Tag: Canada

Posted on

‘FREEDOM CONVOY’ IS BEING HIJACKED

Protesters and supporters cheer as a parade of trucks and vehicles pass through Kakabeka Falls outside Thunder Bay, Ont., on Wednesday. (David Jackson/The Canadian Press)

BAD ACTORS ARE SEEKING TO SIDESWIPE CONVOY’S MESSAGE

Shortly after General (Ret’d) Rick Hillier became Chief of Defence Staff in 2005, he made a push for an increase to the Public Affairs Officer branch. His reasoning was if no one knew all the good the CAF was doing then all those efforts were wasted. The Canadian public could not be expected to care for an organization which it could not relate to.

As for the ‘Freedom Convoy’ of people headed towards Ottawa to air their grievances, there have been numerous interpretations of what they want to accomplish. Bringing it to a personal level, I would like to focus on one person’s view of what the Convoy means to her.

In no particular order, she can be described as a 40 something, mother of three young children, Native descent, hands on business owner married to a tradesman. They own a modest home and they have been trying to keep afloat these past two years with constant interruptions to their employment, business, and children’s lives. They have also chosen not to be vaccinated but over Christmas, the family came down with Omicron with the mother being the sickest for a week but with a full recovery.

A group of women show their support for truckers in the Freedom Convoy, in Swift Current, Sask.
A group of Hutterite women show their support for truckers in the Freedom Convoy, in Swift Current, Sask. Photo by Courtesy Jordan Kosik / Facebook

The Convoy excited this lady because she is fed up with the government intrusions that have governed her family’s lives for the last two years. She, like the thousands of other regular, ordinary Canadians lining the highways waiting to cheer on this Convoy, just want some hope that their lives will get back to normal.

Parked in front of this hopeful message are roadblocks attempting to sideswipe any good which may come from this grassroots movement. Starting at the top, our Prime Minister opined a very bigoted view of the truckers and their supporters. Perhaps the son should look back through his father’s memoirs and look afresh at the meaning of the statement, “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”. The PM’s job is to represent all Canadians, especially those with minority views. Unless this group was promising outright insurrection, they are allowed to protest as much as any other group in this country without our PM slandering them.

Unfortunately, the Convoy’s public relations is in danger of slipping into a skid. There is a social media war being waged trying to connect the Convoy and its organizers with violence, white supremacy, racism, etc. This is being picked up by the MSM and amplified. Another wedge issue has been the size of the Convoy itself as estimates are flying from tiny to enormous. Opponents want to minimize while supporters are over-exaggerating. What is needed are reporters who are prepared to act like reporters who are neither cheerleaders nor detractors but impartial observers.

Compounding the confusion, deliberate and unintentional, is the lack of a concerted, overall voice who represents the Convoy and their goals. They have a FaceBook Group that was up, down, then back up. It is up over 700,000 members and is replete with numerous testimonials, videos, and such but short on specifics and prone to intolerant posts subject to censure and/or fuel for detractors.

One of the organizers of the GoFundMe page for the Convoy, Tamara Lich, has put herself forward as a point of contact for media interviews. It appears she is overwhelmed and out of her depth. Interview requests are starting to pour in but concrete information has been sporadic. Consequently, reporters are randomly contacting whoever they can get ahold of and some of the responses have been hostile. If the movement doesn’t get a handle on their messaging, the powers to be will make up their own messaging out of the vacuum.

Particularly disturbing is the outright disinformation being maliciously disseminated against the Convoy. For example, searching for Tamara’s background information first returns her bio as listed as a Secretary with the Maverick Party based in Alberta. Next comes a bevy of websites titled with ‘Tamara Lich Racist, Go Fund Me Fraud‘. No substance is in the website’s narratives and in fact the paragraphs look like bot creations or badly translated nonsensical phrases such as:

Hello, all of the friends, so Tamara Lich emerged because the guardian angel of all of the Truck Drivers protesting in Canada “Freedom Convoy 2022.” So, in between all this one of many board of administrators of Maverick Party Tamara Lich arrived within the assist of the convoy of the drivers. The director started a fundraising web page for the drivers on Go Fund Me to help all of the drivers who’re struggling after the central authorities of the nation imposed a mandate throughout the pandemic. Apart from all this Tamara Lich was alleged for being a racist.

https://umorr.com/truck-convoy-is-tamara-lich-racist-go-fund-me-fraud-allegations/

Look up B.J. Dichter, the other listed GoFundMe organizer for the Convoy and the top hit returned is another robotic ‘news’ site with the heading including ‘Fraud and Racist Allegations‘. Again, the so called attached ‘article’ is full of nonsense like the following:

Opportunity Convey is a continuous dissent in Canada by Truckers gainst a new government COVID-19 immunization order forced on the shipping area. A Group of guards of trucks is set to show up in Ontario as a feature of their exhibit.

https://sleekgist.com/who-is-bj-dichter-aka-benjamin-dichter-fraud-and-racist-allegations-tg-time/

Powerful forces are being arrayed against a Canadian grassroots movement. Between the naiveté and inexperience of the participants and the general indifference and outright hostility of their enemies, this protest is set to spin out. The trucker’s main foe is not snow covered highways and black ice. Their bête noire is whoever gains the most from their failure.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Posted on

CANADIAN MORTALITY STATS – 2020

An Analysis of Covid-19 Mortality in Canada

Mathematics is a joy to me. It does not care about your feelings or beliefs. 2 + 2 = 4 and does not change because of your gender, sexual orientation, or skin colour. If it ever does change because of political virtue signaling, then your car will not start and planes will fall out of the sky.

Canada is chest deep into the Covid-19 crisis and we should have some numbers to more confidently project what has happened and what may be in store. Unlike the Imperial College models that were projecting 1% of the country’s population was going to outright die, so far Canada is well short of that at 12,301 deaths (Dec 02) vice the apocalyptic number of 370,000.

If you are a fan of the Road Runner cartoons, there inevitably comes a point where Wile E. Coyote heads right off a cliff. He is okay until he looks down, then the cruel hand of gravity reaches up and down he goes despite all his arm flapping. So in spite of all the arm flapping on the part of politicians, their attendant medical professionals, and cheerleading Karens, what are the observable mortality numbers saying to us?

The caveat in this presentation is did I introduce any personal bias? I am well aware of the phrase, “Lies, damned lies, and statistics“, so I attempted to refrain from not letting the numbers speak for themselves. I did have the bias that I have seen presentations from Ivor Cummins and Genevieve Briand, Johns Hopkins University on the numbers from the States and Europe. I wanted to see what Canadian numbers were doing.

So with the preamble out of the way, let’s dive in.

Statistics Canada. Table 13-10-0392-01 Deaths and age-specific mortality rates, by selected grouped causes

This graph shows:

  • For the last two decades, Canadian mortality has been increasing at a relatively steady rate of +3475 deaths/yr. Some years are worse than others, some better. Our population has been growing and the Boomers are getting older, so this makes sense.
  • The big killers of Canadians are Cancer and Heart Attack & Stroke. Cancer has been increasing at about 920 deaths/yr while Heart Attack & Stroke have decreased 260 deaths/yr. Cancer became the #1 killer after 2007.
Statistics Canada. Table 13-10-0392-01 Deaths and age-specific mortality rates, by selected grouped causes

Diving deeper into mortalities:

  • Accidents, Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease, and Influenza & Pneumonia are next up but orders of magnitude behind the big killers.
  • Strangely, Accidents have been making serious increases over the last 20 years.
  • Flu & Pneumonia kick along at the 6000-8000 range each year.
  • As a side note, suicide rates saw a slight uptick over the decades from 3600 to about 4000/yr. It’ll be interesting to see the numbers after this year with all the clinical depression due to the crisis and government actions.
Statistics Canada. Table 13-10-0785-01 Selected grouped causes of death, by month

Now, let’s add in what 2020 has been doing so far this year:

  • The total mortalities reported across Canada comes to 207,155. Our expected mortality given an average death rate of an extra 3475/yr should be 210,630. When reading the StatCan table, the numbers are not complete so the far yellow line is a guess that 75% of deaths have been tabulated. So by year end, that projection is about 276,000. That’s substantially short of what would be expected but who knows what lag time there is with respect to StatCan receiving correct numbers.
  • The second to last set of bars are the actual reported 2020 numbers to date.
  • Now here’s the weird part, which was also picked up by the Johns Hopkins researcher. Cancer and Heart & Stoke numbers are fairly linear with a slight dip from winter down to summer, then climbing. When looking at the provinces with numbers through to Sep, there are no large upticks that should skew these estimations badly.
  • After taking the first half year numbers and doubling them, you should have a good projection of the year’s totals. My assumption was any numbers past June may have not been finalized. So with Cancer and a growth rate of 920/yr, we would expect 81,072 deaths. Heart Attack & Stroke with a decrease of 260/yr would be 70,850.
  • But the projection of Cancer deaths after six months of stats is only 75,150 which is a shortfall of 5,922 deaths. Heart Attacks & Stroke is projected at 62,510 which is also a shortfall of 8,340 deaths, for a total of 14,262 missing deaths by the end of the year.
  • Did we cure cancer this year and in all the hubbub of Covid-19, someone forgot to report on it? Coincidentally, our Covid-19 deaths are just over 12,000. Weird, eh?
Statistics Canada. Table 13-10-0708-01 Deaths, by month

So, how do Canadians die on a month to month basis?

  • Jan, Dec, Mar, and Feb are the worst months for mortality. Some years there are spikes and some years are calm. Every 3 to 4 years there is a bad spike in Jan. On the opposite years, it looks like Dec gives the spike.
  • In general, Canadians die the most with the biggest swings starting in Jan then it calms down into the summer and gradually picks up through the fall into winter.
  • Feb & Mar 1998 was a bad year that coincided with a bad flu season that year.
  • 2013, 2015, & 2018 saw bad Jan spikes. 2018 started off badly with spikes in Jan, Feb, & Mar. This coincided with a bad 2018 flu season which was termed the worst in five years.
Statistics Canada. Table 13-10-0785-01 Selected grouped causes of death, by month

So, let’s add in the deaths for 2020 and see what we get:

  • Obviously, there were the big jumps in Apr & May attributed to when Covid-19 got really bad, particularly in ON & QC in the Long Term Care (LTC) facilities. But there were already significant upticks in Jan, Feb, & Mar. Something was already going on and usually upticks at this time of year seem to signal something going on with the flu.
  • Jun seemed to flatten and decrease. Jul and Sep really nosed down but again, those numbers might not be finalized yet. But it is a good indication that after a quick rush of deaths, things may have settled and even decreased.
Statistics Canada – https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020017-eng.htm

Here’s a great, little interactive tool on the StatCan website:

  • Obvious Covid-19 spike for 2020. But compare that spike to Jan’s 2018 flu influenced spike, 6745 to 6630. I don’t recall any crazy lockdowns or slaughtering of our economy because of 2018’s mortalities, maybe I just missed it. Then in mid-Jun, death rates are back within five year norms. When did all those mandatory mask rules come in again?
  • 2020 numbers drop off out through Sep but because of incomplete numbers.
Statistics Canada: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020017-eng.htm

The cool thing about this interactive tool is you can check out each province. I’ll let you scroll through the rest but the most striking point is this was not a Canadian pandemic. This was a Quebec pandemic. Ontario only had a bit of a bump in comparison. This would coincide with the bloodbath in their LTC homes.

BC had a peak of deaths mid-Mar and AB has no pattern other than a slight overall increase of 30-40 deaths each month. You wouldn’t even know anything was going on in the rest of the country.

Worldometer, 02 Dec 2020 – https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/canada/

Logarithmic scale is used to show the rate of change. When you go to the interactive chart on the Worldometer site, the Covid-19 deaths were small but grew quickly until the curve ‘flattened’ at the end of May. But the rate of growth was not exponential as everyone feared when governments all hit the panic button. In fact, Mar 18, the curve was already curling over on its own. Considering Canadian Provinces had not instituted Emergency Orders even by that point, you have to ask if all those measures did anything.

Also, since we are in a so-called ‘2nd Wave’, ummmm, where’s the evidence for that? The rate of change in the death rate is almost dead flat but our lockdown measures are stricter than ever and Christmas is going to be cancelled. Sure the media is shouting about the case count each day but if Canadians aren’t falling over dead in the streets it sure seems like a nothing burger.

So, I ask again, what has all the arm flapping here in Canada been about? By the mortality stats, this does not appear to be a particularly bad year compared to even 2018. By the fall numbers and historical norms, we’re past the bad spike and into regular death rates.

Here’s my take away point: politicians, their health experts plus the media have access to this info. Everyone does because it is public and StatCan does an excellent job gathering numbers. But no one hears anything but doom and gloom. This tells me that our overlords are either incompetent or distorting the truth on purpose. One thing for sure, the precedent is set for the next time a little bump in the road shows up. Once governments see how easy it is to rip away your freedoms, they will repeat.

Unfortunately, many Canadians without cushy government jobs or with the ability to work from home are desperately trying to not look down. They know that no amount of arm flapping is going to save them from the big splat.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Posted on

LIBERTARIAN CANADIAN

Paradoxically, wait times are increasing despite decades of ‘working’ on the problem. WHY?!?
Our Insecurity is Strangling Canadian Prosperity

“We’ve spent all this money, what do we have to show for it?” – Little Mrs. Graham lamenting the state of Canada’s finances many years ago.

These were the sentiments of one of my elementary school teachers some time back when I stopped in for a quick visit. As a note, we had two Mrs. Grahams, one small and one large. But the epitaph is as true today as it was those many years ago, where has all the money gone?

One of the areas of concern starting to rear up again in Canadian social media circles is the issue of waiting times for medical procedures and the general lack of medical availability. People are starting to see their own health, along with their family and friends, suffer due to the chronic inability of the medical system to perform. Have you ever tried to find a new family doctor? We have known for decades that the Boomer generation was going to swamp each sector of society as they moved through. So why the general lack of preparedness despite government assurances that more money is going into the system?

Sure, there was some chattering during last year’s Federal election regarding health care in this country. The Liberals made some vague noise about universal pharmacare and the NDP declared ‘Free for Everyone’ as they are wont to do. Did anyone believe that the Health care debate was getting the attention that a National crisis should normally garner? Even if the panacea of ‘Free Drugs for Everyone’ program is in the offing, it will take forever to work out the details and roll-out. The Liberals still have not fixed the Phoenix system for paying their own employees so the question is how will they not screw this up too?

This is not a swipe at any particular level or brand of government. This incompetence related to getting anything done in Canada crosses the entire political spectrum right down to the municipal level.

But let us get back to a little, old lady’s observation that Canada is bereft of any sort of meaningful accomplishments. The reason for our general lack of paradoxically not being able to get anything done despite mountains of cash being thrown at a problem is our insecurity complex related to being a poor nation.

What? Poor nation you say, that’s not right! Au contraire, we could have been a great nation but ever since WWII, Canada has slid further and further into obsolesce and we are squandering the resources that this country is blessed with.

Here is a pointed example of Canada’s insecurity related to the inconceivably long and expensive process of procuring military equipment, namely the New Shipborne Helicopter. The book, The Politics of Procurement by Aaron Plamondon, goes into exquisite detail over how the venerable Sea King helicopter which was to be replaced in 1975 has still not been fully replaced by the new Cyclone.

Read the book but here is an example of the mission creep which affects all Canadian institutions. The Statement of Requirements (SOR) for the original Sea King was only about four pages. When the military was starting to look for a replacement in 1975, the SOR had already ballooned to four volumes. All that extra time and effort jacks the ultimate cost of anything the military wants to buy. They do not get shiny, new toys very often so they want to get things right. Then because the government waffles over these decisions, it gives new governments time to cancel programmes outright and start their own politically driven agendas. That is how the CAF never gets their equipment. It is also how Canada does not get new pipelines and end up buying foreign oil from dictatorships.

General insecurity stalls out industrious Canadians. There is no point in going into the pipeline debate as those things get hopelessly mired down. But here is an example of something as simple as recovering a log from the bottom of a lake. In BC, when logs are floated across lakes, some become waterlogged and sink. This wood is still incredibly valuable and the diving company I worked for wanted to go after them. We did not bother because you needed an environmental permit to disturb the bottom of the lake, a permit to have the log on the surface, a permit to bring the log to the edge of the lake, a permit to bring a truck down to the edge of the lake, and a permit to take the log away. Now throw in a few more layers of bureaucracy like Indigenous and gender balance, and it is just not worth the effort for a small outfit. Ostensibly, regulations are meant to protect things but in reality, they serve to stifle industry.

All levels of government are bloated with civil servants whose job is to regulate the country to a standstill. Here is an example from what I observed in the military that is just as true of the civil service. An officer would enter a new job. In order to progress and be promoted, they needed to effect ‘change’. They were never in the job for long or had a budget large enough to push through a complex project that would take decades to see through and effect real change. They just fiddled with the system enough to piss off their subordinates. That is where the saying ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same’ comes from. Meanwhile, their budgets got spent mostly spinning wheels.

Here is an example from the Coast Guard. The West Coast fleet, back in the day, had a couple of ladies with Rolodexes looking after everyone’s pay and nary an issue. The system was modernized with a new building in downtown Vancouver with 50 employees and it went to shit. You were happy to get any sort of pay cheque and issues would take up to half a year to fix.

Here is one from the Veterans Hospital in Halifax. The building has rats. Nurses can hear them humping in the walls and ceilings. Veterans Affairs representatives told me to my face that they were aware of the problem and were having meetings to discuss solutions. The solution was to call an exterminator and kill the vermin. Instead, admin types endlessly study the issue as they are reticent over spending money to fix obvious problems. Meetings give the appearance of ‘we are on the job’ when actually nothing is being accomplished.

Suffice to say, Canadians could endlessly bring up examples of why stuff does not get done in this country. Heaven forbid if we cross some politically incorrect line. What if those ‘people’ get offended? Is there anyone left to apologize to yet? Have we sufficiently studied this issue to death with regards to how it will effect the Canadian three-toed hemostar, the Indigenous tribe on the other side of the country, the ever popular Canadian content rules, and just for fun, the new ‘gender’ balance rules we are going to have to follow. To be crass, we are a nation of pussies. Sorry, eh?

Venezuela is listed with having the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Their descent into becoming a ‘shit-hole’ country took less than two decades. Don’t worry Canada will be the Northern Venezuela soon enough the way we are going.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Posted on

CANADIAN GUN ENTHUSIAST

The literal effect of firing an AR-15 according to the anti-gun Liberals and their supporters. Photo Credit: Tony Chand Formation Imaging Services © Crown Copyright DND/MDN
The Bigotry of the Canadian Anti-Gun Movement

There is an ancient philosophy which states, ‘Live and let live.’ The estimated 7% of Canadian men and women who are legally allowed to own firearms wish that the rabid anti-gun rabble would abide by that statement.

In the interest of declaring why I have a ‘pony in the race’, here is my relationship with firearms. Growing up on a farm, I started hunting by myself with a .22 rifle at about the age of 12. Through school, I obtained my Hunter Safety certification, something I highly recommend to everyone starting out with firearms. Through the military, I have trained with and shot submachine guns, different types of rifles and handguns, .50 cal Heavy Machine Guns, and ran main gun shoots with Royal Canadian Navy ships. Presently, I do not have a Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL) or own any firearms. This RCMP website details the steps involved regarding obtaining a PAL and storing/using firearms in Canada.

As for my attraction to firearms, I enjoy hunting and eating wild game, I enjoy the satisfaction of being able to hit what I was aiming at, and while I was with the RCN, I really enjoyed watching the large shells obliterate the targets. I would say that gun enthusiasts would consider possessing and using firearms as mostly a lifestyle choice be it for whatever myriad of reasons. We live in a free and open society where as long as its citizens follow prudent and safe practices consistent with public safety, there should be no issue with one’s choice of pursuits or hobbies.

Getting back to the thesis of my argument regarding the virulent anti-gun crowd: the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines bigotry as the ‘obstinate or intolerant devotion to one’s own opinions and prejudices.’

Just as a thought exercise, replace ‘gun ownership’ with ‘gay marriage’ in the statements below. Looking through that lens, compare the arguments for and against either concept:

  • Why does a Canadian need to have ‘gay marriage’? The typical argument goes along the lines of ‘I don’t believe in ‘gay marriage’ so why should it be tolerated in Canadian society?’ Ban it!
  • ‘Gay marriage’ is dangerous to Canadian society! Despite mountains of statistics detailing that law-abiding ‘gay marriage’ Canadians are not the issue regarding violent crime and the breakdown of society, the anti-‘gay marriage’ advocates want more and more restrictions. Ban it!
  • The government needs to enact more regulation and outright bans against ‘gay marriage‘! Despite the government’s position on ‘gay marriage’ and pandering to powerful political voices opposed to the concept, even law enforcement does not endorse legal ‘gay marriage’ bans. Ban it!

Heaven help the hunters who pose with their kills when the SJWs decide to start ‘bashing’ them. The viciousness of the attacks display an unreasoning hatred reminiscent of a lynch mob. If a person is poaching, there are stringent penalties in place to punish them. But if a person is legally hunting with a legal firearm, then where is the justification for the vitriolic bile and hatred?

As with any prejudicial stance, there is no reasoning which will persuade people of the anti-gun movement that firearms should remain in the possession of legal owners. Their arguments are riddled with hyperbolic ‘facts’. If one shooting occurs because of a firearm, that is one too many. If one legal gun is stolen, they should have been banned. (That’s actually called victim shaming along the lines of blaming a provocatively dress woman for being raped.) Guns are just plain scary, especially the black ones that are termed ‘Assault Rifles’ (a made-up designation).

The crux of the argument, is the opposite side does not understand the ethos of using or owning an instrument to which they only equate with the sole purpose of killing. As society moves further and further away from original sourcing of their food, relying more on the state for their protection, and being subjected to horrifying mass shooting media imagery, it is understandable as to where these attitudes originate from. But just because you do not understand someone’s desire for responsibly keeping and using firearms does not justify society’s attempts to ban them. That is when bigotry edges towards facism.

Returning to my original statement, if I am doing my own thing and not bothering you, then I would kindly ask you to return the favour. Once I cross that line, especially while employing a firearm, then there are strict, severe punishments under the law for doing so. But instead of going after the thankfully small amount of ne’er-do-wells here in Canada, the idea is to blanket punish the law abiding majority. At that point, if you can neither justify or explain your position using logic or facts and only using your feelings on the matter, then you are by definition, a bigot.

To paraphrase a saying coined by The Globe and Mail’s Martin O’Malley and made famous by the elder Trudeau, “there’s no place for the state in the gun cabinets of the nation.”

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Posted on

DISGRUNTLED FARMER

The Canadian family farm is in its sunset years unless action is taken soon

Canadian Farmers in Crisis and No One Cares

*** Trigger Warning ***

If you are a farmer you might be triggered if you read this and may need to seek a safe space in the Back 40.

*** Trigger Warning ***

As Canadians prepare for their Christmas feasts of turkey, ham, potatoes, and all the trimmings, it would be nice if they would give a thought to all the hard working farmers who make it possible for them to be enjoying all of their food abundance. It would also be nice for Canadians to wake up to the fact that Canada’s family farm is headed towards extinction.

Once in a while, I get into a circular farm related discussion on social media with some townie who think they are farming experts and don’t need to listen to someone who actually farms. The easy way to shut them down is to challenge them to go without any farm produced products for six months and I will go without whatever they produce for the same period. Townies would be eating grass to stay alive and most of the population would be dead in a month without a regular food supply. So, maybe farmers are perhaps a vital industry and maybe they should be treated as such.

As you are loosening your belt after too much holiday eating, many Prairie farmers are selling grain and livestock to generate some year-end income in order to pay the bills. Farmers sell their produce on the open market and get paid according to whatever the going rate is. The problem is that over the years, their input costs keep increasing and unlike other industries they cannot recoup their losses by passing increased costs along to the consumer.

Here are a few examples. Adjusted for inflation, the $7/bushel wheat that our farm has been selling this week was worth $34/bushel back in 1870. The feeder calves we sold at market the other day are fetching about the same price per pound as my great-grandfather was getting back in 1918. The value of farm receipts wildly fluctuate year to year with StatsCan reporting that farmer’s net income across Canada took a 45% drop in 2018 compared to 2017.

Imagine for one second if a union or civil servant was asked to take a 45% pay cut for the coming year.

So what’s to be done in order to bring this crisis to the forefront of Canadian politics? Here are a few thoughts:

  • Canadian farmers need to take a page from their EU counterparts and stage large protests. At less than 2% of the population, farmers do not wield much political power except in specific pockets such as the dairy industry in Quebec. Shut down Ottawa for six months or as long as it takes until the politicians start paying attention. Going on strike would not be practical as Canada produces such a surplus of food, most of it gets exported. But if there were food shortages, that would get the public’s attention pretty quick.
  • Farm groups need to mount massive advertising campaigns to educate the public on the importance of farmers to Canada and the World’s food supply. The Dairy Farmers of Canada are on the right track with their recent ad series. Like it or not, marketing ads work.
  • Farm groups need to pressure politicians to shut down NGOs and activists who are spewing absolute nonsense about farm practices. Alberta is on the right track with beefed up laws to crack down on nuisance farm protesters. The anti-farm crowd uses constant fear-mongering, hyperbole, and outright lies to demonize farming. This has led to burdensome and costly regulations enacted by legislators who have little to no understanding of farming and its benefits.
  • Food security should be a national interest. Government programs need to be set up to halt and reverse the hemorrhaging being experiences by Canadian farmers. Very few young people are staying with or entering the field of farming. Incomes need to rise and farmers need to be paid a fair price for their produce. But none of this is new as farmers have been dealing with this crisis since the mid-80’s and have been proposing the same solutions to deaf ears.

It is unfortunate that our country is so vast and our farmers are so independent. Otherwise serious action probably would have taken place much earlier to halt this farming crisis.

So have a thought this Christmas season regarding who made it possible for you to set your table.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Posted on

SAFETY OFFICER EXPERT

The Tyranny of Safetyism

“If it’s not 100% safe, then ban it!”

This is the mantra of a growing section of society where even if the risk of harm is miniscule and virtually non-existent, if even one person is hurt or killed, the practice or product must be banned. Personal liberties and freedoms need some curtailing even in democracies, but where is the point where the Nanny State goes too far?

The premise is termed ‘Concept Creep’. As quipped during a Big Bang Theory episode where Penny and Leonard’s mother were doing shots at the Cheesecake Factory, ‘If one is good, then more must be better!’ You could re-word this quote to say, ‘If less is better, than none is the best!’

To illustrate some of the safetyism prevalent in Canada, let us start with the food we feed our children. Of course, ‘good’ parents want what’s best for little Timmy and Jane. Hence, the explosion of organic foods and the drive by advocacy groups to drive containments that may only be in the parts per billion down to absolute zero.

Instead of rehashing the arguments of why paying three times the cost for organics is a rip-off and why ‘the dose makes the poison’, let us examine a common food item, honey.

If you have an infant under the age of one, Health Canada recommends that you do not feed them honey as it may cause infant botulism. The younglings are unable to process botulism spores until they are a little older and at the age of one year, it is deemed safe for healthy infants to finally taste bee juice.

There seems to be some merit to these honey recommendations as some studies have shown C.botulinum to be present up to 25% of honey batches tested. But according to Health Canada, since 1979 of the 42 cases of infant botulism reported, only 3 were linked to ingestion of honey. Although life threatening, when caught early and treated fatalities are only 2%. These stats come from the States where they credit physician education for mitigating the mortality of infant botulism cases.

Heck, but most parents would agree, my kid isn’t starving for food so why take the chance with honey even though the risk by the numbers is very, very low. But botulism still will occur and it’s more than likely going to come from one of the many other vectors that are all around us. Besides, according to Canadian Traffic Collision Statistics, these same parents are many more times likely to hurt their infant in a vehicle accident driving to the store to buy the honey.

Moving on from innocuous and vague threats in our food supply, there is another hot button safety item that is burning up the social media feeds as the Liberals get set for another round of gun banning.

In general, the anti-gun side which has no clue as to what is involved regarding the legal purchase, use, and storage of guns let alone hand guns, wants to outright ban all guns. They are ‘scary’, why do you need an AK-47 to hunt deer, they’re used to kill women, etc. They just want guns to disappear off the face of the Earth and we’ll all be happier.

The 2 million legal Canadian gun owners have taken some umbrage to these broad sweeping statements which would eventually see a general disarmament of the population. First off, are there not more pressing issues? Violent crime in Canada, especially with a firearm, is an anomaly. According to 2016 figures, violent crime committed with a firearm only occurs .6% of the time.

A Canadian is just as likely to die from stabbing and beating as compared to being intentionally shot by someone but again those numbers are only about .6/100,000 people. The vast amount of people dying from guns, at 75%, are those committing suicide. Banning guns will not prevent suicides as they will just find some other method.

It begs the question, why are leftist governments so intent on banning guns and does it not seem that their end goal is to legislate them out of existence? It won’t reduce the incidence of illegal guns or crime on Canadian streets as the US is flush with weapons already making their way North.

Moving along, the Manitoba Government would like to wish all those merry makers a joyful party season where officers will be impounding your vehicle, confiscating your driver’s license, and levying stiff fines starting at $400 for the penalty of having one drink. Despite the fact that impaired driving rates have dropped by 2/3rds in the last 3 decades and Manitoba already had good numbers, it’s not enough if only one person dies due to drinking and driving.

Of course, if a person is physically impaired and hits the .08 BAC or higher, they should not be operating a motor vehicle. This .08 BAC was actually researched and was not a number pulled from a hat. But this is where concept creep insidiously makes its way into legislation. Some evidence from BC’s dropping of the limit was given as proof that these new measures were going to save more lives. The BC numbers seem to indicate an extra 50 people are alive each year since they have dropped the BAC limit to .05. Just for comparison’s sake, BC’s overdose deaths for 2018 were greater than 1500. There seems to be a disconnect as to priorities.

But the new, arbitrary limit can easily be reached by having one drink. Are you actually impaired with one drink, compared to maybe not getting enough sleep the night before? How soon will it be before the government decides that zero drinks will be the new limit? Shouldn’t the government be removing sleepy drivers off of the road also? Maybe we should just shut down all the highways and keep people in their houses and confiscate all vehicles.

Canadians seem to be becoming timid creatures, afraid of their own shadows, and willing to accede to the State when it comes to what’s good for them. Concept creep is inexorably strangling our personal liberties and freedoms. When did we cede all personal responsibility to government as to what risks we as individuals were willing to take?

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Posted on

CANADIAN POLITICAL PUNDIT

Canada’s Parliment Buildings in Ottawa, Ontario

Thoughts on Canadian Political Reformation

If the trend in Canadian politics keeps moving along its present course, the country is destined for a seismic shake-up. Most places in the world would move to an outright civil war or coup d’état but as Canadians are so ‘polite’, we will probably talk things to death.

Here are a few political ideas that should be studied for their validity and worth in order to re-engage voters and to heal the divides that are threatening our country:

  • The concept of fairness within Canadian society needs to be reasserted.

Canada has always been a country of disparate regions, religions, and cultures. What used to hold us together as a nation was equality, hence the concept of Equalization payments to help the ‘have-not’ provinces. Instead we have become a fractured nation split off into this camp or another.

Representation by population is not working. Pierre Elliot Trudeau remarked during his 1982 Constitution Speech, ‘For if individuals and minorities do not feel protected against the possibility of the tyranny of the majority, if French-speaking Canadians or native peoples or new Canadians do not feel they will be treated with justice, it is useless to ask them to open their hearts and minds to their fellow Canadians.’ You might as well add Western Canadians and anyone who lives outside of a major urban center to that list in order to bring it up to date.

Canada needs a system of government where the ‘forgotten’ Canadians feel they have a voice and are not ruled by the population of the Greater Toronto Area.

  • The election cycle is too short.

The terms for a sitting representative should be lengthened to at least 10 years. As it stands, a government hardly gets going before they have to start electioneering for another term. If businesses and individuals could be certain that policies would be stable and government decisions would stand for a reasonable period of time, then everyone could plan accordingly.

As a check and balance, once the representative was elected to office, they would be limited to one or maybe two terms. My leaning is towards one term only, then the elected official could put their head down and just work towards what was best for their electorate.

  • Voters at all levels of governance need to be reengaged.

Turnout for Municipal elections barely reach 30%. Numbers for younger voters are low. If terms were lengthened, then the opportunity to vote would not come around that often and people would naturally want to have their say.

There could be a carrot and stick approach. All levels of government could be elected on the same day and it could easily be deemed a National Voters Day and a Stat day off. The stick would be severe penalties for eligible voters who did not at least attend a polling station. You would not be forced to vote but you would be strongly encouraged to at least show up.

Voting would at least mean something again and people would not feel as disenfranchised.

  • Politicians need to be held accountable.

The reason people do not vote and feel disenfranchised is because they feel they are not listened to. ‘So what, I voted, those bastards are just going to do what they want anyways,’ is the general sentiment. It seems that politicians, regardless of party affiliation, will say and do whatever it takes to get into power. Then their hope is their foibles, missteps, or outright corruption is forgotten by an absent-minded electorate during the next campaign cycle.

Here is an example of where a politician should have been locked up instead of being lauded for having her picture hung up in the Ontario Legislature. During a recent lecture in Madrid, Tom Harris of the International Climate Science Coalition, detailed the debacle of Ontario’s wind and solar power generation. It is becoming increasingly clear that wind and solar are becoming expensive boondoggles. Even Kathleen Wynne acknowledged the fact that Ontario electricity prices were going to hurt her election chances. She was right and she and her party were spectacularly tossed out.

The consequences for incompetence are literally just, ‘Ah, if they don’t like me, they can just vote me out.’ But a wily politician knows how to buy the population off or misdirect them just long enough to sneak back into power.  Again, most of them seem to be untouchable.

To borrow a Navy model, in order to prevent witch hunts against politicians who were acting in good faith, Boards of Inquiry with actual teeth should be set up to police major political decisions that go sideways. Typically, with the present system, some underling falls on their sword and their sacrifice is held up as an appeasement to the masses to show that justice was done. In actual fact, the ‘sacrificial lamb’ usually just goes into purgatory for a few months then is soft parachuted to another cushy position, eg. Gerald Butts.

When a government policy goes sideways, the inquiry process needs to start at the top right at the Prime Minister if need be. Jail time and real consequences need to be on the table so that these officials are motivated to perform their best for Canadians.

There will of course have to be some checks and balances in order to not stall all government work due to a fear of making a mistake. But this type of system of accountability has worked for hundreds of years in the Royal Navy so it should be adaptable to government.

  • Elected government officials should meet minimum qualifications.

Rule One should be, just because you have a famous name or celebrity status does not make you eligible for political office. Depending on the level of government you are running for, you should already have a certain amount of leadership experience.

As examples, a captain of industry, military personnel with command experience, or leaders of their fields of interest should be the ones holding the reins of Canadian political power. Looking good in selfies and a penchant for showing off designer socks are not qualifications. Even a string of educational letters behind your name should not carry much weight if you have no experience in the real world. Canada deserves the best and the brightest to lead the country and represent our positions on the world stage.

The position of being a politician should be one that a person aspires to become not one which people view with derision.

  • Electoral platforms should be set at least one year in advance of the election.

Too often, such as with the last Federal Election, policies and their implications are swept aside as the narrative gets side-tracked over some inconsequential issue. It just shows our collective disdain for the political elite who are just going to do what they feel like anyways.

Instead, for the upcoming 10 year term, the proposed policies and their respective pros and cons need to be firmly and openly laid before the populace. Priorities need to be discussed, plans need to be drawn up, and deadlines need to be set. Failure to adhere to the plan will be met with consequences. As part of the consultation process, the population would have a strong say in what direction they would like the country to move in. But actual experts would also be given a say in order to blunt any populist movement that was based on misinformation, deceit, or foreign interference.

As an example, a solutions to the woes of Canadian Natives have been kicked down the road by successive Federal governments since the start of Confederation. Frankly, if real deadlines were imposed, it would deliver some motivation for some actual progress. People would have hope that they would have some real progress to look forward to.

This is not an exhaustive or perhaps even a practical list of political Canadian reforms. But if Canada does not do something soon to ease the political convulsions shaking our regions, it will possibly irreparably fracture our great country.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Posted on

PRAIRIE BOY

A teepee stands on Parliament Hill during Canada 150 celebrations in Ottawa on Saturday, July 1, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Justin Tang

Virtue Signalling is Going to Tear Canada Apart

Back in 2012, when Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, it was said that this was the point when America started going down a dark path of racial division.  Outfits like Black Lives Matter and Antifa came into ascension. Cities such as Ferguson, Baltimore, and Charlottesville became synonymous with racism, hate speech, and white supremacy. There are running battles between masked activists and the authorities. The Police were made the scapegoats and supposedly the cause of much of the unrest. Cops are being hunted and ambushed while being accused of deliberately targeting and shooting Blacks. In general, tensions and polarization in the States have been brought to a boiling point. Statue removal, revisionist history, and virtue signaling are the tools of the Left while the Right is calling for Law and Order, security, and putting Americans First. Democrats are crybaby, Marxist snowflakes suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Republicans are misogynistic, Hitler loving, fascist Nazis. Toss in all the weapons available to the average American and it’s becoming a slippery slope towards another civil war. People are choosing sides and are becoming intransigent and ignorant with respect to other group’s views and life choices.

Canada may be seeing its own Trayvon Martin moment with the case of the shooting death of Colten Boushie during an altercation on Gerald Stanley’s property back on August 9, 2016. Considering the news coverage and how social media has blown up over the recent not guilty verdict, it would be redundant to rehash all the details of the incident and the resultant fallout. Here is CBC’s version of the witness statements for those of you unfamiliar with the pertinent details.

To begin with, there are a few virtue signaling points which should be highlighted:

  • Within the news coverage, it is frequently indicated that Mr. Boushie was a ‘Cree man’ while Mr. Stanley is just a farmer. Most people would agree that the two men should just be referred to as Canadians or perhaps just men. Why is race being hammered to begin with let alone just on one side?
  • Immediately upon hearing of the not guilty verdict, Prime Minister Trudeau and his Justice Minister Wilson-Raybould issued social media comments implying that the trial’s outcome was wrong and that the judge, defense counsel, and the non-Indigenous jury of seven women and five men came to a non-guilty verdict based on race. Politicians should never speak specifically about any case especially when there could be an appeal. Most people would call this political interference with the judicial process in order to game a desired outcome irrespective of the facts and accepted law.
  • Immediately upon the not guilty verdict, PM Trudeau, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould have taken meetings with members of Mr. Boushie’s family who have flown out to Ottawa. The family wants to talk about justice for their son and relative and how the jury system should be changed with respect to putting more Indigenous people into the system. Are the representatives advocating for self-defense rights or stand your ground legislation getting the same high level political access?
  • GoFundMe pages for both the Stanley and Boushie families have been set up. The media is calling the Stanley fund raiser a ‘scalp bounty‘ that’s being set-up by the Far Right. After the non-guilty verdict and the set up of the Stanley page, there was fire and fury to have it removed immediately. The Justice for Colten page set up on September 1, 2017 for the Boushie family has no reported detractors. It does however have the following statement, ‘We believe that Indigenous youth deserve safety and the ability to travel freely on these lands without fear of racism or persecution. We are not trespassers.‘ This seems to imply that Native youth are free to travel anywhere with impunity and with respect to the events of the day, drive around hammered, threaten, and destroy property with no consequences.

For the outsiders not familiar with Native issues especially in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, here are some items to help provide context to the tragedy that occurred on the Stanley farm back in 2016.

  • Nationally, Aboriginals are 2.8% of the population but are 18 % of the incarcerated population. In SK, MB and AB, these numbers skyrocket to 76%, 59%, and 38% respectively where the percentages of the Native population are about 11%, 11%, and 5%. Aboriginal Offender Statistics – 2013-08-15

Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Integrated Correctional Services Survey and 2006 Census of Population.

  • The incarceration rate of Aboriginals, as illustrated in the diagram above regarding SK statistics is off the charts.

Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Integrated Correctional Services Survey and 2006 Census of Population.

  • The incarceration rate of Aboriginals, as illustrated in the chart above regarding AB statistics seems to be directly related to their level of education and employment status. Northern reserves have a particularly difficult time attracting long term teachers that understand the culture. Student retention through to high school is also a challenge with many students having to travel to Southern locales to finish their education. Reserves also have notoriously high unemployment rates.
  • Aboriginal numbers for prison populations, suicides, substance abuse, disease, employment, overcrowding, single parent families, legal and police interventions, you name it are all substantially higher than that of the general Canadian population. This is particularly true for SK, MB, and AB. Sources – Backgrounder: Aboriginal Offenders – A Critical Situation (2013-09-16) &   (2016-03-14)
  • There are no specific numbers related to the crime in the Red Pheasant First Nation area but Statistics Canada 2011 numbers were: 43 per cent of Red Pheasant residents were unemployed, compared with 6.7 per cent in its entire census division; household income on the reserve in 2010 was $19,091, compared with $60,434 everywhere else; and a large swath of the reserve’s residents lack education. This would indicate that according to SK stats and studies that there would be a higher likelihood of increased crime in the area.

So it would seem fairly obvious that Natives are having a rough go of things, especially in the Prairies. They get arrested frequently and fill the Prairie prisons. A good part of it is just being wicked. But a good part of it is being placed in a situation where you have little other than wickedness for your life path. You would think that successive governments since the beginning of Confederation 150 years ago may have done something by now to address a festering problem that only seems to be getting worse. Instead, the latest tactic has been to virtue signal that colonialism was bad, white people committed genocide against the Natives, any actual programs of the past were only done in the spirit of assimilation, and the Natives cannot be held accountable for their lawless actions. This backwards looking view is not going to move us forward as a nation that wants to reconcile with our Native populations.

Meanwhile, the people on the frontlines on or near the Reserves and the interface between the inner city Native ghettos on the Prairies have been dealing with a group of people who are difficult to manage. Below are examples from over many decades of the types of behavior reported to be commonplace amongst groups of Natives:

  • Nurses in Northern MB would report that Native mothers would purposely get their children sick by placing gas soaked rags over their faces. This would happen on Fridays and they would get a flight out to a nearby town with a hospital. Baby would be kept for a night or two and mom would head to the bar to party. Child abuse happens regardless of race but these instances were tied to Natives.
  • Indian Affairs personnel would come across instances where Natives did not care about damaging their government provided housing or equipment. There are plenty of stories of knocking holes in the outside wall for the horses to drink out of the tub or ripping up parts of the house to burn for heat. It is easy enough to find a Reserve with burnt out shells of houses or yards full of dilapidated, rusting cars and garbage. Again, apathy and shiftlessness happens concurrently with high unemployment and people living on the dole. It’s where ‘white trash’ and trailer parks got their derogatory reputations from.
  • Anyone who has been around Natives has seen the devastating effects that alcohol has on them. The racist term connected with a drunk Indian is a ‘Chug’. Too many of them will drink cheap liquor, huff gas, sniff glue, etc. Unfortunately, in too many cases this excessive behavior leads to violence and death. Substance abuse is not obviously just a Native issue, take a stroll around Main and Hastings in Vancouver some time, but quite a few Reserves try to remain ‘dry’ just to keep the alcohol related incidents down.
  • If you speak to law enforcement, they will tell you of the crime, abuse, and violence that occurs every day on Reserves much of which never gets reported. For example, on a MB Reserve up North, an RCMP officer stated that as long as an assault didn’t involve a gun but say only a knife, then they didn’t even bother writing it up. Violence crosses all boundaries though. Many husbands in the MB Mennonite population have this idea that punching your wife is only a bad thing after five or six times.

There’s no sugar coating the mess that has been created with the Canadian Aboriginal population. They have been labelled as ne’er-do-wells and in many cases earned the characterization. It is difficult to bounce back from hundreds of years of stigma and scorn. Commentators on the Stanley case say that it is high time to update the 100 year jury selection process in order to better reflect populations in the area where an incident occurs. Instead, how about Canadian governments update the 1876 Indian Act which has only ever seen two major updates, the last being in 1985? Trudeau has made some progress in the two years after accepting all of the recommendations of Truth and Reconciliation report which took five years to complete. But the Liberal government’s handling of the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) Public Inquiry has been a shambles with calls to scrap it and start over. Talk, talk, talk for hundreds of years. It’s no wonder Canadian Indigenous peoples are getting frustrated with the lack of progress. They are trying their best to hold onto their culture, traditions, and some of their original land and hunting grounds. Meanwhile, it just seems as if indignity after indignity is heaped upon them.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe of all the politicians weighing in on the Stanley trial has had one of the best responses. He acknowledged that the province would respect the judicial process. He also stated that it was time to have those ‘difficult’ discussions. These difficult discussions include talking about what’s wrong with Indigenous societies. Unfortunately, when the ‘Politically Incorrect’ speak about such issues, such as Senator Lynn Beyak, they get shouted down, shunned, and shamed. Read some of the letters of support over her views regarding Residential Schools. Her detractors would have you believe that she was on par with a ‘Holocaust Denier’. All sides can share some blame but incidents like these should show the Canadian community that it needs to come together towards common solutions. Rural farmers should not have to feel threatened because they see a van full of young Natives driving up to their property. Young Natives should not think it is acceptable to get hammered out of their minds and wreak havoc outside the Reserve. Instead, governments and communities need to work towards common goals and solutions to address the underlying issues that have never been dealt with.

What Canada really doesn’t need is politicians like Trudeau and his ministers splitting us all into polarized camps with their politically correct virtue signaling. Canada doesn’t need another Oka or more devastated families.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

Offline ! We will start taking orders in

0Hours 0Minutes 0Seconds

Offline ! We will start taking orders in
0Hours 0Minutes 0Seconds
Hide Message