The Arts and Culture Fist Fight

The Conservatives ignore the maxim of 'let sleeping dogs lie'

Stephen Harper slapped the arts community in the face with a wet fish last week. Ordinary Canadians, he says, when they come home from a tiring day at work, don't think the arts community has anything to offer them in terms of entertainment or in terms of a discipline.

The francophone community in Quebec has, perhaps, taken offense.

If this is perceived as English Canada snatching resources from the mouths of Quebecois artists it may revitalize the whole sovereignty debates. Again.

It's pretty funny as a video.

To make this video more understandable for you earnest anglos 'le phoque' is a seal and 'ti' is an abbreviation of 'petit', meaning 'little'.

Spare the Rod, Spoil Everything

The Ideological Gospel of Crime and Punishment According to the Conservatives

The Conservative government has been hard at work these last two years pulling the levers of power. They've been remarkably successful in changing the lives of Canadians, in seemingly small but actually important ways.

The Harper Record, published by the CCPA, is a compendium of the policy changes and government shifts that have been implemented by this minority government.

For instance, the Conservative government has avowed to get tough on crime with mandatory minimum sentences etc. It apparently costs $83,000 to incarcerate a person for one year. But if the intent is to reduce crime and increase security for Canadian households we might take this into consideration:

Investing in Crime Prevention

The evidence is conclusive that the most effective way to prevent crime is to ensure healthier children, stronger families, better schools and more cohesive communities. Crime prevention through social development is a sound investment. The dividends include less violence, safer communities and significant cost savings in the criminal justice system and in almost every other area of public and private spending.

This quote is pulled from the 1996 Public Health Agency of Canada site.

The Conservatives have vowed to increase penalties for violent juvenile crime and disdains the advice of those working in 'ivory towers', for example those who actually work in youth justice. But violent crime is on the decline in Canada. Significantly, Quebec has the lowest per capita violent crime statistic nationally (59 per 1000) while Alberta has the highest (160). I'll give you two guesses as to which of these two provinces has invested more heavily in the social development, 'soft-on-crime', ivory tower approaches so disdained by Harper.

Further, the statistics indicate that people under age 25 are more likely to be victims of violent crimes. Which may mean, as Harper claims, that youth are reckless and violent because there are no consequences. Or it may mean that the lack of community-based mentoring, the necessity of two income families, lack of educational opportunities, etc are conditions that create dire consequences for society at large and especially for youth.

The overall per capita murder rate in Canada in 2005 was 2.4 per 100,000. Quebec's homicide rate was approximately 1 murder per 100,000 citizens, while Alberta's was almost 3.5 per 100,000. (Those bastards in PEI are choosing not to carry their blood-lust weight in Canada - there wasn't a murder on the island in either 2004 or 2005.)

It is important to target gangs and organized crime since they were responsible for 16% of all murders in 2005, up from 3% in 1995.

The instrument of choice in the killing of others is either a knife or a gun (stabbing and gun shot wounds predominate in homicides in Canada). The focus on increasing penalties for gun related crimes has, perhaps, its genesis in fact that a gun is the weapon of choice for gangs. But disrupting crime and organized crime before it happens might be a better way of increasing personal security for Canadians instead of increasing punishment after your little sister has been gunned down in the cross fire of two rival gangs.

Click here and here for Canadian crime stats. Click here to download the Juristat Homicide in Canada PDF.

Further the Conservatives have altered the government's drug strategy to an anti-drug strategy and shifted the drug addiction and abuse portfolio from the Ministry of Health (a harm reduction strategy) to the Ministry of Justice (an enforcement strategy). The Minister of Health, Tony Clemente, has vowed to close down Vancouver's Insite program despite evidence of success and international admiration for the program.

This is significant because intoxicants are involved in most homicides and most violent crimes. Drug addiction creates enormous pressures on our social resources (ambulance, police, insurance claims) and on quality of life for those afflicted. A pure enforcement strategy (more police and more jail) isn't likely to increase security because it doesn't solve the problem at almost any level. (And it's financially expensive.)

Crime is a social and community problem that affects everyone at some point. The most likely solution mixes enforcement with investment in health care (8% of those accused of homicide are mentally ill; drug and alcohol abuse are common catalysts in violent crime), invest in social services and education, and invest in the creation of meaningful and viable job programs (in theory people are less likely to steal for survival if they are gainfully employed - admittedly this hypothetical doesn't explain the theft of whole economies by the powerful).

So, we all agree we don't want crime and violence in our communities. The question is do we use all the tools at our disposal and approach this intelligently.

xoxo

MVL

"Tell the rabble to be quiet; we anticipate a riot"

if you can't quote Jesus Christ Superstar during an election...

I have to admit that the Nanos Poll numbers don't look particularly good for the political future of Canada, unless you're a Conservative Party enthusiast.

When Harper called a pre-emptive election despite his passage of fixed-date elections, I thought people would be more upset than they were. When he started wearing an avuncular blue cardigan and being photographed at the kitchen table of 'ordinary Canadians' (I suspect he was actually photoshopped by CPC hacks at HQ) I thought people would see right through the deceit. I was positive they would remember his record during his time in office.

Bill C10, Bill C51, Bill C61. The tearing up of the Atlantic Accord. The retreat from national daycare. The retreat from Kyoto and the appointment of John Baird as Minister of the Environment. The firing of the nuclear safety commissioner. And, and, and...

Well, apparently not. We like him. Or at least a third of us like him (37%) and this might be enough for the CPC to form a majority government come October 15, 2008.

Rather than turn to alcohol (well, hello, Shiraz) and despair I decided to download The Harper Record, published by the CCPA and spend the weekend curled up on the sofa, drinking coffee, reading and occasionally talking to my imaginary friend, Jesus.

After I finish this little history of Harper's two and a half years of power I may be hectoring my fellow citizens.

You know, with love.

xo

MVL

After Rapture can I have your stuff?

A few oily questions and some gaseous considerations (A to G)

I awoke this morning, pre-dawn, and lay in the dark turning over a couple of thoughts.

Here they are in an order that didn't exist in the dim morning light:

a) Why do Americans pay considerably less for gas than Canadians? A US gallon is equal to approximately 4.55 litres. Americans pay $3.70 for a gallon while Canadians pay $1.37 a litre, which is $6.28 a gallon.

b) Exxon Mobile declared $40 billion in profits in 2007. How much profit is taken from every gallon of gas?

This a little complicated. There are many factors involved in sorting out these calculations. Exxon Mobile is not the only company selling gasoline in the US. Exxon Mobile has other markets it profits from.

The US uses 375 million barrels of oil everyday. This is approximately 137 billion of barrels of oil a year, or 5.8 trillion gallons of gas.

(If Exxon makes $0.01 profit on every gallon of gas it would require the sale of 4 trillion gallons of gas to make $40 billion.)

c) what effect does the rise in gas prices have on the choices by Americans and Canadians. Because gas prices go up do Canadians drive less? Or find alternative modes of transport?

d) why did the Liberal Party of Canada present the Green Shift to the electorate as a change in the tax code rather than a shift towards greener technologies? Why doesn't the NDP or the Liberals attack the Conservative position as economically short-sighted?

Harper has said recently that his father and brothers are accountants so he must know that the 'balance sheet' for Canadians includes the liability of climate change. It's like the Conservatives don't want to put that liability on the balance sheet and is thus misrepresenting the actual state of affairs to Canadians.

Are you going to be pissed when you find an unexpected $9 trillion dollar debt comes due? One that wasn't put on the books for political reasons. I'm positive I will be pretty miffed.

e) why do the Liberals or NDP think that adding taxes or rather shifting the tax burden to gas and oil use will effect the choices that Canadians make? What evidence did they consider?

I mean gas used to be had for $0.30 a litre. It used to be had for $0.80 a litre. And $1.00 a litre. No change. No change. No change.

I personally started taking public transit when I accidentally discovered that my work commute took 40 minutes door to door by bus and 25 minutes by car, bus was cheaper, and I could read thrilling current affairs books or collect and send work email by Treo so I'd already been at work for 10 minutes or so before I even arrived.

Now, when I get behind the wheel of a car in rush hour I wonder what sort of fool I was for not thinking of making that change earlier.

Is taxation the best policy to change behaviour? I somehow doubt it will work for cars and gas in the same way it worked for cigarettes.

f) is the American 'problem' with gas prices and 'dependence' on foreign oil solved with off-shore drilling or drilling in ANWR as many in the US say.

The oil needs to be refined. Are the refineries capable of handling the load?

Won't that oil be put on the open market and sold to the highest bidder? Like maybe the Chinese (8% growth in their economy), or India (5.8% growth in their economy), or Buster from Arrested Development (he wanted to bid on his mother but got confused). Why will it find its way into the gas tanks of Americans?

And I thought that Canada supplied most of America's 'foreign' oil anyway.

g) After the Rapture can I have all your stuff?

xo

MVL