SHAME 4 2DA CANADA..... POLITICAL BULLSHIT AND BEANS- is there one country on this planet that elected or self-appointed politicians actually care 1 iota about the people they serve... the really good everyday folks, kids, aged, disabled, capable, working folks and them looking... seriously???
... WELL NOT IN CANADA- POLITICAL GREED OF ALL PARTIES... make us feel like we're 3 foot tall...
Classified - 3 Foot Tall (music video)
comment: Most amazing fan video I've ever seen
AND HERE WE GO...
NDP: Trying to score political points before knowing all the facts is reckless
As they sift through the ashes of their town, the grieving citizens of Lac-Mégantic can console themselves that their loved ones did not die in vain: they have served as useful props for the advancement of Tom Mulcair’s political career.
If the NDP leader did not explicitly blame the train derailment and explosion that levelled the town on Conservative spending cuts, he certainly left the impression they could have been responsible. “This tragic accident,” he told CTV News, “reminds us (that) we are seeing more and more petroleum products being transported by rail, and there are attendant dangers involved in that. And, at the same time, the Conservative government is cutting transport safety in Canada.”
This was no stray slip of the tongue. The same day the NDP released a statement making much the same point, in much the same language. “This tragedy reminds us,” it quoted its transportation critic, Olivia Chow, that “Conservatives have recklessly cut public safety,” to the tune of $3 million in the last year.
“This tragedy reminds us.” If the party is not suggesting a causal link, then it is using the disaster to score points about policies that had nothing to do with it. But in fact the only reason to bring them up is to imply that they were somehow to blame, or at the very least could give rise to similar disasters in future.
The issue here is not partisanship, as such: that’s what politicians do. Nor is there anything wrong or disrespectful about searching for explanations after a tragedy, though it is usually considered tactful to wait at least until the remains have been identified. What’s wrong is seizing on explanations without evidence, based solely on calculations of partisan advantage.
Let me repeat: there is no evidence to date to connect the accident in Lac-Mégantic to Conservative spending cuts. Indeed, it has not been established there have even been any cuts, in terms of front-line staff, or if there were, how they might have contributed to events. It’s just something to throw out there, hoping foggy minds will not think too closely about it.
To be fair, the NDP is hardly alone in this game. Commentators on the right have been equally quick to claim the disaster makes the case for transporting oil by pipe, rather than by rail. But here again, there is no evidence, the experts tell us, to say that one or the other is safer overall. Each has its advantages, and each its perils.
Certainly this one accident, as unprecedented as it is horrific, is not sufficient evidence in itself. Consider what a singular convergence of events was required to bring it about. A highly flammable cargo; an unattended train; parked on a hill; on the main track, not a siding; above a town; far enough from town to build up great speed; and, as a final piece, that fatal bend in the track as it entered town. If any one of those is not present, no disaster and no deaths. But even if all are, you still need two more: the failure (so it seems) of the air brakes; and the failure (so it is alleged) to lock the hand brakes.
So as you read each news story suggesting the accident was a result of some obvious regulatory failure, and not to a catastrophic mix of inclement circumstance and human negligence, ask yourself how any of them would have contributed to this particular tragedy; how, if they had not been present, it might have been avoided; or whether whatever remedy is now proposed would have occurred to anyone except in hindsight.
We are told, for example, that the townsfolk had earlier expressed concerns about the condition of the track. Great: how would even an immaculately maintained track have held a train going around a bend at better than 100 kilometres per hour? We are told that the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway used “only” one-man crews, as if it were unusual. But it’s not unusual, except in Canada: in most developed countries it’s the norm. Do runaway trains routinely plow into towns in Europe?
For that matter, do they in Canada? We are told the railways are “self-regulated.” But this is simply untrue. They are regulated by Transport Canada (see, for example, the Rules Respecting Track Safety) and the Canadian Transportation Agency under a number of acts, including the Railway Safety Act and the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, and are inspected regularly.
For all the oft-cited increase in traffic, Canada’s railways have in fact been getting steadily safer. The number of rail accidents each year — not just the rate, the number — has fallen by roughly a third over the last decade. Derailments are down by a similar amount. The rate of main-track accidents, at 1.6 per million train miles, is barely half what it was in 2005. (Figures available here: http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/stats/rail/2012/ss12.asp)
There are things we could do, without a doubt, that would preclude another Lac-Mégantic altogether. We could make the cars out of titanium, or reroute the lines around towns, or take out the bends. But are the costs, potentially high, worth the risk: vanishingly small? We could ban carrying oil by train, but other methods, as I’ve mentioned, have their own risks — and what of the vast number of other hazardous materials that also travel by rail?
Perhaps it is reasonable to require that trains not be left unattended, or not parked on an incline, or that signals or failsafes be installed to catch any trains that do slip their moorings. But whatever regulatory regime we come up with, it won’t alter three fundamental facts: there are events you can’t plan for; there are costs that aren’t worth bearing; and the best regulations in the world only work if people follow them.
Postmedia News
http://o.canada.com/2013/07/10/trying-to-score-political-points-before-knowing-all-the-facts-is-reckless/
AND.... LIBERAL - TORY.... SAME OLE STORY
Liberal, Tory, same old story
7:10 am, July 11th, 2013LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
In light of the entire forests being wiped out by pundits speculating about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's impending cabinet shuffle, ask yourself this: When was the last time a cabinet shuffle changed your view of a government?
When was the last time you said to yourself: "Well, I really like/dislike Stephen Harper, but now that he's made so-and-so the minister of whatchamacallit, my view of the Conservatives has completely changed?"
How is a cabinet shuffle going to put a "fresh face" on Harper's government (a favourite phrase of the punditocracy), given that the PM runs his government with an iron fist, and, as far as anyone knows, has no intention of shuffling himself out of his job?
Back in the the real world, cabinet shuffles fit G.K. Chesterton's definition of journalism perfectly.
As the British writer put it, "journalism largely consists of saying ‘Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive."
So it is with cabinet shuffles, which at least receive less media attention when they don't occur, as this one will, in the dog days of summer.
In other words, at a time when pundits are desperately searching for news out of Ottawa, in the same way a Canadian senator desperately searches for his OHIP card when he's been asked to prove where he lives.
Problem is, what's ailing Harper's government isn't a lack of cabinet shuffles.
What's ailing it is that it's been in power for seven years, through three elections, and has picked up a load of political baggage along the way, from G8 gazebos and fake lakes, to $16 orange juices and the never-ending saga of Sen. Mike Duffy and his amazing $90,000 cheque from the PM's former chief of staff.
Sound familiar? Think back to former Liberal PM Jean Chretien, his illuminated Shawinigan fountain, the sponsorship scandal, and the unforgettable testimony of former Liberal cabinet minister and Royal Canadian Mint head David Dingwall that he was "entitled to my entitlements."
Think of former auditor general Sheila Fraser carving the Chretien government a new one in her report on how the costs of the federal long gun registry, originally budgeted at $2 million, ended up at over $1 billion.
Now think of Auditor General Michael Ferguson reporting on how the Harper Conservatives lost track of $3.1 billion that was supposed to go to fighting terrorism.
This always happens to the party in power and it never has anything to do with its political ideology.
Inevitably, the people who told you they came to fix the government become the government and, over time, turn into the government they came to fix.
It happened to Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives. It happened to Chretien's Liberals. Now it's happening to Harper's Conservatives.
Liberal, Tory, same old story, and in the provinces which occasionally elect NDP governments, it happens there as well.
Who doubts that if Justin Trudeau wins the next election in 2015, we won't, after a few years, be screaming at him about the Liberals' arrogance and sense of entitlement, the way we used to at his late father, long after our early infatuation with "Trudeaumania" faded away?
The reason is that political corruption isn't a function of political ideology - only fools, twitter trolls and political spin doctors believe that. It's a function of power plus years spent in office.
Eventually, those in power develop a taste for the perks that accompany it and forget they came into office promising to end those perks.
This doesn't mean the Conservatives have no hope of being re-elected in 2015 because Harper doesn't have to beat Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa, just the leaders of the Liberal and NDP parties.
But Harper's big problem right now isn't a lack of cabinet shuffles.
His problem is that, over time, all governments become the things they despised in opposition.
-------------
Politics ‘a dirty word’ for Canadians, finds new study of engagement between elections
By Misty Harris, Postmedia News July 8, 2013 10:38 AM
Protesters participate in the National March for Life on Parliament Hill in this 2006 file photo. Although the case of Ivana Levkovic deals specifically with the law around concealing a child’s body, at least one expert says there’s room for the country’s top court to give a judicial opinion on when human life begins.
Photograph by: David McKinley/Postmedia News/Files , Postmedia News
If the rules of polite conversation forbid talking politics, it’s no wonder Canadians are known for their manners.
Sixty per cent of Canadians say they haven’t discussed a political or societal issue face-to-face or over the phone even once in the past 12 months, according to a striking new study by Samara. And it’s not that those conversations have simply moved online, either.
Just 17 per cent of Canadians say they have shared political content via social media in the last year; 15 per cent blogged about a political issue; 30 per cent used email or instant messaging to talk politics; and 25 per cent participated in an online discussion group for such purposes.
“Politics is viewed as a dirty word – something that isn’t appropriate or that should be celebrated,” said Alison Loat, Samara’s executive director. “But it’s through politics that we decide how we’re going to live together, how we shape laws, how we allocate billions of dollars of tax money. . . . It’s the process by which we build our country every day.”
Samara, a charitable organization, commissioned the research last year in order to tilt the conversation about low voter turnout toward the underlying issue of poor political engagement between elections.
Nearly 2,300 adults nationwide, with an oversample of young Canadians (18 to 34), participated in the online survey. In it, people were asked whether they had recently been involved in 20 activities Samara considered vital to measuring political engagement.
In just three of those 20 pursuits did more than half of Canadians participate during the past year: joining a group (not necessarily a political one), volunteering, and signing a petition (58, 55 and 51 per cent, respectively). The least popular activities involved “formal” engagement: volunteering in an election, donating to a party or candidate, or joining a political party in the last five years (each drew a positive response of 10 per cent).
On average, Canadians pursued just one-quarter of the possible 20 activities. Only about 20 per cent of Canadians were considered partisans or “party people” (those who’ve been formally involved with a party or campaign).
Samara concludes that “if a healthy democracy requires active participation, then Canada is on pretty shaky ground.”
“There isn’t a culture of ongoing discussion and debate around the political issues that shape our country,” said Loat, hastening to add that apathy – so often fingered as the culprit for low voter turnout – isn’t the problem.
“There’s lots of evidence that people care about the issues around them. What they don’t do is connect that to politics.”
To wit, 49 per cent of Canadians said they had boycotted a product in the last year, and 51 per cent signed a petition, but just 31 per cent contacted an elected official about an issue of concern.
Young people, whom Loat dubs the “canaries in the coal mine,” were a good news-bad news story: Although they participated in most activities at the same rate or higher than those 35 and older, their formal engagement was lower by 11 to 34 per cent, depending on the activity.
Loat said people too often connect political involvement with pushing an agenda when, in fact, Samara’s polling suggests “party people” do much of democracy’s heavy lifting: volunteering with community groups, connecting with policymakers, talking to friends and family about issues that matter, and so on.
Starting Monday, Canadians will be asked to recognize such role models at everydaypoliticalcitizen.tumblr.com, an initiative designed to change the way people think about political participation.
“We celebrate volunteering and giving to charities . . . but we don’t equally emphasize how important it is to be an active participant in our democracy,” said Loat. “If (engagement) numbers were higher between elections, we’d see a higher voter turnout as well.”
mharris@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/popcultini
http://www.canada.com/Politics+dirty+word+Canadians+finds+study+engagement+between+elections/8627950/story.html
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.