Kevin Libin has written an excellent exposé of the Children’s Aid Societies (and their other named kin) across Canada, and he has gotten a significant amount of feedback supporting his findings.

The problem is that unaccountable “social workers” have been given supra-legal powers to enter homes and “apprehend” children based on entirely subjective criteria.  If people’s children are to be taken away, this should require a court-order (from a real judge) – and be based on objective criteria – such as clear evidence of physical or sexual abuse, malnutrition, or other measurable things.  A statement from a three year old that “Mommy and Daddy fight” would never fly as evidence in a real courtroom, and no one could be convicted of assault because someone has a bruised knee.

Additionally, if and when children do need to be removed from an unsafe environment, they must be placed into a demontrably safe one – and it needs to be above and beyond normal safety.  Children should have their own rooms, beds, good food, clothing, schooling and counselling.  They should not go hungry, or die in the care of so-called foster parents who are really only in this for the cheque they get from the government.

Like the HRCs, the Children’s Aid Societies and Family Services organizations need to be reined in lest they destroy our civilization.

Ezra Levant apparently made a good speech in Ottawa last week.   I went to University at the same time as Ezra and I recall he was a bit of a wingnut back then.  He’s improved a lot over the years – age has been good to his temperment.

He makes, yet again, a very good point about the undemocratic activities of the Human Rights Commissions, and how the law that created them gives them ridiculous power over free speech in this country.

On this day, I would like to call out everyone to contact your MP and provincial representatives to demand the repeal of the sections of the “Human Rights” legislation that permits this activity.

Dalton McGuinty, the duly elected premier of Ontario, has indicated that “Red Ink No Longer a Lethal Toxin“.

He thinks that the economy is slowing and therefore it is acceptable to run a deficit rather than cut spending.  Poor Dalton still thinks that John Maynard Keynes had the right idea, when the fact of the matter is that Keynes was almost completely wrong.

Read the rest of this entry »

While on my travels in the United States, I rediscovered the value of HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) Lanes, where people car-pooling car drive with less traffic congestion.  I think that such lanes would be a valuable addition to cities in Canada that do not have them, such as Calgary or Edmonton.  This would create an incentive to carpool, and could help reduce traffic.

I also rediscovered the value of toll highways that run parallel to public freeways, or toll lanes that allow more free movement of traffic.  The CA-91 freeway east of Los Angeles is a good example of these toll lanes.  The only toll freeway in Canada to my knowledge is the 407 in Toronto, but I think it would be valuable for other large cities to pursue this idea.  People will happily pay tolls for faster commutes.  5 dollars to cut 20-30 minutes off of a commute is worth it if you are paid more than $20/hr and it buys you more family time.

After spending a couple of weeks driving through the United States, I was reminded of why the US Interstate Highway system is so pleasant to use. It’s completely limited access. There are no level crossings, driveways, or uncontrolled entrances and exits.

When Eisenhower created the Interstate system in the 1950s, he was copying the Autobahnen in Germany that he had seen during the invasion of Europe in the 1944-45.

In Canada, our major highways are pseudo-limited access, because we leave level crossings for lesser roads and have driveways to farms and neighbourhoods where none should exist. The Interstate system is safer because every vehicle on the road had to come on or off via an interchange, which reduces the risk someone goes the wrong way, and prevents people from crossing traffic or turning left across oncoming lanes that are moving at 110 km/h (or faster).

The federal and provincial governments should get together and fix this over the next 10 years. The major highways (TransCanada, Yellowhead, 401, etc) should be converted to full limited access through they’re whole length to improve safety. Additionally, none of these roads should pass through the middle of towns and cities with traffic lights. I have always thought that one of the worst concepts ever was that the TransCanada highway, a major freight route, passes through the middle of Calgary and has dozens of traffic lights. There should be a freeway bypass or tunnel to allow through traffic free flow.

Finally, in Western Canada we need to improve connections to the US system. Alberta is only just now twinning Highway 4 from Lethbridge to the US border. This is a major freight route. And when Highways 3 and 4 pass through Lethbridge there are traffic lights. This should be fixed too.

And we might be able to get the US to help pay for some of it… The only state that doesn’t have an interstate highway is Alaska. We should offer to the US and Alaska that we would co-number the route from I-15 in Montana via the Alaska highway to extend I-15 to Fairbanks. Maybe they would help pay to fix up the road…

I was disappointed to hear the decision of the Federal Court on 5 March 2008 regarding the permitting of the Imperial Oil (and parent/partner ExxonMobil) Kearl Lake Oilsands Project in northern Alberta.

To summarize the situation, the Pembina Institute, Sierra Club and other environmental groups made an application in Federal Court asking for review of the environmental assessment that was made by a joint panel of the Governments of Alberta and Canada to assess and decide/recommend whether the project should be granted the requested permits for construction and operation. Read the rest of this entry »

So the federal government wants to mandate Carbon Capture and Storage for coal-fired power plants and oil sands projects…

I think that this is a foolish attempt to hide the real cost of reducing GHG emissions from Canadians.  Consumers will pay something for this requirement, be it with reduced economic growth, higher gasoline and heating oil prices, etc.  But they won’t see it directly as a tax on the individual consumer the way the BC Carbon Tax is being applied.

This is what is wrong.  Any move by the Government to reduce GHG emissions by industry must also apply similar restrictions on the consumers of energy products.  We should either impose these or raise the prices of gasoline, heating oil and electricity to reduce GHG emissions from these sources by reducing the demand for fuel itself.  We cannot apply Carbon Capture to cars.  But we can try to reduce people’s insistence on driving.  We can make it acceptable to Canadians to lower their thermostats to 16°C and spend money adding insulation to their homes.

But we should not continue to charade that industry is the only ones who have to clean up.   As I showed previously,  consumers are by far the larger problem when compared to oil sands producers.   They should share the burden with industry.

The government of British Columbia has introduced the first real carbon tax in Canada.  While I am no hardcore believer in climate change science and an am advocate of adaptation instead of “re-engineering” the atmosphere, I must congratulate Gordon Campbell and his government for taking this step.

If one believes in climate change and believes that we should reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, then using price to induce a change is better than legislating caps or creating an artificial “market” for emissions credits.

The BC carbon tax isn’t perfect.

1. It doesn’t apply to all emitters.  It isn’t fair to the consumers who will pay extra for gasoline and diesel while industry won’t face the same levies.
2. The levy is not high enough to actually change behaviour.  $10/tonne CO2 equivalent amounts to 2.6 cents per litre on gasoline.  Even with the promised increase to $30/tonne in 5 years only increases the cost of gasoline by 7.5 cents per litre.  Consumers have experienced much more significant increases in gasoline prices in recent years due to rising oil prices, and there has been little decrease in consumption.  If they really want to impact consumption of energy the tax on emissions would need to immediately rise to $100/tonne or more (26 cents per litre).  Industry could actually capture CO2 emissions at a price lower than this, making it economic to avoid such a tax.

The one aspect of the BC carbon tax I do like (but am concerned about) is the promise to keep it revenue neutral by reducing other taxes (such as income taxes).  I fear that governments of all stripes are loath to give up taxing power (and subsequently spending power) in their quest to “fix” society.  I fear that a future BC government (would raise income taxes or sales taxes while also raising carbon taxes, and increasing the footprint of government.  This will erode economic growth and will make the people poorer.

The province of Alberta is holding a general election on 3 March 2008, and there are five parties competing for the opportunity to run the province.  Alberta has only had four different parties in power since 1905 and once a party is voted out of the office they have never returned (to date).

The Progressive Conservatives have been in power since 1971, and Ed Stelmach is the fourth premier under this party’s banner.  The PCs have had mixed success (in my view) of running this province, and mostly I think they’ve stayed in power due to luck and good fortune as opposed to any particularly good leadership.  The wealth of the province since 1971 has been largely due to petroleum.  And when petroleum was doing poorly and the government ran up a large deficit it took an opposition politican (Liberal Laurence Decore) to push the Tories to change.

In recent years, the Tories have been at a loss for any sort of planning or great ideas on how to deal with the rapid economic growth and massive migration into the province and all of the problems that have resulted.  They have tended to throw good money after bad (as if more money would actually solve some of these problems).  And they have not provided any leadership nationally by providing innovative ideas for solving problems faced by every province (i.e. health care).

I cannot bring myself to support the Tories this time around.  None of the alternative parties have a platform that I agree with 100% but I have to say that the party that is closest to my views is the Wildrose Alliance.

The Wildrose Alliance want to reduce taxes and cut unnecessary spending.  They also want to make funding follow the students in education (ie. vouchers) and patients in health care.  They still seem to think that universal government funded health care is sustainable but then so do the other parties…

The Liberals, NDP and Green Parties are all socialists of different shades of red, and therefore none are acceptable.  All three would raise taxes, increase program spending by throwing money at health care and education, and don’t understand that imposing strict emissions regulations or higher resource royalties will depress economic growth and make Albertans poorer.  And all of Canada should realize that would be bad for the country since Alberta is soon to be the only province paying significantly into equalization.

Paul Hinman for Premier!

Recently, there have been many news stories on radio, television and in print regarding the lack of affordable housing in Alberta (and Calgary in particular – although it applies to most large municipalities). The news stories have also covered the proposals of various groups and governments to deal with this problem.

First, I agree that housing costs have gotten a little out of control in Calgary (and Vancouver, Edmonton, Ft. McMurray). Additionally, rents are rising quickly as landlords’ costs rise and the market becomes tight. This is an unfortunate reality of the free market when demand outstrips supply.

However, the solution is not to have the state interfere in the market in ways that have been shown to be at best ineffective and at worst detrimental.

Rent Controls
Some advocates have called on the provincial government to impose rent controls. In one way they already did, by changing the regulations on how often landlords could raise the rent from six months to twelve. The result: Landlords raised the rent significantly more because they realize they cannot adjust for increasing costs (due to property taxes, energy costs, maintenance costs) as often. This means that the landlords’ must raise the rent further to reduce their risk over the next year. In the old system they could wait until events unfolded, thereby reducing risk.

Strict rent controls, such as those in Vancouver or New York, have clearly been shown not increase the availability of affordable housing. What they do is increase the affordability for the small group that already have low rents. But government regulated rents make the business of owning a low-rent building unattractive to an entrepreneur, because the state restricts how much profit they can make.

The solution to this problem is that the state should not impose rent controls, but should take action to make affordable housing more attractive to landlords.

Government owned housing
In Calgary recently, the cit council has proposed that all new developments (neighbourhoods) should be zoned to include affordable housing. Not a bad plan. However, one alderman (I don’t recall which one) stated that the provincial government should purchase the land and build low income housing. So basically what this alderman wants is for Calgary to follow the lead of numerous US cities (New York, Chicago, Philadelphia) and Toronto to build what are affectionately known as “The Projects”. While the projects started out as low income housing for working people they quickly became the “ghettos” of these cities with soaring crime rates.

Like most other programs, government ownership and operation do not result in quality housing for people or low cost for society. Private ownership would be far better in most cases.

For those that think that government owned property for housing of low income people is the solution, I would advise you to visit one of the hundreds of Indian Reserves in this country and then tell me whether nearly a century of government owned property has helped that group.

Solutions
A solution that should be seriously considered to increase the availability of affordable housing is for the cities and provinces to make private ownership attractive. For instance, if the city wants there to be low income housing, they should waive the requirement for property taxes on housing units that meet a predefined affordability criteria. This criteria must be linked to the income achievable by the landlord to prevent the state from reneging this promise after the housing units are built.

Second, the province could subsidize housing by paying landlords some portion of the rent charged for those tenants who are on very low incomes or fixed state-provided incomes in areas with high inflation (and therefore increasing costs for the landlord).

These plans would be far more effective in increasing the availability of affordable housing without resorting to “big stick” approaches like rent controls (which don’t work anyway).