listed first, of course, and highlighting the fact that it's the only one you can take once a day. There's also a chart of the considerably less appealing non-oral treatments such as 'vacuum therapy' and 'transurethral insert'.

Still, it all seems pretty balanced. Right?



The trouble is, Eli Lilly has pulled this before - in England. Like Canada and almost everywhere else in the world, the U.K. doesn't allow 'Direct-to-Consumer Advertising' (DTCA) for prescription drugs. Ever. So Eli Lilly tried to sneak these '40 Over 40' ads through as 'disease awareness' campaigns.

The British weren't buying it.

Eli Lilly is to be reprimanded by the UK pharmaceutical industry watchdog for “unbalanced” promotion of its anti-erectile dysfunction drug Cialis, in violation of ethical rules.

The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority has ruled that the US-based company “brought discredit” on the industry through a marketing campaign on television, the internet and in brochures in GP surgeries in the UK.

It said the company had presented information on its medicine that failed to cite the side-effects or risks, and in a way that would have encouraged patients to seek a prescription for Cialis.

The judgment, triggered by an FT article highlighting the campaign, is to be released shortly and has been accepted by Eli Lilly, which stopped using the criticised aspects of its campaign last month.

Interestingly, the British version of the campaign was even more subtle than the Canadian version. Prohibited from naming the drugs in question, they were listed only as Product A, Product B and Product C. Of course, those anonymous products were identified by name in the brochures supplied to doctors' offices by the company.

Canadian law is a bit more lax than that, and has unfortunately been getting even more lenient in recent years. Despite years of lobbbying by both the pharmaceutical industry and Canadian broadcasters, no actual changes to the law have been made. However, loopholes in the Canada Food and Drugs Act have led to an increasingly broad interpretation, as pointed out in this Canadian Medical Association Journal article:

There are 3 types of prescription drug advertisements aimed at the public: product claim advertisements, which include both the product name and specific therapeutic claims; reminder advertisements, which provide the name of a product without stating its use; and help-seeking advertisements, which inform consumers of new but unspecified treatment options for diseases or conditions. All 3 forms of advertising are permitted in the United States. In Canada, although all 3 forms appear to contravene the Food and Drugs Act, reminder advertisements and help-seeking advertisements are now everyday events in broadcast and print advertising, with little or no regulatory response.

... In 1996, a policy statement that set out to define the boundary between information dissemination and advertising suggested that Health Canada was ready to relax its interpretation of the Act.4 It stated that Health Canada "recognizes the importance to the pharmaceutical industry and to the general public of being able to disseminate and access nonpromotional information regarding drugs for human use." The effect of this statement was tacit approval of help-seeking advertisements for serious diseases. A policy paper released in November 2000 suggested an even more liberalized reinterpretation of the Act.5 It explicitly stated that help-seeking and reminder advertisements, but not product claim advertisements, were legal.

I guess it's surprising that we haven't seen even more of these ads, although I'm sure with the uncertain future of health care profits in the U.S. and all the whining the Canadian broadcasters have been doing over their financial situation lately, the pressure will only increase to have even more American-style ads hitting a TV screen near you.

I must say, though - the elephant is pretty cute.

(for all the many reasons why Direct-to-Consumer prescription drugs ads are worse than annoying - and especially bad for women - there's some great information here.)

We are professionals. Do not try this at home.

Susan Delacourt sounds like she's getting a little defensive over criticism of her non-story story:

Q. Is it possible that the Conservative source made up this story to make "mischief," as Liberals allege?

A: Yes it is. But our usual practice is to "out" the source if we find out it was a deliberate lie, so stay tuned. Seasoned political people know that you only get to lie once to a reporter.

Q: Who are the possible defectors?

A: No names were given. And that's the beauty of it for Conservatives, as one of my colleagues pointed out. Now every Liberal will be wondering if other Liberals are going to jump.

So let me get this straight. A single, unnamed, partisan source hands her an unsubstantiated rumour that she acknowledges may well be a total fabrication, and then not only does she run it as a legitimate news story but then decides to attach the name of a random Liberal MP to it that sorta kinda sounds plausible based on no evidence whatsoever... and THAT'S journalism?!?

I'm going to remember this one the next time a journalist makes a snide comment about bloggers.

The "Fourth Election in Five Years" Retort

If I might make a suggestion to all you Liberals out there taking flack for causing the dreaded "Fourth Election in Five Years", you might consider pointing out that:

a) It's actually going to be closer to five and a half years,

b) If Harper had stuck to his own election law, we'd be having an election right now anyway, and

c) The last two out of three elections were brought about (rather unnecessarily) by Stephen Harper.

This has been today's talking points memo. You're welcome.

You Left One Out, Mr. Travers

I've been incredibly impressed with what James Travers and the editorial staff at The Star have been doing with their series on Canadian Democracy. Today, he runs us through his Ten Seemingly Random Reasons why Parliament is dysfunctional.

However, as witty as today's op-ed was, he's left out an important element from his thesis: his own profession. The media.

Almost every problem he lists, from the dumbing down of complex issues, to the doling out of half-truths and spin in place of fact, to the endless, ugly partisan spectacle that passes for political discourse in this country - almost every complaint leveled at the government is also at least partially the fault of a complicit press.

Take Number 2 for example:

Play Dough
Separating new money from old is almost as hard as following the dollars. There ought to be a Guinness record for the number of times a reannouncement is reannounced. This year's economic stimulus, 80 per cent implemented for those gullible enough to believe the television spots, is a contender. Even the Mother of all Spreadsheets – sold separately but, permanently out of stock – couldn't help you tell new money from old.

Really? Because I would think that, being the recipients of every single funding announcement the government hands out, the members of our fourth estate would be uniquely qualified to determine which ones are identical to previous iterations. Hell, I get a sense of deja vu whenever they re-announce the Toronto subway expansion or the light rail link to the airport.

The sad fact is, the current rottening of our democracy could not continue to fester if it were not for the dovetailing interests of politicians focused on getting and keeping power, the media who let them get away with it for the sake of ratings, and a complacent public who would rather watch politicians yell at each other on TV than actually put any mental effort into making political decisions.

The problem is, the incentives built in the system all work against a healthy democracy.

Politicians are supposed to concern themselves with the public interest so the public will continue to vote for them. But when most people have stopped voting, winning elections becomes a simple matter of blowing dog whistles to the base and keeping as much information about their activities as possible from being revealed.

The media are supposed to dig up that information, analyse it, strip it of partisan spin, and communicate it to the public so we can make informed decisions. But that takes effort, and doesn't attract the public's interest nearly as effectively as treating the whole thing like sports, complete with televised fights and scoring stats in the form of poll numbers. Papers like The Star sometimes buck the trend with insightful analysis, but really - who reads newspapers these days?

And then there's us. All we're supposed to do is vote, but we can't even be bothered to do that. We excuse our apathy as disgust and frustration with a broken and unresponsive system, but at some point we need to ask ourselves - what are we responding to? If negative ads didn't work, they wouldn't use them. If Question Period really put us off, we wouldn't watch it. If the media thought for one second that we wanted to hear about serious political issues, they'd talk about it on the 6 o'clock news.

Even those of us who are supposed to be aware and engaged - the bloggers - too often fall into the trap of crowing over poll numbers and handicapping politicians and parties like race horses. Meanwhile, the politicians pander to us and the media entertains us because that is, apparently, what we want.

We're all complicit here. Even you, Mr. Travers.

Duffy Burns His Journalist Card, Crushes His Last Remaining Scruple

I have a very serious problem with this:

The presentation will be moderated by Senator Mike Duffy, a former television journalist, and feature Harper, flanked by Human Resources Minister Diane Finley and Gary Goodyear, the local MP and Minister of State for Science. It will include a staged interview segment between Harper and Duffy.

What this means is that the Canadian public, after years of thinking of Friendly Mike Duffy as some sort of a journalist, will see him "interviewing" the Prime Minister about the wonderful job the government's been doing and will be more inclined to believe what they are hearing because... well, it's Duff! Even if they know that Duffy is now a Conservative Senator who no longer has to even pretend to be unbiased (and they may not), the impression is still there.

Sadly, the whole 'report card' demand was left far too open to this kind of manipulation from the get-go. The thing should be presented in Parliament, not on TV. And certainly not on CTV.

The Teflon Blonde

So it looks like Lisa Raitt will be keeping her job. For now. I can't say I'm surprised, although I do expect that after the next cabinet shuffle she just might find herself sitting next to Gary Lunn as the Deputy Minister of Hockey Rinks.

It's very difficult for me to keep my personal feelings out of it when I talk about Lisa Raitt. After all, I spent five weeks helping Garth Turner campaign against this woman. Five weeks of fielding some pretty frightening anonymous calls to the campaign office, watching volunteer sign crews go out again and again to replace stolen signs, and seeing our campaign manager's face turn white when she found out that her son and granddaughter just had their names and faces splashed across the internet - collateral damage in an especially tawdry political smear.

And most of all, having to listen to that nasal, condescending, sanctimonious voice day after day in the media, complaining about Turner's "pornographic" website and telling him to "take a time out" - all while her supporters were out stalking him and harassing him and calling his wife and his staff whores. None of which, of course, could in any way be proven to be her doing.

So yeah. You're goddamned right it's personal.

That said, I do believe that Dr.Dawg is right when he calls for a little perspective here.

Let's keep our eye on the ball. The issue is not a vainglorious Minister with a taste for fame, perks and expensive lunches. It's not even, in this instance, her cover-up of the full magnitude of the Chalk River fiasco. The issue is a government that proceeds under the confident assumption that it should be able to do whatever it wants.

It's a government that goes to court to argue that a Canadian citizen can be exiled by ministerial fiat. It's a government that insists that it has no obligation to any Canadian citizen outside our borders. It's a government that, from on high, revokes a training grant because a Minister has been called a name. It's a government that has allowed Border Security to screen the political opinions to which we might be exposed. And now it's a government that has just tried to drop the hammer on freedom of the press to spare itself--what? A little embarrassment?

In the grand scheme of things, Lisa Raitt is only a symptom of a much wider problem in the Conservative Party, and in our government in general. It's a problem in which the media and even the public is complicit, because most of us simply don't pay attention to serious issues unless sex, scandal or secret tapes are involved. So it shouldn't surprise any of us to hear a cabinet minister cynically discussing a complex and vital public health and safety issue purely in terms of P.R. value, spin and career potential.

These are the signals that have become embedded in the system. This is the kind of thing the public reacts to, so, in an almost reverse-Pavlovian response, this is what our politicians seek to provide. And so they focus, not on issues or policy or doing their jobs, but on the creation and careful maintenance of favourable public perception (or negative public perception against their enemies) by whatever mean necessary.

In fact, I found Raitt's most telling comments to be, not about the 'sexiness' of the isotope crisis, but about the political naiveté of her fellow MPs - Leona Aglukkaq...

“Oh, God. She’s such a capable woman, but it’s hard for her to come out of a co-operative government into this rough-and-tumble. She had a question in the House yesterday, or two days ago, that planked. I really hope she never gets anything hot.”

... and Joy Smith:

“I don’t do the Hy’s thing,” she says. “I can’t. I’d love to, but I can’t. That’ll be a career-limiting move, as we would say. Speaking of career-limiting moves, I’m in shock that that MP Joy Smith brought forward private member’s legislation on human trafficking.”

“I didn’t see that,” says Ms. MacDonnell.

“She’s on Canada AM. And the reason being is that there’s no way any of us should be introducing anything around justice issues or finance issues right now. You just can’t touch those two things.”

If any further proof were needed that spin trumps substance in the government and the media, note that the emerging story today is that John Baird stacked the Toronto Port Authority Board last year in an attempt to override the board's ongoing objections to the Island Airport expansion, and also possibly to bury questions about Raitt's expenses during her tenure there. Which is great - except that some of us were banging that drum back in December, and nobody saw fit to run with it back then. But now that the Teflon Blonde has been touched by scandal - now that her perfectly polished image has been tarnished - well, anything might stick to her!

Garth Turner has his own personal reasons for wanting to see Lisa Raitt go down in flames, but he had some surprisingly cogent things to say about all this in a now-rare politically-themed blog post yesterday:

This is the callous, egocentric chatter you hear a lot of in Ottawa. Reputations are made or broken in the “managing” of “files.” Ministers or high-profile MPs who get their spins across in the media or QP can rocket in status overnight, and it’s that political momentum which is more important than the people affected by the actual issues.

This focus on party, leader and personal career is a cancer all its own eating away at the public body.

And not the sexy kind of cancer, either.

The Toronto Star Calls Bullshit

[Stephen Harper] accused the Liberals, who have proposed a temporary relaxation of the eligibility rules for jobless benefits, of peddling a plan "to raise payroll taxes to the roof in perpetuity for all workers and small businesses."

That is simply false. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has made it clear that his proposal is a short-term recession-relief measure. It would not require an increase in payroll taxes. They would remain frozen under the Liberal plan.

Thank you, Toronto Star. I might have actually believed that particular fallacy if you hadn't brought the truth to my attention. Why? Because the truth is something the televised media have conveniently and consistently failed to mention.*

God Bless our urban elitist left-wing rag.

*(of course, it would help if the Liberal Party said it out loud a little more loudly, too)

Funniest Ad EVER

I am obviously further out of the culture loop than I thought because not only had I not seen this before, but at first I didn't even think this was a real ad for a real company. But it is.

Genius.



Too bad we can't get HULU in Canada.

Bubble Boy

Harper a man who 'lives in a bubble'
Tory campaign goes to extraordinary lengths keeping him from public

OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper is shielded from the public as he criss-crosses the country, campaigning in a political bubble.

No handshakes on street corners or rallies in the parks. Only highly staged backdrops for his daily political message, and assemblies where Tory staffers and security officers closely monitor the crowds.

It's a classic "front-runner" technique – a safe, tightly scripted and controlled campaign – taken to a whole new level.

Rallies are off-limits for any member of the public who just shows up. Nobody gets in unless they have been pre-registered by the local riding association. Even local media are asked to sign up in advance.

...The Harper campaign keeps a short leash on national and local media, limiting questions and access to local candidates, sometimes calling on RCMP security to block reporters from doing their jobs.

Harper "hides from Canadians. He lives in a bubble," Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said last night in Winnipeg.

Just ask Stuart.

Stuart Service is a local reporter from the Halton Compass who attended the Harper/Raitt rally in Oakville last week. Stuart did his usual excellent job reporting on the event itself (although, oddly, he left out any mention of the protesters outside), but also wrote a fascinating companion piece about the experience of reporting on a Harper rally.

He talks about the reporters being 'cordoned off' within a perimeter of yellow tape at the very back of the room. He talks about getting to hang out with ohmygodohmygod it's David Akin. And he talks about how different all this was from what his bosses experienced when they covered the Dion event at the very same hall. Then, they got to ask questions, chat with the leader, and get some great close-up shots.

This time, it was behind the yellow tape, no questions please, and so far from the man himself that a telephoto lens was required to get a usable shot.

Stuart is very coy about how he really felt about all this, but it's a point that has been made before. It goes something like this:

My Other Blog is the Milton Champion

Milton is blessed with not one but two local newspapers that almost everyone in town actually reads and is influenced by. One is the Halton Compass (formerly the North Halton Compass), which is one of the few surviving independent local papers left in the GTA. It's small, but mighty.

The other is Milton Canadian Champion - a Metroland paper that nonetheless has enough of a history in town (150 years) that it's managed to maintain its own character.

Not long after moving to Milton fourteen years ago, I discovered the power of a well written Letter to the Editor of the Champion. Over those years I've written several - the most effective of which was one decrying a proposed increase in the speed limit on my street. That one inspired a petition started by a little girl up the street, a series of supporting letters, and an invitation by my town councillor to speak as a delegate before council.

I brought maps, and photos, and traffic calming studies - and consequently my little stretch of road is still a school zone.

My point is, despite the emergence of the internet and the blogosphere as potent tools for political change, sometimes nothing beats a good, old fashioned letter in the local dead trees media for reaching the local masses. I highly recommend it.

Sometimes, though, these things take time.

I don't think I've ever written a letter to the Champion that was never published, but they have often delayed publication long enough for the subject to lose its relevence. Such might be the case of my response to this letter, published two weeks ago, from an emissions control specialist who claimed to have attended the Turner / Dion extravaganza last month and yet somehow came away with the impression that The Green Shift was a cap-and-trade system. I sent my letter immediately, but so far the only response they've published was one from... Garth Turner.

Sigh.

So, in case they never get around to printing my (vastly superior) letter, here it is in full:

To the Editor,

Jon Komow's recent letter critiquing the cap-and-trade system of pollution control was fascinating and obviously based on professional expertise. However, I'm not sure if he actually attended the same town hall meeting that I did because Stephane Dion's 'Green Shift' plan is not, in fact, a cap-and-trade system.

Perhaps he's thinking of another party. The NDP is proposing a cap-and trade system, and Jack Layton has criticized the Liberals for not doing the same. The Conservatives have brought in a sort of cap-and-trade system, although the 'cap' is actually an 'intensity target' and the 'trade' system has not actually been set up. And of course neither plan provides tax relief to individuals and businesses to offset the resulting cost increases.

I am also curious about his complaint that the U.S. pollution control credit system brought in 15 years ago (I'm assuming he's referring to the Clean Air Act of 1990) just allowed major polluters to keep on polluting. It's my understanding that that program directly resulted in a 40% reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions and a comparable reduction in acid rain levels. Even he cites the massive reduction in conventional air pollutants over the past four decades, so I'm not sure exactly what his argument is.

One other correction: previous Liberal governments (and a couple of Conservative ones) have, in fact, provided Ballard Power Systems with hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and R&D funding over the past two and a half decades.

As for Mr. Komow's concerns about the business impact of a carbon tax, he would do well to consider what the impact will be when Europe and even the U.S. stop doing business with us because of our high carbon emissions. Or when Canadian businesses can simply no longer afford the carbon-based fuels they've come to depend on and find themselves with no alternatives.

In the coming years, businesses that cling to the past instead of embracing the new low-carbon economy are going to find themselves in dire straits, with or without a carbon tax. With the Green Shift, they will at least have some resources to help them adapt.

I strongly recommend that Mr. Komow and anyone else who is interested in the facts actually read the Green Shift plan at www.thegreenshift.ca. Read it, work out the costs and benefits, and decide for yourself if you find it sound. But please, base your decision on the facts and not on rumours or political fear mongering.

- Jennifer Smith

My only regret is that I didn't have access to that carbon tax economic impact study the Conservatives commissioned and subsequently buried in a drawer - along with that TASER report.

Creatively Spinning the Numbers

The National Post ran an article Friday entitled "Conservatives spent more on cultural programs than Liberals". Co-authored by David Akin and Juliet O'Neill, the article refers to a CanWest News analysis of government financial documents showing that the Conservatives have actually outspent their predecessors to the tune of $660 million, shelled out to the Department of Canadian Heritage and its portfolio of departments and agencies like the CBC, the Canada Council, etc.

At first blush, the numbers are pretty impressive: $133 million more for the CBC, $30 million more for the Canada Council, and the biggest increase for the Department of Canadian Heritage itself - up $273 million since 2006. Telefilm Canada and the CRTC got screwed, but overall the Conservatives come off as exceedingly generous patrons of the arts.

Two things make all this somewhat less impressive.

One is the information at the end of the original article that was somewhat conveniently omitted from the National Post version:

But the Conservative record on cultural spending when measured as a portion of all government spending shows that Conservatives, three years later, support the arts at about the same level that the Liberals did in their last year.

During the final budgetary year of former prime minister Paul Martin’s government, $18.06 of every $1,000 spent by the government was spent on cultural programs. That jumped in Harper’s first year in government to $19.54 but by this year it has fallen back to about where the Liberals were at $18.23 of every $1,000 spent by the government.

Using that measure - spending in one area compared to overall spending in any other area - cultural spending has fared worse than any other program in the three-year Conservative term.

The Tories have seen the portion of all spending they need to make on public debt drop by more than 22 per cent. But they have used the spending room created by smaller debt charges to boost spending, as a portion of all government spending, on security and public safety (up 15 per cent); environment and resource-based programs (up 14.4 percent) and general government services (13.7 percent.)

The second is the way in which the article defines "cultural spending". The article specifically references the budget for the Department of Canadian Heritage (about 1.4 billion dollars) and the budgets for the various agencies and Crown corporations that are included within the department's 'portfolio' such as the Canada Council, the CBC, etc. (another 2.2 billion).

The trouble is, the Department of Canadian Heritage deals with a lot more than just arts and culture. It also covers things like multiculturalism, citizenship, official languages, sport, and a slew of other areas that have little or nothing to do with what you or I would consider "arts and culture".

So, just because the department as a whole will be spending more money this year than it did two years ago doesn't necessarily mean anything for the arts community. And in fact, a big chunk of the budget increases over the past two years had to do with (you guessed it) the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

I'll let former Heritage Minister Bev Oda explain it to you...

The 2006 – 2007 Main Estimates were tabled in April, the first for this new Conservative government.

Resources for the department total 1.4 billion dollars in 2006-2007 and maintains initiatives that were announced in previous budgets and approved by the Treasury Board. A 267 million dollar increase over the previous year, was provided for the Department.

The increases can largely be attributed to increases and new funding in several areas. For example:

* 77.7 million dollars for 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic venues;
* 69.5 million dollars for the enhancement of Canadian sport development, excellence, and participation; and
* $27.4 million for the Aboriginal Peoples' Program.

In 2006 – 2007, resources for the Department's portfolio total 2.16 billion dollars, an increase of 310 million dollars over the previous year.

Increased funding includes:

* 17.5 million dollars for the Public Service Commission, primarily for program expenditures;
* 16.2 million dollars largely for program expenditures at Library and Archives of Canada; and
* 3.6 million dollars for the Canadian Museum of Nature for operating and capital expenditures.
* $50 million over 2 years for the Canada Council, a concrete display of our new governments support for arts and culture.

So, out of a total increase of $577 million for 2006-07, at least a third had nothing at all to do with the arts. And the following year, the budget for the department itself actually decreased by $22 million.

From all this, it's difficult to tell if the basic premise of the Post article is accurate or not. I do know that Akin and O'Neill should have spent a little more time digging into the numbers - or at least fought their editors to keep all of the numbers they did find.

Worst. Headline. Ever.

There's article today in the New Brunswick Times & Transcript talking about a Green Shift Road Show meeting between Liberal MPs and representatives of New Brunswick's agricultural community.

Here's how it went:

Yesterday's discussion was certainly lively, as the Liberals' plan was met with its share of criticism by the gathered agricultural community.

"What farmers are facing as a result of the Green Shift is a considerable increase in input costs, whether it's a result of fuel that farmers use or even as a result of how much their input costs may go up as a result of this carbon tax," says Bob Friesen, CFA president. "What we're basically saying is look, agriculture already provides a lot of carbon sequestration, farmers have done all kinds of things to create more carbon sinks... We're saying, look, there's got to be some calculations here that agriculture provides this -- they're the solution providers, so why tax them?"

Easter says a carbon tax exemption isn't likely to happen.

"I was on a series of meetings in the farm community last week and had farmers say to me if there's an exemption made for us we would be looked down on by the rest of society," Easter says. "Let's find the way of recognizing the cost impact on the farm community of this program and ensure that on the benefit impact at the end of the day there's economic opportunities for farmers and they receive their just due."

Easter says the platform will include other incentives for alternatives such as carbon sinks, biofuels, anaerobic digesters and wind power.

Despite his concerns, Friesen says he was still pleased the Liberal MPs came to speak with the industry.

"I think it was a positive thing that they came here and are prepared to listen to the farm leaders across Canada and they are prepared to go back and to analyze where they could improve (the plan) for agriculture," he says.

And here's the headline:

Agriculture industry opposes Green Shift

Groan. Honestly, did anyone even read the article before coming up with that one? Or maybe someone was just trying to put their own spin on things.

The effect of a carbon tax on farmers concerns me as well, but the fact is, modern agriculture just isn't as 'green' as people like to think. Large industrial farms go through a huge amount of oil and gas for both equipment and fertilizer, not to mention the negative environmental effects of excessive irrigation and pesticide use, soil depletion, etc., etc. Smaller farms are better, but are still frequently at the mercy of hybrid seed suppliers pushing sterile seeds that require massive amounts of water, fertilizer and pesticides just to survive.

(Yes, I confess - I'm in the middle of reading "The End of Food". Shut up.)

But really, the industry needs to find a better way. It needs to go smaller, with more diversification. It needs to get off this obsession with "yield" and recognize the true costs of the Monsanto school of farming. The cost of carbon, the cost of fertilizer and pesticide, the cost to the land, and the cost to the actual nutritional value of these so-called "high yield" crops, which is making them bigger but almost completely devoid of nutrients.

Putting a price on carbon is a start, but there needs to be a far more comprehensive plan to transform agriculture in this country and wean it away from the current unsustainable system. Not necessarily promoting full-on "organic" farming per se, but certainly a program of incentives towards the more traditional family farm would be in order, and would ultimately be financially beneficial to the farmers themselves.

That would be a real "Green Shift".

Our Top Story: OMG Garth Turner Said Something Controversial on his Blog!

I wasn't even going to dignify this with a response, but as a Halton constituent and regular over at The Turner Report I felt that it was incumbent on me to explain something to those of you who may be unfamiliar with Mr. Turner and his blog:

GARTH DOES SHIT LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME!

Really. He does. At least once a week. So much so that when I first read the latest offending post, I didn't even notice or think twice about the "losers" crack.

I realize I'm stating the obvious here, but apparently the point has been lost on our national media in their frenzied efforts to turn this into some sort of Reverend Wright scandal. As usual, they have been so diligent in reading from the prepared script handed to them by the powers that be that they have forgotten to ask any of the important questions. Like, for instance, what could possibly have motivated someone, somewhere, to bring this particular post to their attention at this particular time when, as I said, you can pull intemperate and even offensive quotes from Turner's blog pretty much any day of the week?

Instead, they plod merrily along, reiterating and regurgitating the same identical CP article and replaying the same clips of Turner with Dion and Turner in his biker leathers and calling him the "Maverick MP" because that sounds clever.

This is what the big boys call "journalism".

Impolitical may have hit the nail on the lead by asking why John Baird of all people has been selected to be the PM's point man on this particular non-scandal scandal instead of Petite Pierre or any of the other usual sock puppets.

Look, bright shiny object over there says Baird

Don't be distracted by John Baird's hyperventilation, which seems to have reared its ugly head once again in this Globe report:
"G8 won't set emission targets: Baird." Read that title, that's the big story. Baird, however, would like you to focus on a Garth Turner blog post from the other day and turn your focus toward Stephane Dion as he heads to the G8. Not. Gonna. Work.

(...) Paul Kurugman wrote a great column Friday about Rovian tactics, the politics of elevating obscure sideshows to frenzied levels of concern. All the while, important issues are relegated to the sidelines. Baird's frothing at the mouth today is a prime example of that phenomenon.

If you care, here's Turner explaining exactly what he said and why, as the CTV interviewer makes sure to keep the focus on his bike and leathers.

Not that Turner wasn't happy to oblige by wearing them for the interview. It's all about the show, man.

Bloggers Return Fire on the AP

Nothing brings together bloggers of all stripes and political leanings than an attempt by the dreaded mainstream media to curtail our pseudo-journalistic freedom.

The first salvo was fired by the Associated Press when they set up a per word fee schedule for bloggers wishing to excerpt their articles. Now conservative blogger Michelle Malkin has turned the tables. After finding two separate AP articles that quoted a total of 40-odd words each from posts and comments on her blog, she decided to ring up the bill:

According to the AP, it has:

-1,700 U.S. daily, weekly, non-English and college newspapers;

-5,000 radio and television outlets taking AP services; and

- 850 AP Radio News audio affiliates.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that half of all those clients published the AP dispatches quoting this blog’s content without prior usage agreement (which would be 3,775) and let’s apply the exact same fee structure AP wants to impose on the blogosphere ($17.50 for 26-50 words). I calculate that the AP owes me:

$66,062.50 x 2 = $132,125.

(A substantial portion of that sum would go to commenter SalsaNChips, of course. See? Commenting at MichelleMalkin.com pays! Well, theoretically.)

Now other popular bloggers are coming forward with examples of the AP quoting text from their blogs and calculating their own bills.

Of course, as Malkin points out, none of them would ever think of actually sending AP their bills - because bloggers WANT people to reference their blogs! Quotes mean links. Links mean hits. Hits mean power and influence and (if you carry ads) money.

'Cause that's how it works out here in the intertubes. Enjoy your stay.

Rejected

After David Akin and Warren Kinsella let the cat out of the bag on Monday about the Conservative Party accrediting bloggers for their upcoming convention, the call has gone out among liberal and progressive bloggers to send in their applications.

As it happens, I sent in my application over a month ago thanks to a heads-up from a certain constituency office manager. I wasn't really expecting to be accepted - after all, they do list "the readership and influence of a blog" among their criteria, and I'm still pretty small potatoes.

Sure enough, I received my rejection letter today.

To: js****@cogeco.ca
From: "Paul Stickney"
Subject: RE: Blog - Convention

Thank you for your interest in obtaining blogging credentials at the 2008 Conservative Party Convention in Winnipeg.

I regret to inform you that the Party will not be granting you blogger accreditation.

We have received numerous submissions from bloggers for accreditation at the convention in November.

In order for the Party to have a variety of political bloggers, we have unfortunately been unable to accept everyone who submits an application.

Thank you.

Paul.

[snif] Too bad. Oh, well - the U.S. Democratic Convention looks way more interesting anyway (anyone want to pay me to fly down to Denver?)

I made a comment elsewhere that the odds of any liberal or progressive bloggers getting approved were probably pretty slim given how the party likes to control the message. However, after reading that Mr. BT himself is encouraging Scott Tribe to apply, it may well be that at least a few dissenting voices will be allowed to attend.

Maybe I'm wrong - this could be interesting after all.

____________________________

UPDATE: OMG I've just been blogged by David Akin!!!

[blush]

____________________________

UPDATE THURSDAY NIGHT: Ok, this is getting crazy. Not only did my traffic just quadruple over the past 24 hours, but I`m getting some very strange visits out of this David Akin thing (yes, I`m one of those sad people with an unhealthy interest in their own blogging stats) (shut up).

Out of the 150 or so visitors who have wandered over here from there, 17 have been from the Government of Canada, including 2 from the PCO. Several media people have been by as well - the Star, the Globe & Mail, CBC, CityTV - even one from Al Jazeera, although that turned out to be unrelated. Then there was the visit from the RCMP, the one from what I assume was a military person in Kabul, Afghanistan, and one from Focus on the Family which I cannot begin to fathom.

What the HELL kind of outfit are you running over there, Akin?!