kimmy

Remarkably fortuitous. -k

We're arguing over Canadian Content now? Holy. In terms of entertainment programming... aside from gay sketch comedians, what has CBC put on TV that anybody pays attention to anyway? The train-wreck of "This Is Wonderland"? And their forays into sit-coms make even Train 48 look like Masterpiece Theatre. I understand they're now reviving "The Beachcombers", proving that they're about as creative as Hollywood movie execs. The best Canadian comedy and drama airs on CTV, not CBC, and it has been that way since "North of 60" wrapped up. I have seen some interesting things on CBC late at night. I once saw a show-- Zed-- that presented short films by independant Canadian film-makers. Too bad they bury this stuff on their schedule to make sure nobody finds out about it. Much like they put any interesting radio programs on late at night, the policy seems geared towaard not offending their target audience-- senior citizens-- or catching the attention of anybody under 30. Aside from crappy drama and weak comedy, CBC's Canadian content seems to be mostly news and investigative and documentary content. The other networks provide the same. Just not with CBC's slant. -k

When SARS first became big news, I was visiting my dad's family farm, situated between the Buffalo Head Hills and Caribou Mountains in the far north of this province-- far more isolated than any suburb, gated community, or subdivision. As we watched the newscasts, with their warnings about travel to Asia, the impact of the disease on cities with large Asian communities, and so on, my uncle mused that maybe living in the middle of nowhere wasn't so bad after all. My aunt replied that her co-worker's daughter Tara had just returned from 6 months of teaching english in China. The point being: even sitting in my aunt's kitchen, 800km from Edmonton or any other city with any appreciable Asian community, I was just 3 degrees of separation from a prime carrier candidate for SARS: Tara ----> her mom ----> my aunt ----> me. Really, where are you going to go where you can be sure that nobody you come into contact with has been in contact with somebody else who might have been at risk in some way? You'd have to live like a paranoid survivalist to be sure. I get the impression that some people would be happier that way. -k

Maybe once the national debt is paid off, that would be something worth looking at. How odd it is that most threads B.Max participates in turn into sheer nonsense in short order. In regard to the idea of other provinces buying their poor a one-way ticket to Alberta, perhaps it is worth a look. Those people won't find Alberta's social programs more generous than those back home. However, they'll find little difficulty finding work. A win-win. -k

So far, I think this is a very astute analysis of the situation. This one, I quibble with a bit. I think the danger to the Liberals is not so much that there might be current ministers implicated in the actual wrongdoing. I think the more likely (and more damning) indictment would be if Gomery contends that prominent current Liberals had knowledge of the shenanigans ongoing in their midst, but turned a blind eye to it. (A.) Given the amount of legal representation that concerned parties had on hand at the inquiry, I'm skeptical that due process was violated. "Leading the witness"? This was an inquiry, not a trial from an American lawyer show. (B.) I found Prime Minister Martin's defense of Judge Gomery's impartiality to be highly inspiring-- indeed, the highlight of his term to date. If he's good enough for our Prime Minister, who am I to find fault? (C.) In this instance, I'd imagine that asking for public reaction to the sponsorship scandal and to the testimony is much akin to asking for Victim Impact Statements. -k

The Liberals are griping about having to pay the cost of campaigning nationally in two languages while the BQ can concentrate their funds on just 75 ridings in one province. Very well. What about previous elections where the Liberals themselves spent a minimum of money or effort in the west because they recognized their money would be better spent elsewhere? I believe in 2000, Chretien spent only a couple of hours in Alberta, at a Landslide Annie event, then jetted off to Vancouver for a day, after which it was back east. "Fly-over territory", as one of Mirror's articles put it. That said, having the funding formula reflect the number of candidates the party is running seems a sensible idea. Changes to the rules, if they are to be made, should come into effect *after* the next election, as changing the rules now would be highly inappropriate. It would be much like when kids play football at recess, and since there's not enough players, the bossy kid doubles as the referee... and calls penalties and makes up rules as he goes along to the benefit of his own team. We have all seen what happens to that kid. Soon enough, players from the other team recognize that no matter what they do, the bossy kid is going to call penalties on them, and decide that if they're going to be penalized, they might as well earn the penalties, and do a vicious gang-tackle on the bossy kid. And then you get Kimmy running in from the sidelines to try and stop the bleeding by stuffing an entire pocket-pak of Kleenex up the kid's nose and searching in the grass for the missing tooth. The Liberals passing a bill to mess with the BQ's funding right before an election would generate a similar result, except that instead of angry grade 3 kids, the ones administering the gang tackle will be Quebec voters, and Kimmy will not be there to administer first-aid, because Kimmy just doesn't have enough Kleenex for the Liberals' Quebec caucus, or enough sympathy to make the effort. -kimmy

Here in Edmonton, we have a land-area larger than Detroit, with less than 1/4 the population. I recently bicycled to Nisku for a job interview, and went via 50th street and south through Beaumont, then east to Nisku... and found that surprisingly between new housing developments and industrial parks, the land between here and there is filling up pretty quickly. The International Airport isn't going to be "out in the middle of nowhere" for much longer. I think that something the city has realized recently is that the tax revenues and so-on from the new developments is starting to be offset by the cost of providing services way out there. I think we are starting to see better use of land-- I read that the population in the downtown core will soon be double what it was a few years ago, thanks to new developments on formerly under-utilized properties. We have big new developments springing up in other places within the city as well... the abandoned Heritage Mall site is supposedly going to become a huge development that'll house over 5000 people; we have also seen the old WCB lot turned into housing; the university has leased out land at Michener Park for high-density residential housing, and I see many high-density developments being built around the south side. It looks to me as though people have started realizing that at the rate the city is growing, better use of land within the city is a necessity. How to fight sprawl? I think that making new developments on the edges of town reflect the cost of providing services out there is one way. I think that also providing tax incentives for developers to better utilize land within the city would make sense, not just from an environmental point of view, but also just plain economic sense. I am always a little perplexed when I see an empty lot or barely-used strip mall in what should be a valuable location. I think that the way to influence peoples' behavior is through their wallets, and the city has the power to direct how development occurs using taxation and other financial measures. -k

I don't think he is. I think he's warning the Liberals not to try to get an early election. -k

An icon? hmm. I'd never heard of him before. I looked over a couple of his columns and thought it looked like the kind of stuff you'd find in a free weekly or a college paper. Would you care to elaborate and also suggest whose projections are worthwhile and why, in your opinion? First off, the methodology ignores issues and circumstances that might be specific to a particular riding. An example being David Kilgour in Edmonton-Beaumont. According to the methodology, the Liberals won that riding last time, and are theoretically more popular this time, so they should win that riding again. In reality, however, the Liberals held that riding because of Kilgour's longstanding personal popularity in the riding, and will not have similar success without him. I am sure that the same type of argument will apply in other ridings across the country where candidates are a major factor (what will happen in Chuck Cadman's riding? How will Gurmant Grewal's shenanigans impact in his riding? What happens if Ed Broadbent retires? What happens if Sheila Caterwaul unretires? Are other popular candidates retiring? Will star candidates be appearing in certain ridings? Are there currently hot-button issues that will be of special interest in certain ridings?) As well, ridings are changed and resized between elections, so it's a big assumption to try to apply results from one election to the next when the ridings themselves are quite changeable. Second, he tries to project regional poll results onto specific ridings. But we know that regions are not homogenious. Rural Alberta voters are different from urban Alberta voters. Lower Mainland voters are different from Vancouver Island voters and Interior BC voters. Montreal voters are different from Quebec City voters or Chicoutami voters. So applying Quebec-wide poll results to individual ridings is on shaky ground. He uses a "sensitivity factor" to try to compensate for this. This factor reflects the idea that (for instance) a poll showing an increase in Tory support in Alberta will have a proportionately larger increase increase in Rural Alberta ridings, and that a decrease for Tory support in Alberta will have a proportionately smaller decrease in Rural Alberta ridings. That seems like a fair idea, but it assumes that the changes in poll results can still be applied evenly province-wide. That's not necessarily a good assumption. Also, it is a fact that in Canada, urban ridings have disproportionately more voters than rural ridings. I suspect that random polling will therefore always overestimate urban voters and underestimate rural voters, because rural voters have disproportionate influence per vote. And thirdly, the way his sensitivity factor is calculated is also very suspect. It appears as though it's compiled by comparing two subsequent election results, and comparing the change in each riding relative to regional popular vote. But this strikes me as highly bogus. First off, as I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of specific factors that come into play in each riding, and trying to attribute changes in results between elections to party-specific sensitivity is a big assumption. And I think a statistician would say that two elections 3 and half years apart is not a meaningful sample and could result in gross error in trying to estimate this sensitivity factor, even if one assumes that it exists. I am not a mathematician or a statistician or a pollster or a political scientist, but I am a highschool graduate and to me it seems like there are gaping holes in this methodology. Perhaps somebody with a stronger academic background could do a better job with this. -k

I think your comment is facitious but I am not sure. I'm of the opinion personally (because of these types of comments that have been rife for the last bit) that you all need to fix your own shit. Altruism is completely lost on you lot. you don't give to get. You give because you can. I for one won't donate a red cent. Whaaa? I didn't think he was being sarcastic. Your response makes you seem like a very very small man. -k

The Liberals' current resurgence in the polls is largely because of the old adage "out of sight, out of mind." Martin, over the summer, has had a free ride. Parliament's out, Gomery's busy writing, things have been low key. When he's been visible, it's been at events that not even he could screw up, like giving speeches at centenial celebrations, or announcing relief for New Orleans, or talking about the NAFTA ruling victory. All that stuff will change within the next few months. There's no doubt in my mind that Harper's comments were in response to rumours that the Liberals might engineer their own non-confidence defeat to get an election before Gomery comes out. "Oh yeah? Try it, we're not scared." If the Liberals engineer their own defeat, Harper has to make sure that the public sees through it. If Martin calls an election before Gomery's report, Harper has to remind people of when Martin went on TV to plead for people to wait for the Gomery report. -k

Per Ontarian? Each Ontarian does not contribute $1856.May I make a point here, a cause for reflection. "Ontario" does not pay taxes. People in Ontario do. There are some people in Ontario who a lot of taxes, and some people in Ontario who pay few taxes. The transfers we are talking about do not occur between Ontario, Alberta and other provinces. The transfers occur between different people in Canada. In many cases, the transfer occurs within Ontario. It happens that there are many people with high incomes in Alberta and Ontario and so as a result, those provinces appear to be "net" contributors. It depends how you wish to look at it, I suppose. Ontarions pay taxes which are collected by the federal government and some of it is redistributed back to the provinces through CHST. But Ontario gets a far smaller share per capita than some of the poor provinces. Ontario has to collect taxes to fund its share of health and social programs in the province too. If Ontario was receiving a larger share of the CHST (or a fair share, I suppose McGuinty would say) then Ontario could have a lower provincial tax rate. So, in a sense, this *is* coming out of the pockets of Ontario citizens. Put another way, one could consider that Ontarions and Albertans pay taxes to their own provincial governments as well as to the governments of the have-not provinces. -k

I'll believe it when I see it... Nonsense. They'll sleep just fine at night without a token Albertan in Cabinet. What credibility does having Landslide Annie in cabinet get them? If the Liberals get stomped again in Alberta-- and they will-- it'll probably help their fortunes elsewhere in the country, in fact. There was a kernel of truth in one of the nutbar articles that whatsisname linked to: at a time like this, when energy prices are sky high and everybody hates the oil business, there's political gain to be made elsewhere by taking on "the Alberta oil barons". You just threaten dem wit de "tough love," as a noted Shawiniganite once put it. I think you've drastically underestimated the size of the Byfield clan -k

Gas taxes are collected by the federal and provincial governments, right? Isn't most road construction paid for by city governments, with provincial and federal contributions only coming in grants to major projects? Wasn't the Liberals' "new deal for cities" so popular with mayors because it planned to actually give cities a share of the gas tax to use on roads? What, then? Grader? Gravel truck? Back-hoe? Shovel? Whichever the case, I don't think any of us are prepared to believe that you're some kind of expert in transportation and urban planning. Frankly, you just don't seem cut out for it. (although, if you were an urban planner during the Bill Smith regime, that would explain a lot.) Japan has a numbers problem (too many cars in not enough space) that we don't have... yet. Although some places in Canada-- Vancouver, for instance-- already have traffic congestion problems that make a 10km drive take half an hour. Sitting in those traffic-jams is pretty much the exact opposite of freedom and mobility, and we use things like "planning" and "foresight" so that we might try to avoid having those problems here. Because at the rate Edmonton and Calgary are growing, the day is not far off. -k

mirror, if you read the document on "Democratic Space" where he explains the methodology behind his projections, it's clear that his projections are worthless. I can't imagine that even Martin's monkeys in the PMO are dumb enough to call an election based off a goofy website and a poll in Quebec that looks SLIGHTLY LESS DISMAL than usual. -k

Great article. Who is this guy "Slinger"? Is that his real name, or is it a pen name? If it's a pen name, why didn't he choose something more appropriate, like "Jackass" or "Retard"? Isn't a pen name in a newspaper column one way to pretty much guarantee that your column will be taken about as seriously as a posting on an internet message board? I mean, I doubt that Jack Layton will stand up some day in the House of Commons and say "Mr. Speaker, I hold in my hands a column by Slinger of the Toronto Star..." He probably won't ever say "Mr. Speaker, I have on my Blackberry a posting by KIMMY of Mapleleaf Web..." either. But the difference, of course, is that I don't get paid to write columns. I get paid to run around with alcoholic beverages. I don't have a major newspaper giving me space and exposure. If I did, I'm sure I would not waste it by writing under a pen-name. Of course, perhaps Slinger isn't a pen-name. Perhaps that's really what his parents named him. Which would explain quite a lot. I digress. What is Mr. Slinger slinging? Ah. He doesn't wish to vote for Conservatives because young-earth creationists vote Conservative, and those guys are idiots. (shrug) I wonder which party Islamic fundamentalists vote for? Because whatever party they're voting for, I'm not voting for that party, because those guys suck. I don't think I'll vote for whichever party that Toronto's Tamil community votes for, either, because some of them support violence back home. I won't vote for whichever party Montreal ad-firm guys vote for, because those guys are crooks. (you can see where I'm going with this, right?) I don't know the background to Ignatieff's comments regarding torture, but if "Slinger's" treatment of this is as rational and fair-minded as his treatment of Harper, I've got a hunch it's probably not worth the trouble of researching it. -k

Public transit is publicly subsidized because it is in the public interest to do so. When you sit in your car, you might feel resentful that your tax dollars are helping pay for the bus of 40 people in the lane next to you. Use your head. Be happy. That's 40 less cars clogging the road you're on. And that's 40 less cars fouling the air you're breathing. Motorists who gripe about subsidizing public transit are too short-sighted to think of how much worse road conditions would be if everybody acted as selfishly as they do. -k

Well, it appears that Terry Balash and McGuinty are using the same set of figures, at least. $1856 per Ontarion works out to $23 billion. Does Ontario pay more than its fair share into confederation? Does Alberta? The answer to that depends on what you consider fair, I suppose. Ontario, like Alberta, pays because it is a prosperous province. There has been some debate here on our happy little forum recently as to whether transfer payments and equalization are achieving the goals they're supposed to, whether it has created (as Harper put it) a culture of dependancy and defeatism in Atlantic Canada, and whether some revamping of the system would improve things. Is it fair that Ontario's government is in a deficit situation while the federal government continues to chalk up surpluses? Well, as long as there's a national debt, I'd suggest that yes, the federal government has the right to run surpluses and put at least some of that surplus into repaying the debt. The Calgary Sun article points out that when Klein came into power, he undertook a series of what some considered harsh measures to bring the province's spending under control. Alberta was fiscally mismanaged by Klein's predecessor, and some short-term pain was necessary to turn things around, particularly in the early 1990s when oil revenues were not nearly so lucrative for the province. And I read recently that analysts from some of Canada's major financial houses felt that Ontario's deficit is not because of equalization, but because Ontario has been fiscally mismanaged over the past decade. The first article B.Max linked to says that there may be a commission to review the situation. Of course there will be. With an election coming soon, Martin can't be fighting against the Ontario government. He needs to call a commission, and he needs it to last until at least March to make sure the election is over before the commission returns. -k

My rant was directed at people whose taste in luxuries-- expensive vehicles and homes in exclusive locations-- has put them in their current situation. I'm sure you could make a good argument for government involvement (I think local governments are already involved in taxi fares, in fact) and if there's social benefit to be had, then I'm not opposed. I think the benefits of subsidizing public transit to continue to keep rates low, for instance, are worth the cost. If there's a similar argument to be made for freight vehicles, then I'm open to the idea. However, I'm certainly not open to the idea of subsidizing people whose lifestyle choices have put them in a predicament with regard to mushrooming fuel prices. -k

One of the most interesting media moments I have seen in a while was CNN's Anderson Cooper going off on Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu. He began interviewing her, and she immediately set about thanking various relief agency and government officials for their response to the tragedy. He interrupted her and said, essentially, that it makes people angry to hear the politicians patting each other on the back and congratulating each other during a situation where there's so much chaos and suffering, and explained-- in graphic detail-- some of the carnage he had witnessed. When she said that she was angry too, he demanded to know who she was angry at. It struck me for 2 reasons. First, to see a news broadcaster who had clearly been so deeply affected by what he was experiencing really drove home the gravity of the situation. And secondly, I can't recall the last time I saw a reporter so assertive during an interview. Whether here in Canada or in the US, I have been so accustomed to seeing reporters stand there like dummies as they allow politicians run through their "talking points" and accept everything at face value. I'd forgotten what it looked like to see a reporter actually challenge his subject, to actually take control of an interview, and to smack down the "talking points" and get to the real issue. -k

Well, that's true of course, but I didn't consider them because it's part of their cost of doing business, and inevitably a cost that'll be passed along to their customers. -k

The Toronto Star recently published a column by Murdoch Davis, editor of The Beaver, which is apparently "Canada's history magazine," to provide some historical context to western resentment: Star column: West's resentment rooted in history. -k

That was August1991, not Argus, that linked to Moore. -k

Rural Canadians have very good reasons for having guns. Confiscate all civilian guns, and you're putting the safety of members of my family at risk. I won't tolerate it. -k

Indeed! Happy belated birthday, Alberta Junior! I kid. -k