Werner Patels - Telling It Like It Is

Advice for Stephen Harper

2009-11-08T13:47:59-07:00

When you look more closely, Canadians are quite the conservative bunch. They do not like anyone making waves, ripples perhaps, but certainly not any white-crested waves. This is not only true of so-called “born Canadians”, but also of the many people who have come to Canada from faraway shores. They, too, bring with them traditional and conservative views.

It is therefore all the more surprising that the Conservative Party of Canada has been unable to win a majority government since 2006. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has often felt the need to defend his track record, saying that his approach is one of “gradual conservatism”. In a way, this makes sense, particularly against the background of Harper’s own comments in December 2005 when he said that the entire government apparatus and the courts were dominated by Liberals, which made it impossible for true conservatism to establish itself or to prevail.

Ever since Liberal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff proclaimed that Harper’s time was up, politicians and the media alike have been speculating as to what it takes for Harper to win an outright majority should there be an election. While the spectre of a possible election has been removed for now, everyone knows that the next election will happen within the space of a year at the very latest.

On that note, it is time to give Mr. Harper some advice regarding the future direction of his conservative government and party.

Fiscal conservatism should be the top priority for any conservative party. Now that Canadians are facing a deficit of tens of billions of dollars over the next two to five years or longer, it is more important than ever that a conservative government emphasize its commitment to radical fiscal prudence, such as slashing excessive government spending and creating a meaner and leaner government, not just for the here and now but for the long term.

This should be a no-brainer, as virtually every Canadian supports the idea of fiscal prudence, that is, the very concept of living within one’s means. Every child, after all, knows that you can only spend what you have. Canadians, therefore, have every right to expect no less of their government.

Dealing with the major problems and ever-growing costs related to immigration is yet another field that Harper’s government should not be afraid to tackle. As many polls have shown on a regular basis, as many as 80% of Canadians are dissatisfied or frustrated with the way immigration has been handled up to now. Canadians welcome newcomers to their country, but they also expect them to become fully integrated and productive members of society. However, with only 23% of current immigrants being net tax contributors, it is not hard to see why a growing number of Canadians want to see serious changes with respect to immigration and the way this country handles applications for refugee status.

Contrary to what Liberals and those on the left keep saying, reforming Canada’s immigration system would not necessarily cost the Conservatives ethnic votes. As a matter of fact, a growing number of immigrants are also becoming more and more frustrated with the farce that immigration in Canada has become. Decent and taxpaying immigrants are justifiably scared of being painted with the same brush as those other 77% of immigrants, who abuse the welfare system, keep making outrageous demands for Canadians to relinquish their own traditions and way of life in favour of certain ethnic customs and who commit the majority of violent and brutal crimes in Canada.

Speaking of crime, this is yet another area of public policy that requires a conservative approach based on common sense. The government has, indeed, taken appropriate steps toward getting tougher on crime and criminals. It is true that the costs for incarcerating more criminals for longer periods of time will be higher for taxpayers, but if there is one type of government spending that people would not mind seeing more of it is measures designed to keep society safe.

At the same time, though, Harper should be careful not to appease radical libertarian demands, such as abolishing the gun registry, because those special interests are usually not in sync with what mainstream Canadians want or expect. In fact, in an ideal world the whereabouts and ownership of every contraption capable of shooting projectiles that could injure or kill people would be known to law enforcement officers at any given time.

In summary, Stephen Harper would be well-advised to pursue what could best be termed “mainstream conservatism”, that kind that even many liberals and left wingers could support on occasion. That includes protecting health care and other vital government services, while continually slimming down government and thus reducing the currently excessive tax burden resting on Canadians’ shoulders.

There is absolutely no excuse to be made for allowing government spending to balloon by something like 15% or more in just two or three years. Governments spending must never exceed the rate of inflation, while the overall tax burden must be kept in check and maintained at the level of no more than 20 to 25 per cent of a person’s or family’s annual income. Seeing how Canadian families currently spend at least 45% of their annual income on taxes alone, even a blind person can see that there is a lot of waste to be chopped.

If Stephen Harper manages to adopt such measures and policies under the banner of mainstream conservatism, as outlined in this column, he will stand a good chance of winning a majority next time.

Liberals have no traction at all

2009-10-25T22:48:28-06:00

A new poll has pegged support for the Liberal Party at 25%. If an election were held now, the Liberals would do much worse under their current leader Michael Ignatieff than they did in October 2008 when Stéphane Dion led them down the garden path. After all the fanfare and media adulation for Ignatieff upon his return to Canada and joining the Liberal Party, one must wonder why virtually all that support has evaporated.

The biggest problem has to do with a simple fact and observation: like his predecessor, Ignatieff, too, is not leadership material. Dion and Ignatieff are textbook clichés of university professors who have no clue about or very little appreciation for the real world. In Ignatieff’s defence, though, one must admit that he has at least a few toes tickling reality here and there, while Dion had been sucked into another dimension almost the day he was born.

Another factor that is working against the Liberals is Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s rising popularity. Harper may still not have landed safely in majority government territory, but only blind and narrow-minded partisans would still be scared of him or accuse him of harbouring a hidden agenda. Partisans may also find some kind of satisfaction in pointing out Harper’s shortcomings or mistakes, but those are omissions or errors in the eye of the (biased and partisan) beholder only, and not on the basis of objective facts. Whether or not Harper has done enough on the environment, for example, is a moot point, as the “science” of “man-made global warming” is far from established – as a matter of fact, the more time passes, the more flaws are discovered in the various “scientific” theories behind “man-made” climate change, such as that global warming is not happening at all, as our planet has instead been cooling for well over decade.

In a nutshell, partisans will always find something to object to and quibble over, but for the general public Harper has grown into an acceptable and not-scary-at-all prime minister. But where does that leave Ignatieff?

As Jane Taber, an über-Liberal, recently noted, Ignatieff has cancelled all his trips and engagements, including his much-vaunted trip to China. Could it be that Ignatieff has sequestered himself at home, hoping not to see too many glimpses of the nasty real world?

Leadership is but one of the Liberals’ problems. The lack of a serious platform is another. If one were to ask any Liberal supporter about one or two defining aspects of the Liberal Party today, i.e., the ideas and policies that would or should make people vote Liberal, he or she would most likely be dumbfounded and tongue-tied. As noted by most Liberals, including columnists and pundits, the party’s cupboards of ideas are empty. Nor has the party figured out yet whether it wants to step to the right or to the left.

With Dion, at least, people knew what to expect: a dedicated and lifelong student of all things Marxist, he pursued his crazy “global warming” ideas and bundled them into a leftist Green Shift plan of wealth redistribution, which soon got the shaft not only by almost 80% of Canadian voters in the October 2008 election, but also by a majority of Liberals.

To put it more bluntly, when Dion was leader of the Liberals, Canadians knew why they did not like the man and his ideas. Now, with Ignatieff in charge, voters have simply lost interest in him and his party (hence the ever-declining polling numbers), because no matter how hard they try, they cannot say who or what Ignatieff is supposed to be. He is like the proverbial jello that many have tried, unsuccessfully, to nail to the wall. Some will make the attempt in the beginning, but when failure is virtually a given, they will abandon their jello-on-the-wall project and move on to other, more interesting, projects.

Can Ignatieff turn his fortunes around? Hardly. He himself has been unable to nail himself to the wall. To liken him to jello would actually be an exaggeration. He’s, at best, in the liquid pre-mix stage. At worst, he has not even been removed from the packaging yet. Looking at poll after poll, it is clear that Canadians have obviously reached a definitive conclusion: Do not bother to unwrap him. Instead, return him to the (Harvard) department store for a cash refund.

Are we becoming hysterical ninnies?

2009-10-25T18:57:16-06:00

The fictional TV character Adrian Monk would feel very much at home in today’s world. Whenever one group rings alarm bells and tells the rest of us that something is really, really bad for us or that the end is coming, society, including the media and politicians, lap it up and eventually scream louder than the original messengers.

Some medical scientists believe that parents who are excessively overprotective of their children, such as when a frazzled mother shrieks at the, perceived, sight of a single germ, the children will grow up to have an immune system that shrieks in horror every time it encounters a bug, bacteria, virus or germ. In fact, some researchers are convinced this is a sure-fire way of creating future generations of allergy sufferers.

The swine flu, or H1N1, has been tagged as a potential pandemic that could kill not only thousands but hundreds of thousands. Canada, for example, is now said to be on its second wave of the H1N1 flu. Not surprisingly, Big Pharma has quickly cooked up a vaccine, barely tested it, and governments all over the world are now in the process of releasing the vaccine, which is said to have potentially serious side effects such as paralysis and even death.

After SARS, for which health authorities were thoroughly unprepared, it is understandable that governments want to act quickly and effectively this time. It is highly appreciated even. But if this is the so-called second wave, one cannot help but wonder whether H1N1 is really the genocidal killer it has been made out to be.

I have yet to see a single person in my part of the world who so much as has the sniffles, let alone the flu (seasonal or otherwise). Recently, I also entertained visitors from overseas, who on their long journey to Calgary had passed through some of the biggest airport hubs in the world, thus exposing themselves to the highest risk areas imaginable, yet none of them has contracted anything.

Apparently, I am not the only one to have made such objective and cool observations: one poll indicates that as many as 47% of Canadians are apprehensive about getting the H1N1 flu shot. Most of them, it seems, may still believe the hype, but they are more worried about the side effects that a more-or-less-untested vaccine can trigger. Particularly so, as the death toll of this flu is far from the apocalyptic predictions everyone has been hearing.

People always die of something. Every regular old flu kills many people every year. It is only natural that H1N1 should prove lethal for some as well. Of course, health authorities should always strive to keep the number of fatalities as low as possible. But since even every mundane headache pill has to complete years of clinical trials before it hits the shelves, there is no excuse for pumping out a vaccine for which the usual procedure has been suspended.

For the US president, Barack Obama, however, to declare the flu a national emergency is way over the top and creates a panic where there so clearly does not have to be one. It will only drive more people to clinics to get the flu shots, most of whom would have never caught H1N1 in the first place but who may well experience some nasty side effects instead.

Many of the conspiracy theories about the vaccine currently making waves online are just fairy-tale stories, but it still raises the question as to why we, as people, have become such ninnies and scaredy-cats that we virtually faint whenever we hear warnings of any kind. H1N1 is merely the latest example, but “man-made global warming” and the various “climate change” scenarios strike the same chords.

The entire human civilization seems to have adopted a frame of mind where everyone always expects the worst. No one sees colours anymore; everything has been reduced to gloom and doom. So, whenever a genuinely concerned individual or group of individuals issues warnings, or a malevolent snake-oil salesman speaks of the planet’s demise, most of us are only too ready to believe every single word. Just as we have seen with global warming, so there are also a growing number of individuals in the context of the H1N1 flu who are determined to cause potentially more harm than the underlying problem could ever produce itself, with some bureaucrats and politicians going so far as to say that getting the flu shot is a “civic duty”. With such opinion taking hold, can compulsory flu shots for everyone be far off?

Call me overly skeptical, but exposing myself to a vaccine that has been cobbled together on the fly and has not been tested thoroughly is not part of what I consider my “civic duty”.

Illustration courtesy of Deviant Art

Stelmach fizzles and fibs

2009-10-17T01:10:15-06:00

Even the most fervent supporter of the Alberta Tories could no longer close his or her eyes to the inconvenient truth that has moved into plain view: premier Ed Stelmach has become a liability not only for his party, but for the entire province.

With a deficit verging on $7 billion and counting, an oil and gas sector on life support, and a health-care system that is disintegrating, no one will believe anymore that all these problems have been caused by external factors, such as the global recession. Yet, the premier and his inner circle maintain that none of this is the government’s fault; it all went south because of the world’s dire economic situation.

The prices for oil and gas have, indeed, fallen quite substantially from celestial heights, but the industry could have slogged on had it not been for Stelmach’s changes to the oil royalties framework – not to mention the four or five band-aid fixes he unsuccessfully tried to add later on. Oil executives have been quoted as saying that they are leaving Alberta’s oil sands for economically and politically more stable environments, such as in the Middle East, because Stelmach has become about as predictable as Venezuela’s crazed dictator Hugo Chavez.

That the public health-care system is in dire need of reform, no one will deny. But dismantling the regional structure of the system and replacing it with a centralized “superboard” manned by Tory cronies with no or hardly any experience in the health-care sector was counterproductive. Putting an Australian in charge, whose greatest achievement to date has been his venomous attacks on nurses, was yet another silly idea.

The deficit, certainly, is partially the result of the government’s inability to maintain its revenue streams. Revenue from oil and gas royalties has shrivelled to a pittance. Recession has definitely played a part in it, but the decline is mainly due to Stelmach’s botched royalties reform. The biggest cause of the growing deficit, however, is the Tories’ liberal, drunken-sailor-like spending habits. Cabinet ministers have been caught using the government jet, financed by the taxpayers, for personal, rather than official, business. Stelmach and his team also generously granted themselves a considerable pay raise.

In short, the recession can be blamed for five, maybe, ten percent of the overall problem, but no more. The award for mismanaging Canada’s most prosperous province, while also seriously mauling the goose that lays the golden eggs, however, must go to none other than Ed Stelmach.

With his approval rating collapsing with each new poll, Stelmach decided to spend a six-figure dollar amount on producing a TV “infomercial”. Those who did not fall asleep watching this expensive soporific did not learn anything new. For a lot of tax dollars, Stelmach merely provided yet more proof that he has zero leadership capabilities. He regurgitated the various excuses he has been feeding to the public ever since he took office.

Not once does he accept responsibility for the problems he has caused, nor does he ever apologize. On health care and other issues, he describes the substance of the problem, but fails to provide any concrete suggestions for solving it. Real conservatives must be in shock: their premier and party leader speaks and conducts himself like a socialist: deny everything and blame everything on others, while protecting one’s position of power.

If Stelmach had wanted to look even more ridiculous than he already did following the broadcast of his little home video, he could not have chosen a better way than to tell a fib that would instantly be identified as such: the day after the televised “please-love-me-again” plea, Stelmach made the solemn promise that he would cut his already-excessive salary by 15 percent. The media had a field day shredding his promise and exposing it as the fib that it was: the premier did not cut his salary by 15 percent at all; he only took a 5.7% cut.

It was a standard “accounting trick”: promising to cut his salary by 15%, the premier instead reduced his allowance by 15%, thus producing the 5.7% reduction in salary. Since the premier has never bothered much with facts or reality, there is no doubt he will probably continue to pat himself on the shoulder and remind Albertans that he, Ed Stelmach, sacrificed 15% of his hard-earned salary to serve as a role model for all the public employees whose salaries he plans to freeze for two years.

If Stelmach sticks it out and, thus, sticks it to Alberta in this way, there will be a lot more problems, such as labour action by nurses, teachers and public-sector employees – the writing is already on the wall.

On November 7, Stelmach will face a mandatory leadership review by his party. His predecessor, Ralph Klein, has said that Stelmach must get at least 70% support, or he must resign. Stelmach, however, still believes that people love him – they may not always understand him and his message, but they still love him. The premier should pay more attention to polls and trends: the fledgling Wildrose Alliance party is quickly rising in popularity (at around 22% of support) and has added close to 12,000 new members since June. If the Wildrosers elect the right kind of leader on October 17, Danielle Smith, the party will soon become Albertans’ top choice in future polls.

Regardless of the leadership outcome, Stelmach’s expensive video made one thing perfectly clear: Albertans, no matter where they may find themselves ideologically, cannot in good conscience allow Stelmach to continue on as premier. With the next election still a few years off, his past record demonstrates that he would inflict even more and worse damage on Alberta if he were allowed to serve out his full term.

For Alberta to get back on track, two things must happen. First, Tories must reject Stelmach on Nov. 7 by an overwhelming majority. Second, Wildrosers must elect as their leader Danielle Smith so as to have a formidable (conservative) opposition to a government that is conservative in name only. This way, Albertans could rest assured that there was a competent and credible premier-in-waiting (Smith) while the Tories installed a new, temporary leader and premier.

Who knows? Stelmach’s replacement could turn out to be the answer to people’s prayers. But if not, Smith could pick up the pieces and lead the Wildrose Alliance to victory in 2011/2012. Either way, Albertans would be given a fighting chance under this scenario. If Stelmach stays on for another two or three years, however, Albertans will see nothing but fighting, and not even a trace of a chance.

Danielle Smith spreading hope

2009-10-15T22:51:39-06:00

Maybe I am just overly jaded, but when I hear Prime Minister Stephen Harper or Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff talk, I get this overwhelming feeling that neither enjoys his job. When Canada’s top two politicians speak, they seem to put most people to sleep (especially when they switch to their monotonous and unnatural French).

Don’t get me wrong: we don’t need political leaders who sound like Dr. Phil or some motivational speaker, and we certainly don’t want some infomercial guy flogging tomorrow’s policies for this country who tells us we have two minutes left to avail ourselves of his limited offer. What matters is that we get the right policies in place, no matter how they are delivered during official announcements. But shouldn’t Canadians get a sense, at least, that the person leading them actually enjoys his job?

Harper clearly does not mind being prime minister, and he seems determined to hang on to his job for as long as he can. But there is nothing in his voice or body language that would indicate he truly enjoys his job. The same is true of Ignatieff, who has a dark cloud hanging over his head that follows him wherever he goes.

It is for this reason, and the stark contrast to the aforementioned examples of gloom and joylessness, that I thoroughly enjoyed my interview with Wildrose Alliance leadership candidate Danielle Smith. When she speaks about the multi-billion-dollar deficit that the Alberta Tories have created – a sad fact that makes most of us Albertans simply cry into our security blankets – she comes across as serene and poised to tackle the problems with all the energy (and she’s packing mega-giga-watts of the stuff) she can muster. One cannot help but think that she would really relish the chance to throw herself into the thick of the financial mess, whistling a happy tune as she goes about eliminating Ed Stelmach’s deficit and fixing his mistakes.

Smith is as frustrated with and incensed by the incompetent mismanagement of the Stelmach government with respect to the provincial budget, health care and the oil and gas sector. But there are no overtones of negativity when she speaks about these problems. Instead, there is an aura of positive thinking around her, the kind of vibe that tells you that she has given a lot of thought to Alberta’s current problems and that she is convinced that her solutions will, indeed, result in the best Alberta we have ever seen.

Her enthusiasm is infectious. She, or more accurately, the prospect of seeing her at the helm of the Wildrose Alliance party, may well have been the main driving force behind the fledgling party’s magnetism: between June and early October of this year, the Wildrose Alliance added close to 12,000 new members.

The only time that she sounded a tad sombre during our interview was when I asked her about the relationship between Alberta and Ottawa and what she would do should she become premier in the future. When she said that Albertans send $16 billion more to Ottawa each year than they receive back and that the equalization payment system is a corrupt system, it was clear that she, a born and life-long Albertan, would not put up with anti-Alberta nonsense originating in Ottawa or Toronto – or anywhere for that matter. I could almost hear the entire province stand up and shout “Hear, hear!” when Smith talked about how Albertans, despite the money they have sent to Ottawa and the rest of Canada, where it has been used to fund government programs Albertans don’t get to enjoy at home (like $7-a-day daycare), never hear even a simple thank-you from Canadians, but plenty of vilification instead.

The other remaining leadership candidate, Mark Dyrholm, refused to be interviewed, because, according to him, I have “praised” Smith too much and have been too supportive of her in the past. It is probably just as well. Unlike Smith, Dyrholm has spread very little enthusiasm or optimism of the infectious kind. Instead, he appears to have wasted most of his opportunities for connecting with the public (e.g., in op-ed space made available to him by newspapers) complaining about the unfair treatment he supposedly keeps receiving from columnists, newspapers, bloggers, etc. who all seem to have conspired against him to promote and sing the praises of Danielle Smith. (The Calgary Herald, apparently, has been a particularly nasty thorn in his side, as he kept arguing that the newspaper had come out in full support of Smith, who used to write columns for the paper, and therefore failed to give him a fair and fighting chance.)

You can go up against some nasty challenges without losing your positive outlook, and Smith is living proof of that. While Dyrholm has just about 900 Twitter followers, Smith has close to 1,500. When people listen to Smith, they learn about the serious nature of Alberta’s problems – caused by Stelmach and his Tories – but they also come away filled with hope for the future. No doubt, her approach should serve as a role model for Messrs. Dyrholm, Harper and Ignatieff, who could do worse than taking pointers from Smith on political leadership.

Local TV's dirty little secret

2009-10-11T23:09:18-06:00

The way Canada’s broadcast networks tell it, Canadians want local TV, and they are willing to pay for it, no matter how much it costs. Carried by this belief, the TV networks have been lobbying the federal government and its regulatory arm, the CRTC, to allow for special fees to be paid by cable-TV companies to the broadcast networks. They argue that cable companies merely “steal” their signals and sell them on to subscribers. Cable companies, however, have balked at the proposition and promised that any fees, if implemented, would be passed on directly to cable subscribers.

Seeing their support from the general public dwindle, TV networks have launched their campaign Local TV Matters. In TV and print ads, they raise people’s awareness about the cable companies’ “dirty little secret”: cable companies, the broadcasters claim, have had a free ride and enriched themselves on the backs of local TV.

Various cable providers across Canada have fought back valiantly, also in TV and print ads. But they should not expend too many of their resources on this fight, because the broadcasters find themselves on extremely shaky ground, not least because of their constant fibbing and distortions of facts, which is why the majority of the general public is clearly siding with the cable companies on this one.

Make no mistake: cable companies have had a rather checkered past. For example, they once tried to trick subscribers through what was known as “negative-option billing”, a way of adding extra services to the cable bill without waiting for the subscriber’s specific order for such services.

But compared to the situation in the US, Canada’s cable-TV companies provide better services at much better prices. While a major cable channel like Showtime in the US can cost a cable subscriber as much as US$9 a month (and that is through a limited special offer), equivalent channels in Canada can be added for as little as C$1.50 or, perhaps, $2. No wonder that so many Americans are still without HBO, Showtime or AMC, thus missing out on Mad Men or the Seinfeld reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm, while the majority of Canadian cable or satellite subscribers have relatively easy and inexpensive access to these programs.

Most Canadians are probably not aware of this either, but most US cable providers do not offer the “timeshift” option, i.e., the main networks from various time zones across the country. In the US, timeshifting is therefore the satellite providers’ strong suit, but in Canada, every cable company does not only deliver all the major Canadian networks spread out over the various time zones, but the American networks as well. It may not sound like much, but the timeshift option gives subscribers a lot of freedom and flexibility in how they consume their favourite shows even if they do not own a PVR.

But there is more that distinguishes Canadian from American TV. In most locations in the US, at least where yours truly happened to find himself at various stages in his life, people could easily forgo cable-TV and watch regular off-air channels using their rabbit ears. If they were not interested in specialty cable channels, they could at least get all the main broadcast networks such as ABC or FOX – and totally free. Now that America has gone digital, which allows networks to piggyback two, three or more channels onto the same channel frequency, Americans could soon find themselves with thirty or forty channels, free-to-air, courtesy of their “rabbit ears” (and a digital converter or digital TV-set). This will make paying extra for cable a less attractive option, especially if Americans continue to be strapped financially for years or decades to come.

In Canada, however, TV reception has been a problem, especially in big cities where most of the viewers live that advertisers deem valuable. Blocked by the concrete and steel that make up our cities today, it is nearly impossible to receive a half-decent picture in, say, Toronto or Calgary. I remember that in Toronto I would be lucky to get a very snowy CBC Toronto and an almost unidentifiable CityTV with almost no audible sound whatsoever. But that feat required placing one finger on the antenna’s tip while performing a continuous sequence of Arabian cartwheels.

In other words, Canadian broadcast networks – CBC, CTV, Global and CityTV – would instantly lose at least 70 to 85 percent of their viewers if cable companies were to drop them from the line-up. Or, put differently, the cable-TV companies provide the backbone of the broadcasters’ transmission and distribution infrastructure. Except for the guy sitting directly on top of or underneath a broadcast tower, most Canadians would not be able to see any of their homegrown networks and programming if it were not for the cable companies making them so easily accessible.

Losing basic cable carriage would mean sudden death for all Canadian broadcasters (including the CBC). In fact, the broadcasters should be paying a fee to the cable companies, instead of the other way round, as no Canadian network would be viable without cable. Besides, the federal government only recently forgave $450 million in outstanding fees that the broadcasters had failed to pay. They should take that money now and invest it wisely. Apart from that, they may soon have one competitor less, following the filing for bankruptcy protection by CanWest, the owner of Global TV. This would leave only three major networks, or two commercial ones, and if they still could not make ends meet, they would deserve to go under as well.

Canada’s cable companies have invested steadily in the latest technology and launched digital and high-definition channels at a time when these innovations were only a wet dream in most other countries. When cable subscribers can get the “whole package”, including HD channels, for as little as, say, C$130 a month, one is almost tempted to wonder how the cable companies can still turn a profit and keep upgrading their networks. In most other Western countries, consumers pay a lot more a month for a lot fewer channels, and often in addition to a government-imposed, expensive licence fee.

Canadian broadcast networks must finally wake up to the reality of the TV market, with the emphasis being on market. The real decisions are made by consumers. The main reason why so many local stations have had to shut down is that Canadians have not been satisfied with the quality of programming. Unless CBC, CTV, Global and CityTV realize that they must produce for the marketplace, rather than around or behind it, they will all disappear over time – cable fees or no cable fees. Consumers of TV are no longer a captive audience. They have access to a variety of other media, both domestically and from abroad, and they will quickly vote with their feet, um, remotes.

The Nobel Schmobel Prize

2009-10-09T21:41:52-06:00

I am usually pretty well informed about the current events of the day, but today, for various reasons and circumstances, I had not had time yet to pay much attention to the news headlines that were flashing on websites and TV screens around me about US President Barack Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

Thinking that it must be yet another crazy idea cooked up by some left-wingers, I had shrugged it off as a mere proposal – or a joke. Imagine my surprise when I finally found the time to follow up on the story, only to learn that Obama had, indeed, been awarded the prestigious award.

The Nobel Peace Prize, once awarded to real purveyors of peace and a better understanding between people and peoples, such as Bertha von Suttner, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Albert Schweitzer or Martin Luther King, was first devalued when it was given to Yasser Arafat, and then almost brought down to zero value when handed to snake-oil salesman and yarn-spinner Al Gore for his home video filled with convenient falsehoods, An Inconvenient Truth.

Now, even Barack Obama himself knows that the Nobel Peace Prize has lost its prestige and lustre for good. The president looked extremely uncomfortable having been placed in this situation. Winning a prize for something he has not done yet, and may never do in fact, is something Obama clearly did not want. If given a chance, he surely would have told the Nobel committee to select a more worthy candidate.

Obama does deserve plaudit for becoming the first African-American president. But his election has not ended the racial rift, nor has it united America in any shape or form. As a matter of fact, many of his extremely leftist policies proposed or implemented so far, pushed on him by the radical socialists and communists in the Democratic Party, such as Nancy Pelosi, have opened both old and new fissures and brought the country to the brink of a civil war.

As for the issue of racism, Obama himself exhibited traces of anti-white bigotry when he quickly sided with Henry Louis Gates and condemned white police officers. At the same time, many African-Americans have not been pleased with their “brother’s” performance either. One African-American, for example, blasts Obama several times a week from his Internet radio mic.

The American president has also failed to deliver on his election-campaign promises with respect to the Middle East, Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan. Ever since Obama took office and started meddling in these various trouble spots, the fronts have hardened. Israel is more reluctant than ever to accept directives from the White House, both Iran and North Korea are thumbing their noses at the US president, Pakistan is becoming more and more anti-American and pro-Taliban (and pro-terrorism), and Afghanistan is very likely to become Obama’s own Vietnam.

On economic and trade matters, Obama has not produced any results either. Instead of fostering greater international cooperation, his administration has actively promoted protectionist measures (“Buy American”) while speaking out of both sides of its collective mouth. The president has made several promises to Canada, for example, that the “Buy American” nonsense would be lifted again, but as the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, knows only too well by now, they were only empty promises. And to spice things up even further, the Obama administration has triggered a trade war with China over car tires.

People around the world, including the usual supporters of leaders like Obama, must be extremely disappointed today. Not only were more deserving peace activists passed over for the greatest honour in the field, but the accomplishments of 120-odd individuals and organizations recognized and honoured with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize have also been diminished. Most of those previous laureates sacrificed their personal lives to make even the tiniest difference in other people’s lives. By comparison, Obama has done and accomplished diddly-squat.

A growing number of people need firm hand

2009-10-08T10:39:41-06:00

Libertarians and many others are incensed by the recent plan of the Canadian government to allow for random breathalyzer checks on our roads. They say this would create an intolerable intrusion into people’s privacy. That may be so, but it is the right response to a society that is becoming increasingly more stupid and more immature.

I am known for speaking out against too much government, excessive tax burdens and attempts to gag people’s right to free speech. But I am also a law-and-order guy who thinks that criminal and anti-social behaviour must be punished severely – the more severely, the better.

When former British prime minister Tony Blair introduced asbos (anti-social behaviour orders), I was among the first to applaud and dreamed about how wonderful it would be to have asbos in Canada as well. I have seen way too many examples of people acting stupidly or in anti-social ways – as a result of current and/or past drug use, as well as poor parenting – to still believe that government and law enforcement should not do everything possible to put an end to all that nonsense.

The recent incident at the Calgary zoo speaks volumes: two morons break into the zoo, jump a fence to get closer to the tigers’ cage and stick their arms in. One of them will probably lose at least one of his arms. They are both facing criminal charges, while Calgarians are saying, given the reckless and utterly inane behaviour of the two nitwits, that they should pay for their own medical bills, instead of relying on other taxpayers to pay for their stupidity under the universal healthcare system.

No person in their right mind would do such a thing. Only one who is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or both, or one who has already suffered permanent brain damage from smoking marijuana for too long would do such a moronic thing as using one’s arm as bait for a tiger.

Sadly enough, the number of people who get behind the wheel while drunk or stoned is climbing. Here in Calgary, I have lost track of the many times I have had to call police to report street-racers and other reckless drivers – and not too long ago, I managed to have about five to seven idiots arrested for drug use and dealing in my neighbourhood. Going by the number of criminal and anti-social morons I have “collared” in the last two to three years alone, I should be named honorary sheriff or something.

No matter what the causes of reckless driving may be, giving police permission to stop any vehicle for a spot check on the driver’s sobriety is a good thing. Who knows what, or who, else some of those checks may uncover?

The self-anointed libertarians have been out in full force, screaming bloody murder over the random breathalyzer checks and advocating for an extreme form of libertarianism that is about as detrimental as socialism or communism. Pure libertarianism, if we can call it that, would result in total chaos, loss of order of any kind and anarchy. In an ideal world populated by reasonable and mature people, it might work, but seeing how people are actually becoming dumber almost every day, giving people total freedom would be a disaster.

It is a sad testament to our times that too much freedom from rules and order would end in a catastrophe. While we need to scale back the reach of government in many other areas, when it comes to law-and-order issues, there is no doubt that the vast majority of people need a watchful eye and a firm hand to keep them out of trouble or, if they have already offended, to punish them severely.

Canada's new natural governing party

2009-10-06T10:42:42-06:00

The Big Red Machine is dead, and Canada has a new “natural governing party”. This is the logical conclusion to be drawn from recent political history in Canada. The latest poll bears this out, placing the Conservatives at 41%, and thus in majority government territory, while the Liberals continue their downward death spiral.

What makes this most recent poll such terrible news for Liberals is that it shows women moving away from the Liberal Party, with a vast majority stating that they think that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is not only dull and drab, but also highly untrustworthy.

Left-wing journalists, naturally, are trying to put a positive spin on the poll, arguing that the poll doesn’t show so much growing support for Prime Minister Stephen Harper as declining fortunes for Ignatieff. This is blatantly untrue. Ignatieff’s popularity is sinking, but the prime minister is also connecting with more and more voters across the board.

Harper has succeeded in doing the seemingly impossible: convince Canadians that his Conservative Party doesn’t have the kind of “hidden agenda” that Liberals would always accuse them of having. Instead, he’s managed to turn the tables on the Liberals, with a growing percentage of voters now believing that it is the Liberals who harbour a hidden agenda.

Over the last year or so, in particular, one thing has become crystal-clear: Canadians have fallen out of love with the Liberals at long last. Whenever there is talk of a possible election, the poll numbers for Liberals plummet. This is a clear sign that Canadians are not only reluctant to go through yet another election, but also determined to keep the Liberals from the levers of power.

While Harper has shown that he can be flexible whenever necessary, as his Big-Government, “socialist” 2009 budget so amply demonstrated, the Liberals have been unable to come up with any ideas or policies that would excite voters.

On the leadership front, the Liberals have failed too. Jean Chrétien will always be remembered as the “Prime Minister of Corruption”, but Canadians, inexplicably, still liked the guy. But once Chrétien had finally shuffled off, the Liberals weighted themselves down with Paul Martin, Stéphane Dion and, now, Michael Ignatieff.

None of those post-Chrétien leaders did a great, or even mediocre, job. Donations to the Liberal Party started drying up, and even long-time Liberal supporters began drifting towards the Conservative Party after realizing that Harper was the best game in town after all.

As more and more voters are beginning to understand that there is only one party looking out for Canada and trying to get the best deal for all Canadians, the Liberals are moving in the opposite direction, making themselves look petty, partisan and motivated by self-interest.

“If you put the party first, you never lose,” Ignatieff said the other day, showing off the Liberals’ true colours. What matters to Liberals is the Liberal Party, but not the country as such.

As if on cue, out on a stage steps Harper, starts hitting the piano keys and belts out a Beatles song in the presence of Yo-Yo Ma. It is hard not to feel a little pity for the Liberals, who must be realizing now that their leader will never be this kind of prime minister “of the people and for the people”.

After tickling the ivories, Harper will surely see his approval rating rise even further; the new poll doesn’t yet reflect the prime minister’s new superstar status. Ignatieff, however, will be forced to think seriously about his future as Liberal leader – and as a Canadian resident.

With the prime minister basking in the limelight, the most attention Ignatieff has managed to attract his way has been his infighting with the Québec wing of his party, which will likely result in a considerable drop in future polls.

The Liberal brand has been severely damaged in recent years, and it almost seems beyond repair. The party has run out of “talent”, such as it ever was, and will be looking at many more years of ineffectual leadership and lack of ideas.

Canadians, meanwhile, are cottoning on to the veracity of an old saying: Le ciel est bleu, l’enfer est rouge – The sky or heaven is (Conservative) blue; hell is (Liberal) red.

We must start selecting better immigrants

2009-09-29T00:57:58-06:00

A recent study caused the entire country to blush with embarrassment: almost 50 percent of Canadians are functionally illiterate. They can read individual words, but fail to comprehend what they read. But Canadians are not the ones who deserve most of the blame for this; Canada’s illiteracy rate is being driven up by the ever-growing intake of the wrong immigrants.

Last year, a Canadian newspaper revealed official numbers that proved that Canada had been attracting the wrong immigrants. Of all immigrants in the country, only 23 percent were “net tax contributors”, with the other 77 percent posing a burden on hard-working taxpayers – to the tune of $18 billion. (The paper, unfortunately, did not specify whether that amount was meant per year or as an overall cost, but it is logical and plausible to assume that it referred to the annual cost to the taxpayer.)

That amount, $18 billion, includes welfare, housing and healthcare expenses, among other things, but does not include the immense cost to society created by the crimes committed by immigrants.

Immigration has always been touted as a quick-fix solution to our problems: filling jobs that Canadians supposedly don’t want to do; providing a future tax base to pay for Canada’s ever-increasing Big Government programs. Why, then, do we bring in mostly people who add to the cost, instead of selecting those from whom the country can actually benefit?

Almost half of the 250,000 immigrants Canada admits a year enter the country under the family reunification scheme. This has swelled the ranks of the elderly and infirm – a group that is growing among native-born Canadians and a source of future affordability bottlenecks when it comes to social programs and health care – and is one of the main reasons why Canadians have to wait for months, or years, for crucial medical procedures. If you have ever wondered why emergency rooms are always clogged, and some people die before staff can attend to them, look around: the majority of patients are elderly aunts, uncles and grandparents or cousins brought in under the family class – none of whom will ever learn English and contribute even a penny in taxes. In other words, they are completely useless and are dragging Canada down into the gutter.

Australia probably has the best immigration system in the world. The ability to speak English must be demonstrated before arriving in Australia, and foreign credentials must be upgraded and validated for the Australian job market before the applicant sets foot on Australian soil. Consequently, newcomers hit the ground running, find work relatively easily and are much quicker to integrate with mainstream society.

Canada would do well to copy the Australian system on a one-to-one basis. Proven language skills and professional qualifications must become our top priority in selecting immigrants. Importing welfare cases – not to mention criminals and even terrorists – is a great disservice to Canada. It is not helpful either that we keep adding to our illiteracy rate, and become the laughing stock of the world, by bringing in people who have absolutely no interest in doing the right thing by learning at least one of Canada’s two official languages. Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski would still be alive today, instead of having been tasered to death at Vancouver airport, if he had been obligated to speak English before landing in Canada. This laxness in enforcing our immigration rules to the letter have cost Dziekanski his life (this and his bull-in-a-china-shop behaviour).

This imported illiteracy is costing taxpayers billions, with six in ten newcomers being illiterate and uneducated. With the federal budget deficit nearing $60 billion dollars, we cannot afford $18 billion for the 77 percent of immigrants who are unproductive, billions more spent on fighting crime and terrorism in immigrant communities, and again billions wasted on dealing with literacy issues that shouldn’t be ours in the first place.

To these amounts, one must add substantial costs stemming from industrial accidents and lost productivity that are the direct consequences of employing uneducated and illiterate immigrants (including in municipal, provincial and federal government positions).

Canada has played global welfare service to the world for far too long. Charity begins at home, and it is high time Canadians looked after themselves and their own future for a change. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney, should study the Australian system and bring it to Canada – the sooner, the better.