69cat

Now that you know about Bill 6 you can start a topic on it Waldo. My guess is that something that has an impact on 45,000 Canadians wont gather much attention here and so discussions on it will stay on other forums where people have a greater interest. But if you notice the question was asked and now answered and that is what it has to do with this thread. Ok, lets talk about farming and bio-fuels in the Alberta NDP plan. I havent found out anything about how bio-fuels (ie a type of bio mass energy) fit Canadian Green Energy plans. Will bio fuels become more expensive as a result of the new Bill 6 as producers pass the cost down the line as do other businesses?

I was wondering when Albertas farm safety Bill 6 will come up. Basically the NDP launched this bill intended to bring everyone who works on a farm to be under jurisdiction of OH&S policies as well as requiring WCB coverage. This all sounds ok as it is true Alberta is the only province without such, the difference is how Alberta has written their bill vs other provinces. It is important to look at info produced by the NDP gov a month ago vs the backpedaling they have done in the last week. As the position was that the NDP did extensive consultation with the farm community in writting this bill, their position on key items has changed significantly since the town hall meetings started about 14 days ago - these meeting being part of the NDP consultation even though the bill is to be passed likely monday. A pretty short consulation period - and the Harper gov was called undemocratic? One key point that has changed Originally all farm workers were to require WCB coverage whether they received a wage or not. This included family, neighbors or friends helping out. Everyone but a sole proprietor was to have WCB. If no wage was paid the farm owner still needed to report a value representative of the work and pay WCB premiums based on this. NDP has now said family and neighbours will be exempt and this was a "misunderstanding" though published info including handouts at first town hall meetings says otherwise. What i have not found at all is to what extent OH&S will play on Albertas farms, the government has released no info at all. Their is mention of a revised OH&S Code for Farm Workers but no draft found. The NDP is saying the bill will bring farms under OH&S rules but does not say how. For instance OH&S does not allow anyone under 18 o a worksite if the Alberta OH&S Code is implemented. Sask does not use the Sask OH&S Regulations for farms, we have a Saskatchewan Employment Act to govern farm safety. The OH&S Act apllies to Sask but not the Regulations - note there is a huge difference in these two. The NDP has not been clear what it is doing, what is being brought into force, not consulted with those affected and is changing information released as little as a few weeks ago - and this bill is to be in effect in less than 3 weeks. A lot of very unhappy people but they are a minority of the voting public so easy to overlook, such is the case in a true democracy. Perhaps small, special interest groups need better representation.

I agree with you dre Sure, the CPC ran deficits as that is modern thinking to fix recessions, the references being Ontario gov over last +10 years and the demands of opposition parties during the CPC terms. Though the CPC ran smaller deficits than would have occurred if opposition parties had free reign. Record low interest rates have kept things moving along but perhaps this philosophy is simply an economists trick with numbers, higher interest rates resulting in reduced spending may not cripple the economy as we are being led to beleive. We will see just how stupid the average Canadian is with personal finances and their own debt to earning ratios - the government is not responsible for individuals lack of intelligence. But we can be pretty sure that when things get tight and government revenues shrink that the philosophy of spending ones way out of a recession will go into high gear under our new government and cost control will take a back seat (reference to Alberta NDP and Ont gov). For those reasons i expect a recession to come and it will be a long one. Just like one will say it is not the Liberals fault this time, we can certainly say it was not the CPCs fault previously either. The difference will be how much the country suffers as a result of government actions. Developing resources, pursuing Green Energy programs while disregarding present infrastructure needs and capabilities, Climate Change targets, wealth transfers to foreign countries, supporting industries, increasing taxes, developing government programs, managing spending, increasing trade, these are all things that can make a country hurt less or more going through a recession. I dont expect a rosy future so all we can do is see how our government manages the country to limit the effects.

Thanks Wilber, that is a better way to summarize. The dairy farmer must buy quota to exist and is likely his biggest investment. It is bought and sold on an exchange which thus determines its value. I do not know what entity collects the funds when a quota is purchased. However a dairy is impacted significantly by a fall in quota value when one talks of financing when considering lost equity. The recent government investment as i have read is because value of quota is dropping because of uncertainty in the market with talk of TPP and changes in supply management system. There are more points to consider here then the government simply "giving" money away.

Regarding the dairy farmers, i am not one so my only exposure is to what we discuss on farm forums. The dairy farmer buys a 'quota' to be able to sell milk from a cow into the government supply managed market. One guy estimated it at $18,000 for one cow/per year. This money is paid to the government. So when the government makes changes to the system that cuts down how much milk can be sold then that farmer who bought in has seen the value of his quota decreased. So when talk of money being 'given' by the government to the dairy farmer you need to consider where that money came from.

Am i to understand that if solar output is treated as a free parameter and we adjusted the suns output so that it is 50% of what it is today, the earth will continue to warm up? Just to be clear, when the sun goes down or the earth tilts away from the sun i do notice a drop in temperature, but the sun is not a factor in the IPCC climate models. Or is it more acurate to say the parameters chosen for the suns input into the model show the sun of no consequence. But if different data/methods was used to model the sun then perhaps the results would be much different. For example in the paper that demonstrated no significant change in earths temperature by dropping the suns input by a factor of 10 did not have a significant change on the earths temperature - there must be a significant issue with wording because i will bet my life that if day time hours world wide dropped from 12 to 1.2 hours the earth would cool. So what is the wording and graphs in fig 5 trying to say? It is interesting to note there is a lot of scientific study presently being done on how the sun works and its impact on the earth however the IPCC has come to the conclusion they have it figured out 100%. Is this why anyone still researching how the sun impacts the earth is a sceptic? I am trying to get a handle on how the IPCC seems to have conluded the sun has been modeled with 100% accuracy. So far no luck as i see lots of research saying we still have much to learn about the sun.

The Paris attacks should have no change on Liberal policies. ISIS has been well know for three years and its existence goes back further, and there are numerous other such groups - the Liberal party has not received any new information since the campaign that warrants a policy change. The CPC was cautious on refugee claims and the Liberals have told us this was only fear mongering. Nothing has changed here either. The Syrian involvement Canada can do without if it follows the US plan, if Canada follows the Russian plan then we should commit more. I dont know what targets were being hit by Canadian forces previously, i could beleive they were truely ISIS or other targets but i would guess they were of a US agenda intended to facilitate removal of another legitimate government. The quickest and simplest solution is Russian where in the goal is to restore the legitimate government and then let the people decide. Anyone taking up arms against such goal is clearly identified as the enemy and our planes can hit them with authority. John Kerry was on tv stating the US will work together with Russia to restore a working government. I wish that will come true but i expect there will come a difference of opinion on what entities will be allowed to form that government and so a stalemate will result. The most direct solution still comes from Russia. Therefore our jets in Syria is really the only issue that has seen a significant change of events in recent days stemming from John Kerry statements.

Here is more reading on why the suns influence is likely underestimated by the AGW group. Unfortunately some of the papers must be purchased. http://notrickszone.com/100-papers-sun-drives-climate/#sthash.a2UH0HOQ.5wU6uMMB.dpbs Link #2 talks of an over estimation in the amplication of the sun through the atmosphere. Link #31 (abstract only) speaks of a solar maxima of 1995 to 2005 and minimas of the past as well as one predicted in 2020-2045 all based on influence of Saturn and Jupiter on the sun. Link #35 draws strong correlation bewteen solar cycle length (not tsi) and observed temperatures. This one makes mention of the cold winters we experienced recently whereas the best the AGW group can answer is "regional variability". This topic is much like discussing religion, you either beleive the sun drives the climate or not. However regardless of beleif, the impact of temperature cycles on the jetstream seems quite valid and may explain to me why periods of extreme drought in SW US coincides with periods of excess rain on the prairies.

Should change title to "federal gov put ideology ahead..." This article goes back to cases in 1998, and naturally there would be many more issues before then, but sure, lets make it sound like this is only something that has ever occurred in the last 10 years. http://rabble.ca/news/2015/07/health-canadas-lack-rigorous-safety-review-real-outrage Watching news feeds now about Paris terror attacks.

I appreciate your feedback - 1=e, i have more to read now. My background is electrical so if i use the electrical schematic i can understand how the temperature can rise by changing what previously was a fixed resistor value (atmosphere composition). Therefore my background will always bring me back to questioning the accuracy of the models energy source as all other things become resultants of the source. There are other aspects of the suns output that are not easily measured and we are still learning about. I read recently that solar storms pump significant amounts of energy into the earths poles/magnetic field, also solar flares are well known to cause issues wth high voltage lines - Quebec Hydro having a long line running north/south that is like a large antennae. I think as time goes on we will learn that there are other ways the sun puts energy into the earth than simply solar radiation. Not to sound argumentative, just that without seeing how a model was built i wonder about input variables of this importance. Ultimately i think we will know in about 5 years what is true. I will have to re-read your posts but it is good to understand the jetstream slowing down. I wasnt aware of that previously but it makes sense, some reading i have done now says it has been noted to be speeding up since sometime 2013. Wonder if that is impacting the climate locally, weather systems moved through very slowly last year, a few came through this year slowly but less of them and more from the South than West, will have to see what next summer acts like.

-1=e, i will read the accuracy link later, but 0.05C accuracy seems very optomistic however i will read about it. Regarding your link with the 25 page climate study, do you not find it very questionable? I must be misunderstanding the wording because to me it is. Starting with page 4, the electrical circuit of fig 1a appears very correct. However, what appears to be purposeful ommission, is the voltage (energy) source. One cannot have a variation in current (delta t) without first applying an energy source (the sun) and the energy stored in the capacitors is a function of the voltage. One cannot have temperature at all or a charge on the capacitors without an initial energy source to charge the circuit. Further reading of the paper therefore raises suspicion of its validity anytime there is a reference to the voltage source (sun) for the climate model. If you take a highlighter and emphasize each time the words "unknown, uncertain, not understood, not enough information, lack of data" etc, basically any wording that applies an unknown in regards to the energy source is of significant consequence in analyzing the primary variable of current (temperature). Fig 7 shows temperature response with solar irradiance reduced by a factor of ten. I must be completely missing something here and hopefully someone can explain it. Solar irradiance is a measurement of the suns energy measured on the earths surface. Is this not correct? It must not be because if this is the correct definition how is it possible to reduce the output of the voltage source by 10 (turn down the sun with a dimmer switch) and still see a temperature rise. Yes, the capacitors (oceans) are discharging into the circuit but you automatically begin decreasing current (temperature). Yet the model has shown an increase in temperature with the energy source essentially removed. You will know in a matter of a day the your local environment reaction to the sun being turned down 50%. Now granted, it does get confusing by stating that the solar cycles remain unchanged. Lets assume the output of the energy source is still generating its fundamental frequency/amplitude and the model has removed a harmonic (solar irradiance). I dont think this statement is valid but to give benefit of the doubt to the model then i will use it. If we assume the 'solar cycle' is the energy source and you go back and review all the wording pertaining to an "unknown" regarding the energy source would it not be fair to say there is a high likelihood that the magnitude of the source is underestimated? A final reality check of the models output would be to compare it to a data set that was used to construct the model. In this model it does state that tree ring data was used to define temperatures from 1000 years ago and earlier. What i find in regards of studies on tree rings to present day is that they are in conflict with the model output of present day. To me that says there are errors in the model. As i say, i must be missing something when i find reference on page 6 and 13 saying the sun has a minor influence on temperature as well as all uncertainties mentioned regarding the energy source of the model. (sorry, my copy-paste function does not work in that document via the tablet).

Thanks for the link - 1=e, i will give it a read. Sure, i will come out of the closet completely and say i think the sun impacts the climate but temperature change of the earth is dampened by the ocean cycles (pdo, amo, etc), so sure - i am spreading misinformation. As is claimed by the sceptics, the earth has been warming since 1900, prior to that it was warm too, with some cooling into 1900. So yes, cloud cover alone wont lead to lowering the earth temperature but will slow the rise. Remember that there are many methods used for determining earths temperature, methods not as easily ignored with rewriting data as NOAA has done. I thought this graph was a pretty accepted history till the IPCC came along. The vikings settling Greenland did not simply have a twisted sense of humor when naming, but i guess the new thinking is they were just stupid as the earth was never as warm as the graph shows. The graph is simply mis information and should be struck from history, same with the little ice age, and all the data regarding the suns output over those periods which coincidentally aligns with temperature. Note the rapid rise around 1800. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uoTKoIMe2p8/TDCoaYS6LrI/AAAAAAAAABM/gX2OMi0jDlo/s1600/medieval-warm-period-little-ice-age-chart.jpg The difference between me and the IPCC claims is that if i look at UNEDITED temperature data, there are very clear cycles. Such things as precipitation i see in my own environment, and i suspect tornadoes also. However once the pencil is taken out and data modified to obliterate all trends then everything is clearly random. So someone wanting to research forth coming tornadoe activity in tornafoe alley based on temperature cycles will get the simple response "no funding because we have no temperature cycles as per IPCC data". Any climate model should be able to apply to any data set on an individual basis. So if you look at over 200 individual data sets, the climate model should match 95% of them - i dont see it. There is no need to "alter" a data set when you look at it on an individual basis, it does not matter if the thermometer in the monastery in Glasgow is out by 3 deg c, the trend for 300 years is still valid. As i understand things, if the scientific community is asked to calculate the average global temperature for nov 1, 2015 the best they can do is 1 deg c accuracy. Anyway, just some crazy theories of a guy that observes a few things. My theory is the oceans will dissipate heat and earth will cool down in coming years but we will still have many new regulations and taxes and they will be called what they really are "new taxes on energy use". I am in favor of using more green energy and likely will be doing more myself in the next couple of years on that front than most ever will, but also those solutions will come about naturally and do not require people rewriting temperature readings that have been obtained over centuries and are very legitimate values when used as their own data set - especially when used solely to asses trend. But this is apperently "misinformation" to compare a model against a data set.

Michael H, the door swings both ways, i have looked for peer reviewed papers on AGW causing earths temperatures to rise since the 1750s (end of mini ice age) and found none. I actually havent found any that show the temperature rise from 1950s is human caused - but apperently they exist as this is the common theme. If you have links i would like to see, specifically i am looking for peer reviewed papers showing C02 impact on data sets such as these: http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/Berlin_Germany_Large.gif http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/CapeTown_SAfrica.jpg http://www.john-daly.com/stations/ilulissa.gif You are free to find other trends to plot CO2 on if these are cherry picked. The value of the "skeptics" page i linked is that if you bothered to look at some of the articles regarding global warming you can find papers that do follow what the records that are in the history books vs the 'adjusted data' from NOAA. Some good reading here in the 'comments' to very much question what NOAA is doing: http://judithcurry.com/2015/06/04/has-noaa-busted-the-pause-in-global-warming/ But for people in pursuit of real science, what NOAA is doing with their recent data is old news and not surprising. -1= I followed the thermodynamics somewhat, i have read more simplified versions, and i think there in lies the drought/rainfall cycles so thought maybe it occurred to you and so i asked. Since the jetstream is at such a high altitude i did not think it was a factor but perhaps there is something to it. The "polar vortex" would have been a result and it and that certainly created a blocking front north of me so low pressure systems slid along easterly dropping rain, also came the brutal winters of 2013 and 2014, 2015 was better. Also the high pressure ridge over BC has been dominant for a year or more. The 10 year lag is a curiosity, but it does seem more than coincidence that periods of major droughts in US also mean heavy rainfall in central Sask (flooding in Sask in 1950s is well documented) so shifting of the jetstream seems to tie in. My thinking was PDO on west coast releasing more moisture from ocean and being carried westward. Again, just something that may fit in to your theories - maybe not. As for hurricanes, i was thinking in terms of tornadoes - stronger solar radiation creates more water vapor, more clouds, thus more solar blocking and so less hot air at the surface of the earth to mix with cold air (less temp gradient) and so fewer tornadoes. Basically a negative feedback system once enough heat is generated that regulates the earths temp. That would be for more of the global warming sceptics to prove. But public opinion is not interested in such things it seems. And a cycle will continue where solar heating drops off, earths temperature will drop and tornadoes will become more prevelant. US tornadoes peaked in 1974 during the cold period i see. Guess i am too much of a sceptic to see patterns that IPCC tells us cannot possibly be there.

Ok - 1= I just found this link, never knew it existed, so as Waldo says i was posting in the wrong place. You did mention the Atlantic Decadal Oscillation in the thread on the Paris climate summit and now i read this and see you have theory to back up my laymans observations. First, i did not realize that climate sceptics were such a large group, with 1350 peer reviewed papers arguing against AGW listed here:http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html#Droughts An interesting comment from that page says only 65 papers explicity endorse AGW. I wonder if that is true. Rebuttal: No 97% study exists that shows 43,950 peer-reviewed papers explicitly endorsing AGW. The largest study to date, Cook et al. (2013) attempted to categorize 11,944 abstracts (not entire papers) to their level of endorsement of AGW and found 7930 papers (66%) held no position. While only 65 papers (0.5%) explicitly endorsed and quantified AGW as +50% (Humans are the primary cause). Their methodology was so fatally flawed that they falsely classified skeptic papers as endorsing AGW, apparently believing to know more about the papers than their authors. Cook et al.'s author self-ratings simply confirmed the worthlessness of their methodology, as they were not representative of the sample since only 4% of the authors (1189 of 29,083) rated their own papers and of these 63% disagreed with their abstract ratings. All the other "97% consensus" studies: Doran & Zimmerman (2009), Anderegg et al. (2010) and Oreskes (2004) have been refuted by peer-review. Anyway, moving on "-1=", what i see as a climate sceptic is a 60 year cycle not mentioned in IPCC or NOAA data but i beleive you recognize it. What i see on the farm is about every 60 years is period when our land gets 2 to 3 times its average rainfall when California and Texas record serious draughts. At my place this is 2014, 2010, 1954, 1950 and Environment Canada records indicate late 1880s to be wet. There is reference to a US drought 1890 to 1896 and recent California and Texas droughts are well known as are the ones of the 1950s. The pdf in this link is one example that shows temperature peaks at 1880, 1940 and 2000. Seems 10 years after these peaks i see evidence of significant changes in rainfall patterns. http://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/1/1/4 So, question for you, do you have anything to confirm my thinking regarding rainfall patterns following 10 years after temp peaks? Note that after NOAA is done corrupting the temperature records then 2000 and on is still climbing therefore i am saying that the leveling off after 2000 seen in the uncorrupted data allows the pattern to remain true. Regarding your present discussion on stalling weather systems, i can say that i have observed that here. We received our major rain events last year over 2 to 3 days each time (not flash floods) and the systems took days to clear off. Anyway, i am interested to know how you see rainfall patterns. For the record, yes there has been a warming cycle but it fits cycles already documented and i dont expect to see the IPCC hockey stick going forward.

Just to catch up from the other thread, it is interesting when people need scientists interpretation of recorded data to create a model rather than simply look at the data. http://www.cics.uvic.ca/climate/CanadaGriddedClimateData/ReginaT.JPG https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/2013-one-of-the-ten-coldest-years-in-us-history-with-the-largest-drop-in-temperature/ https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/ushcn_corn_belt_temperatures.jpg No one finds it more than just coinicidence that Regina temperatures follow those listed for the corn belt and other parts of the US but do not follow the hockey stick model. Thats a big chunk of north america that is out of step with the model. And i know 2013 and 2014 were pretty cold here with the winters setting lots of records. Hopefully you all out east set a bunch of records the last few winters to off set our record cold out here. I'm guessing not. Speaking of setting records http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_b5jZxTCSlm0/RqNZ-eJqyxI/AAAAAAAAAY8/HcOjoswgkaM/s400/Record%2BHigh%2BTemperature%2BChart%2B1884-2006.jpg One would expect new records to be set all over the US in recent years but it is hard when many were pegged quite high in the 30s and 40s - oh yeah, the climate model doesnt show a significant spike in that era, must not have happened. Yes its all a bunch of crazy theories: 1. The sun heats the earth 2. The suns output is not a fixed constant Will see where we are in 5 years but i am pretty confident Regina at least is in an isolated pocket and wont see significant warming for some time. Too bad, these brutal winters are getting tiresome - hopefully the experts have this coming one right. And one more from Boise Idaho for the heck of it, no hockey stick either, http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_udSTgadqhFc/TRlMJpn_lHI/AAAAAAAACtw/G_Dry_YkITA/s1600/3%2BBoise%2BID%2BGISS%2Bstation.gif

Here you go Waldo, even mentions peer reviewed data and a 64.3 year cycle (1) Solar activities (including sunspot number and TSI) have four major periodic components higher than the 95% significance level of white noise during the period of interest, i.e. 11-year period, 50-year period, 100-year period, and 200-year period. The global temperature anomalies of the Earth have only one major periodic component of 64.3-year period, which is close to the 50-year cycle of solar activity. (2) Significant resonant periodicities between solar activity and the Earth’s temperature are focused on the 22- and 50-year period. (3) Correlations between solar activity and the surface temperature of the Earth on the long time scales are higher than those on the short time scales. As far as the sunspot number is concerned, its correlation coefficients to the Earth temperature are 0.31-0.35 on the yearly scale, 0.58-0.70 on the 11-year running mean scale, and 0.64-0.78 on the 22-year running mean scale. TSI has stronger correlations to the Earth temperature than sunspot number. (4) During the past 100 years, solar activities display a clear increasing tendency that corresponds to the global warming of the Earth (including land and ocean) very well. Particularly, the ocean temperature has a slightly higher correlation to solar activity than the land temperature. All these demonstrate that solar activity has a non-negligible forcing on the temperature change of the Earth on the time scale of centuries. But you can read the entire article regarding sun spot activity and surface as well as ocean temps here http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/07/28/new-paper-finds-high-correlation-between-solar-activity-and-earths-temperature-over-centuries/ As i say, there are reasons to suspect other factors are at work, and sunspot activity has been well documented but apparently the IPCC dismisses its importance, and so arises the sceptics.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_24 Well how about, 2014 is lowest sunspot activity since 1750. And then we have scientists claiming that high sunspot activity causes cooling in the oceans. http://www.space.com/19280-solar-activity-earth-climate.html

I just cant get on board with the planet warming theory when the science is based on creating models to present data for what has already been recorded. Environment Canada is not helping the climate change cause as i look at average temperatures for Regina, Toronto and Yellowknife and see no 25 year upswing. http://regina.weatherstats.ca/metrics/temperature.html And Environment Canada data seems to match this data http://www.cics.uvic.ca/climate/CanadaGriddedClimateData/ReginaT.JPG And for those wodering about rain, assuming we are getting warmer and history shows things were wetter before, i guess we can expect drier times? An inverse relationship maybe. http://i.bullfax.com/imgs/a8988b02e09fee9cb85dc1676a955499fbc476d5.jpg This all doesnt mean the earth is not warming, but to say it is warming and not going to level off or decrease in 20 years is a bit of a stretch. We know sunspot activity follows roughly 11 year cycles, how convinced is the scientific community that the sun follows no other cycles? Just questions i ask myself. Perhaps the PDO, ENSO and ADO are driven by solar output.

Thanks for the link, i will read it today - something i have been curious about. I look at the PDO actually, it has a more significant impact here is Sask (i think) than the Atlantic but i would say there are times when the two sync up to have a greater impact on weather around me and i suspect that is the case the last few years but havent looked that deep into it.

I notice a couple things in this graph http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend/trend.html There is evidence of 60 year cycles as is what i expect to see, so i expect to see a leveling off or trend down going forward next 30 years. The data points are more concentrated around the median since around the 1950's indicating more accurate data measurements as technology improve. How well does the data today obtained with precise measurements equate with data obtained with a guy riding on horseback with a mercury thermometer and measuring probably 1/100 of the locations we measure at now. What i am wondering is the methodology, when showing 150 years of data is the same instrument and same measurement location used to ensure direct comparison with previous data.

Isnt donations by big companies to political parties illegal now? And past indicators are that when big companies did contribute, they spread it around fairly evenly. And finally, those big companies were not taking it directly off your pay check, the company made a profit and spent it as they like so whether they spent it on gold plated toilets are not your concern. But when you pay to a union whose sole purpose is to ensure the well being of the worker and instead that money is put to other uses, then i do see a difference between the two. Union members are generally concerned with where their dues go, but if you want to label it instead as me not liking unions then so be it. Few things define 'big business' like the finances of a union.

Sure Squid, you choose where you work. What is wrong with your workplace not picking political sides and using your earnings to further political goals against your ideals? Not much democracy for a democratic society. Same with unions and government, not a lot of democracy when the government does its best to appease unions to garner votes regardless if public spending in that sector is way out of line.

Also, yes i think unions have outlived their need but i am not against them when they serve their members. In Sask it seems more common for the union to have an agenda and use members due to pursue that. SUN comes to mind with registered nurses vs licensed practical nurses.

The union member has no choice but pay his dues, the car buyer has choices. And having SUN, SGEU and CUPE and other unions running adds does not seem a good use of the members dues either, but so it goes. To put some numbers to context, a union drawing in more than the NDP party is a big deal for the members opposed to how their dues are spent. http://skcaucus.com/index.php?pageid=NewsDetail&newsid=126

Yeah i agree, union funding of any partisan adds should be made illegal. Actually all union adds should ended. Lord knows we have lots of that crap in Sask as it is, unions running adds in support of a certain party is way over the line. But so it is when the worker serves the union and not the other way around.