My take on Harper....

[Kirkhill]

.... humans are, simply, too stupid to craft regulations suitable for high orders of complexity.

I don't know whether to agree or not here. 

On one side I have problems with written regulations because the clearly define the rules of the game and allow the brighter members of society (lawyers and criminals among them) to figure out how to circumvent them by arguing "the letter" rather than "the intent".  Convention seems to force the discussion to "the intent" rather than "the letter" for the simple reason there is no "letter".

On the other hand I am constantly reminded of some advice I got from a mentor years ago when I was tasked with designing my first processing plant. I spent days agonizing over things that could possibly go wrong, how I could cover them with controls, how I could cover them with instructions to operators and maintainers, all in the hopes of deriving a "fool-proof system".  My mentor, getting frustrated at the time I was taking trying to come up with this perfect solution finally told me to forget about it and go with what I had because, no matter what I did or proposed, "The fools will always be smarter".

So Edward, I agree with your take on Conventions versus Regulations. I just don't know if the problem is "stupidity" or "being too clever by half". 

 

[observor 69]

Convention - parliamentary and constitutional, is a wonderful thing: an infinitely better tool for managing complex situations than any regulations can ever hope to be.  The more complex the situation the better convention serves because humans are, simply, too stupid to craft regulations suitable for high orders of complexity.

Gee reminds me of my RRSP which is made up of mostly "Index Funds."  Index funds simply track the index of the  market, for example the TSX.
The premise of index mutual funds is that by simply following the ups and downs of the market you can do better than a actively managed fund of stocks "because  humans are, simply, too stupid to select stocks suitable for high orders of complexity."   

 

[Kirkhill]

At risk of taking this further Off Topic:

I believe that the counter to Al Gore and Dave Suzuki, with their fear of impending doom, is to advocate diversity.  Suzuki in particular, the geneticist, rails against "monocultures" in agriculture because on bug or bad season can destroy everything. He preaches the gospel of diversity - demanding that many people on small plots of land grow a mixture of many varieties of everything. 

Well I suggest that he think in the same terms when it comes to public policy.  If, through some miracle, he could get all 6 Billion people on the planet to agree on the same course of action then he is putting the race at risk of uniform obliteration if he has guessed wrong as to the nature of the threat.

Mankind has survived to this point in time in the face of many catastrophes precisely because people lived different lifestyles in different places and made different decisions. 

Humanity will survive in the future not because of the wisdom of an individual (hubris?) but because you can't herd 6 Billion people all making their own decisions.  Nor can you predict what all those individuals will do individually or collectively.

The key to success in genetics and farming - diversity; in stocks - diversity; in military operations - dare I say, dispersal.

The short answer to everything is that the mob is more survivable, if not more intelligent, than the individual.

Back on topic.

Harper's getting pretty muddy these days.  I hope he can find a shower soon.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Gee reminds me of my RRSP which is made up of mostly "Index Funds."  Index funds simply track the index of the  market, for example the TSX.
The premise of index mutual funds is that by simply following the ups and downs of the market you can do better than a actively managed fund of stocks "because  humans are, simply, too stupid to select stocks suitable for high orders of complexity."   

I've been 100% energy-weighted for the last 4-years, including a little bit or uranium exposure.

Does that mean I should be in government?  ....because looking from the outside in, I'd think it might disqualify me.


Matthew.  ;D

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) from today’s Globe and Mail, is a column by Lawrence Martin – no Harper fan:

Harper's angry-man syndrome dominated Parliament

LAWRENCE MARTIN
From Monday's Globe and Mail
June 18, 2007 at 3:22 AM EDT

Members of Parliament head off for a three-month break this week. Animal house mercifully shuts down, not to be reconvened until late September.

The consensus around the capital is that this session ranks as one of the more ugly ones, which is saying a lot.

Rancour ruled. No one ended up looking better than when the mean-spiritedness and fake fury of the session began.

For top story, there were many contenders: the election that never came, Afghanistan and the brawl over the treatment of detainees, the global-warming wrangle, the feud over the Atlantic offshore accords, the Liberals' semi-alliance with the Greens, the big-spending budget, the startling flip-flop of Gilles Duceppe, the RCMP scandals.

But if there was a driving theme, it was none of those. Rather, it was the character of the Prime Minister. Angry-man syndrome took over Ottawa. Stephen Harper set the tone, carried the tone, laid the tone in stone.


Governance in Canada, most experts would agree, is about consensus-building. Patience, compromise, reaching out. Mr. Harper demonstrates opposite tendencies. For him, politics is chiefly about confrontation. He took on the provinces, threatening legal action. He took on the media, creating unnecessary frictions. He even took on Bono. He filled the Commons with below-the-belt accusations, outfitted his committee chairmen with a dirty tricks handbook, disciplined anyone in his caucus who declined to exhibit trained-seal subservience.

As the session ends, many, including members of his own team, look upon Mr. Gloom and are left to wonder, "Where does all the bitterness come from? Is life all that bad? What is bugging this guy?"

Accounts of Mr. Harper's early life provide some clues as to his current-day comportment. William Johnson's flattering biography notes how he was quiet and apart as a youth. Never a people person, there was a tendency in him to turn away. The top student in his high school, he enrolled at the University of Toronto but got quickly disillusioned and quit. It was a type of behaviour that would be repeated.

In his book Full Circle, Bob Plamondon makes note of periods in which, when the going got tough, Mr. Harper would "go dark."

Very telling is Preston Manning's character sketch of the young Harper in his book, Think Big. Despite coming out of the grassroots Reform movement, Mr. Harper showed little interest in listening to the rank and file. The Harper idea of consensus-building was through consultations - with his own mind.

"Stephen had difficulty accepting that there might be a few other people (not many perhaps but a few) who were as smart as he was with respect to policy and strategy." On many occasions when team-play was being called for, Mr. Manning says, Mr. Harper simply withdrew.

As Prime Minister, though, he can't withdraw. He stays, and if the past few months are any indication, he stews.

This was a man who spent little of his life in a real-job atmosphere - in the type of jobs that aren't always about us versus them. His life in the cauldron of politics has seemingly taken away soft edges, making him even more partisan and more contemptuous than other practitioners of the sport. He learned to detest the Liberals over their national energy program. He came to loathe the Ottawa media when they depicted early Reformers as a bunch of yahoos. These are antagonisms that run deep and endure.

Consensus-builders are the types who can concede mistakes. Through his career there has been little evidence of Mr. Harper conceding error.

His heavy-handed dictatorial style reminds some of Jean Chrétien in his final years as prime minister. But there's a big difference. Mr. Chrétien's life was driven by lack of security, intellectual and otherwise. Mr. Harper is driven by a surfeit of it. The guy from the streets of Shawinigan always felt looked down upon and would employ whatever tactics necessary to prove he was as good as the others. The intellectually gifted Mr. Harper expects to have his own way, and when he doesn't get it, resorts to pouting and bouts of belligerence.

If he is to win another term as prime minister, it is a tendency he is going to have to overcome. Those who reach out last. Those who turn in don't.

I’m a card carrying Conservative and a regular contributor to the Party’s fund.  I want Stephen Harper to win a majority government – even if he’s not governing exactly the way I wish or even if he’s not doing many of the things I think are right.  I still think he and his party are vastly more ‘worthy’ than Dion’s Liberals (and, of course, only a nincompoop would vote NDP).

That being said I hope he reads Martin’s column because I think Martin is offering good advice.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

I agree, as a fellow traveller in the big C and one who sees only good coming from a majority for the Conservatives I hope he takes the summer to reflect on how to reach the average Joe and get his majority.

 

[a_majoor]

One idea on how to get that majority:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=fac08435-9c02-4680-917f-e635de152f11

Tories short on bold moves
Government big disappointment on economic front

Jacqueline Thorpe
Financial Post

Monday, June 18, 2007

As federal MPs prepare to head home for their summer break, bickering all the way with the provinces over equalization payments and resource royalties, it's hard not to reflect on what a disappointment the Conservative Party has been for the Canadian economy.

Day after day, a new study highlights the problems confronting Canada. Day after day, the timidity with which Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty have handled the economic file is glaring, especially for Conservatives who had old-fashioned notions of smaller government, less spending, lower taxes, free trade, competition and innovation dancing in their heads.

Last week it was the Conference Board of Canada's turn to point out our deficiencies. David Dodge then turned the screws.

The non-partisan think-tank said Canada was sinking into a pool of "mediocrity" because of our failure to innovate, take risks and invest in technology and infrastructure.

Mr. Dodge, governor of the Bank of Canada, said Canada's ageing workforce could lead to a noxious mix of slower growth and higher inflation unless Canada offsets its shrinking workforce by making the economy more efficient and productive.

As anybody who has paid the slightest bit of attention to economic issues would know, Canada's productivity growth has been dreadful, a fact Mr. Dodge stresses every chance he gets and economists lament every day.

But Canada is booming, you say, and unemployment is at a 30-year low of 6.1%. That is true, and we should embrace our good luck because good luck has been what it's all about. China and India's ascendence from peasantry has driven up prices for our nickel, gold and oil, filling government coffers, boosting stocks and filling in pension holes.

What a windfall it has been. Canadian households have never been so rich, according to a calculation last week by National Bank of Canada. Total wealth, including housing and financial assets, is at a record 610% of personal disposable income.

We all know, though, the surge in commodity prices will not last. They never do and once they come down, whether quickly or slowly, Canada will be left with the same old structural problems. Productivity growth, the essential building block to sustained increases in our standard of living, will be just as dreadful.

So what has the Conservative government done to help us tackle some of these structural problems and make us richer? Well, it cut the GST. That immediately made us richer by putting more cash in our pockets. It has also inflamed a consumer-spending and real-estate boom that the Bank of Canada is now trying to tame.

More important, all that was precisely the opposite of what economists recommended to spur investment in technology or to entice workers to go after a better-paying job. For that you need broad-based business and income-tax cuts, especially to rates that push you into the next tax bracket.

Two budgets later, significant tax cuts are nowhere to be seen, though revenues keep rolling in and the spending keeps rolling out.

The big move on the business front was a two-year incentive to allow manufacturers a 50% write-off on new investments. It runs out in 2009.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment, however, has been on non-tax issues -- issues that would require little more than vision, hard work and boldness to take in hand.

Though they promised to do away with it, corporate welfare continues. Instead of the disgraceful Technology Partnerships Canada, we now have the Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative, which will hand out $225-million annually over five years, to aerospace and defence firms.

There has been no effort to overhaul the employment insurance program, which has strayed so far away from its original mandate to give short-term assistance to the unemployed that it is used as an income supplement for seasonal workers, restricting labour mobility.

There has been no effort to tear down interprovincial trade barriers, though the evidence shows that even backward old Europe is revelling in such an effort. For this, provincial premiers can take much of the blame, but if the Feds absolutely feel they have to cave in to provincial demands to keep both resource royalties and equalization payments, how about tying it to a provincial free-trade deal?

There has also been little attempt to inject some much-needed competition into the Canadian economy. The government has removed the marketing board structure for barley but it remains in large parts of the agriculture industry, including wheat and dairy. Foreign-ownership restrictions remain in place for telecoms, financials and airlines.

There is a glimmer of hope in Maxime Bernier, the Industry Minister, who has tried to shake things up a bit to enhance market competition. He has overruled the CRTC twice, making competition in telecoms less onerous. He is also heading up a panel looking into competition policy.

The argument has been a minority government can't make bold moves, but bold moves a majority may make.
© National Post 2007

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

And this whole tempest in a tea pot about equalization is best summarized in the following editorial in the Halifax paper in my humble opinion

The Atlantic accords: Time for truth-telling


By DAN LEGER


IT’S TIME to start saying things that need to be said about the Atlantic accords and the Great Equalization Flap of 2007. The past two weeks have been so full of half-truths, propaganda, "urban myths" and outright baloney that things have to be put straight.

So here are some truths about equalization and the Atlantic accords.

Truth No. 1: The federal government owns the oil and gas off Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, period. It’s not a matter of interpretation. It’s not politics. It’s a legal fact. The Supreme Court of Canada decided in 1984 that offshore resources are federal property.

That means it is absolute rubbish for Newfoundlanders or Nova Scotians to claim that the offshore is our birthright and a sacred entitlement. We tried that argument, and lost.

Truth No. 2: Nova Scotia and Newfoundland get royalties from the offshore and have a say in running it because of a deal worked out for political reasons by the Mulroney government in 1985. It was the right thing to do, but it was political. It’s also true that Tories held 25 out of the 32 federal seats in Atlantic Canada at the time.

Truth No. 3: Federal bureaucrats and the vast majority of the political and journalistic class in Ottawa, of which I was an enthusiastic member for six years, believe provinces are ruled by blowhards and hillbillies. Provincial premiers are rubes. It is axiomatic that the biggest rubes in federal Ottawa right now are Danny Williams and Rodney MacDonald.

It is an Ottawa truth that when the likes of Mr. MacDonald or Mr. Williams make a demand, it is automatically considered to be a money-grubbing ruse by whining have-nots. If Quebec makes the same demand, it is a national-unity challenge. If Ontario makes it, it’s for the good of all of Canada.

Truth No. 4: In 2005, then-prime minister Paul Martin was so desperate to win seats in the coming election that he was willing to agree to just about anything. He guaranteed that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland would be immune from having offshore royalties clawed back through the equalization program. He did not do this because it was right or wrong, merely because he needed the votes.

Truth No. 5: The federal government can and it has unilaterally changed the Atlantic accord. It can also claw back Nova Scotia’s gas royalties and it can thumb its nose at our complaints. All these moves are perfectly legal and constitutional. The Atlantic accord is merely an "arrangement" signed by two fairly junior cabinet ministers.

Remember, equalization is a federal program. As long as Ottawa is meeting the program’s general goals – that have-not provinces are funded to provide services roughly equal to those in have provinces at roughly equal tax rates – then Nova Scotia can’t do a thing about it.

Truth No. 6: There’s no such thing – as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty would have us believe – as "contributing provinces" and "receiving provinces." Every Canadian taxpayer pays into equalization, no matter where they live, and that includes all of us Bluenoses.

Truth No. 7: We might not be having these problems if the provinces themselves didn’t squander their chance to create a new equalization formula. Last summer, the premiers battled themselves to an impasse trying to work out a new system, leaving Stephen Harper the right and responsibility to devise a new one. We’ve all seen what he came up with.

Truth No. 8: This new hard-line position on equalization reflects the absolute belief in Ontario that it is being soaked by provinces like Nova Scotia. It’s mind-boggling, I know, but poor little Ontario thinks it’s getting robbed by nasty Nova Scotia.

Truth No. 9: Both Bill Casey and Peter MacKay are right. Mr. Casey rebelled on a point of principle. Mr. MacKay is staying and working inside the cabinet in line with his own principle: that some things are done better within the system.

Truth No. 10: This is the tough one. What we are demanding is unfair. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador should be content to get their fiscal capacities to the national average and then allow sharing of their resource wealth.

Why? Because that is what democratic nations are built on: fairness and justice. Because Alberta shares its petro-wealth. Because Ontario used to be generous too. Because without the great Canadian sense of fairness, equalization wouldn’t exist in the first place. And Nova Scotia would be poor as dirt.

(dleger@herald.ca)

Dan Leger is director of news content for The Chronicle Herald. The opinions expressed here are his own.

 

[Old Sweat]

When are they going to hang Mr Leger in effigy, not to mention Truro and Corner Brook?

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

I read that earlier this morning.

I thought #6 specifically was a load of bollocks....

If you and I both put $10 in a pot, and then you take $20, regardless of how you try to embelish it, I just gave you $10.



Matthew.    

 

[Edward Campbell]

I read that earlier this morning.

I thought #6 specifically was a load of bollocks....

If you and I both put $10 in a pot, and then you take $20, regardless of how you try to embelish it, I just gave you $10.



Matthew.    

But he is factually correct.  Equalization is paid from general revenues - not from special taxes levied only on Alberta and Ontario, as Dalton McGuinty would have us believe.

His 'cause' is correct but your 'effect' is more so!

 

[Kirkhill]

My greatest surprise is the source.  I'll have to mentally withdraw some of my previous black thoughts about that paper and commentator. 

Point 6 notwithstanding (see I'm becoming Canadian) a pretty honest appraisal.

 

[GAP]

Yup,........pretty honest appraisal......finally someone did one.

 

[stealthylizard]

In regards to the Conference Board report.  We received good marks in everything except for Environment, and Innovation, both of which are tied together.  For environment we rated well for each of the subtopics except for climate change.  Innovation marks were also based on trying to combat climate change.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Well done Dan Leger.  It is time for us all to face some unpleasant truths about the country and the way that it is run...

 

[Osotogari]

I wonder what the hue and cry would have been like if Dan Leger's byline was from the Calgary Herald or the Edmonton Journal?

Still, couldn't have said it better myself, except for point #6, and on that I will take the side of CdnBlackshirt.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Great follow-up article I found this morning with some really clear statistics which are currently not being taken into account.

Ignore the title as it's unnecessarily divisive, but read the content.  To say it's eye-opening is an understatement.



Matthew. 

Copyright disclaimer goes here....

Greed knows no bounds in Atlantic Canada
Lorne Gunter, National Post
Published: Tuesday, June 19, 2007

EDMONTON -OK fellow fiscal conservatives (and especially my fellow Albertans), sit down. I'm about to agree with Premier Dalton McGuinty that Ontario is getting the shaft in federal-provincial fiscal arrangements.

Yes, Albertans contribute more -- far more per capita -- than any other Canadians to transfer and equalization payments. Each man, woman and child in Alberta kicks in $3,000 a year to Confederation's interregional wealth transfer. Second-place Ontarians contribute $1,800.

But Alberta is at present in a much stronger fiscal position than Ontario. Alberta's "fiscal capacity" -- a province's ability to raise the money it needs to fund basic services -- is by any measure well above the national average, while Ontario's is slipping.

Albertans personally, too, are much better off. At the beginning of the 1990s, Ontarians' per capita incomes, for instance, were 115% of the national average. Now that figure has slipped to 103% of the national average and is in danger this year or next of dipping below 100%. Albertans, by comparison are earning about 135%, or more.

I resent my Alberta being Confederation's cash cow, but I'd be even more upset if it were in Ontario's position.

It is entirely likely that within the next couple of years, Ontarians will be contributing to equalization payments to Atlantic provinces that have a greater "fiscal capacity" than there own.

Put simply, by 2008 or 2009, it is very likely Ontario will have ceased to be a "have" province in any meaningful sense. Meanwhile, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, with their burgeoning oil and gas revenues, will have ceased to be "have-nots." Yet because of the perverse rules (and politics) surrounding federal-provincial funding in Canada, Ontarians will still be sending huge chunks of their incomes to Ottawa each year so the federal government can continue to pour rich equalization payments into Atlantic coffers.

Consider this: When equalization began 50 years ago, the Atlantic provinces had per capita incomes around two-thirds that of the national average, while Ontario had incomes about one-quarter above -- a gap of about 50 points. Today, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have incomes over 90% of the national average, while (as I said above), Ontario's are at around 100%.

Instead of 50 points, the Ontario-Atlantic income gap today is less than 10 points. Yet federal transfers to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia -- equalization, plus health and social transfers-- now account for far more of those provinces' budgets than they did when the income gap was five times are large.

Even though Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have per capita incomes rapidly approaching Ontario levels, Newfoundland gets nearly 60% of its provincial budget from Ottawa and Nova Scotia nearly 40%, while Ontario gets less than 16%.

It's little wonder than that after all federal transfers are accounted for, Ontario is the least fiscally capable province in the country -- the least!

According to Halifax's Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, Ontario is third in fiscal capacity (behind Alberta and B.C.) "before equalization," but dead last after. As a result, as my colleague Andrew Coyne pointed out last week, "for 2007-08, Newfoundland's per capita revenues, equalization included, total $7,094, to Ontario's $6,631."

Ontario has 2.7 hospital beds per 1,000 population while PEI has 3.4, Nova Scotia 4.0 and New Brunswick 5.3. It has 30% fewer nurses per capita than the Atlantic-province average and significantly fewer doctors, too.

Remember all this when Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams or Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald clamour about Prime Minister Stephen Harper breaking the Atlantic Accord.

Harper did no such thing. He told the Atlantic provinces they could keep the Atlantic Accord, which shielded their new resource wealth from equalization calculations, or they could go with the new higher equalization in this spring's budget, but they would have to count 50% of their resource revenues. They could choose whatever was better for them, and they could switch back and forth between the two formulas each year to maximize their equalization.

To call that a broken promise is to take demagoguery to new heights.

Still, Harper's offer is not generous enough for Williams and MacDonald. They want all their resource income and the higher equalization.

There is no limit to their greed for cash from other provinces, from taxpayers who cannot reach them politically.

Both premiers have argued that since Alberta's resource wealth is not included in equalization payments, theirs should not be either.

But there is a critical difference: Alberta is not demanding equalization payments. Alberta is not insisting it should get extra funds from Ottawa even though it is booming. It is not, as Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are, insisting the rest of the country still treat it as if Albertans were poor when they are not.

If anything, Dalton McGuinty is being too polite. An Alberta premier in his position would be screaming bloody murder.

lgunter@shaw.ca

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=e82635f3-84b8-439b-b639-c1d4a36f72f5

 

[scoutfinch]

Even if all of the analysis of the Atlantic Accords vs the new budget is true, the real issue for me is why didn't the Conservatives indicate during the election campaign that they were not going to abide by the agreement made by the previous government??  Rather, Harper confirmed that he supported the Atlantic Accord and that there would be no equalization claw back.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Even if all of the analysis of the Atlantic Accords vs the new budget is true, the real issue for me is why didn't the Conservatives indicate during the election campaign that they were not going to abide by the agreement made by the previous government??  Rather, Harper confirmed that he supported the Atlantic Accord and that there would be no equalization claw back.

Like Aldous Huxley said, perception is reality:

Harper did no such thing. He told the Atlantic provinces they could keep the Atlantic Accord, which shielded their new resource wealth from equalization calculations, or they could go with the new higher equalization in this spring's budget, but they would have to count 50% of their resource revenues. They could choose whatever was better for them, and they could switch back and forth between the two formulas each year to maximize their equalization.

 

[scoutfinch]

Harper made these comments referencing a budget that would not have been available at the time of the campaign.  At the time of the election, he stated that he supported the Atlantic Accords.  The Accords were intentionally negotiated as free standing agreements independent of equalization. 

I am not arguing or commenting on the double dipping aspect of the Atlantic provinces argument.  I just don't think Harper was being honest with the electorate and I think it is going to cost him in the next election.  In that regard, I think you are correct: perception is reality and I don't think the public perception of the Conservatives or Mr. Harper is being enhanced by their performance in the past few months.