From Cork to Toronto

When the OHIP "Premium" was introduced with a name designed to spin the impact of an extra tax, many people noted that unions with collective agreements retaining a provision to pay the old OHIP Premium would make claims. The Liberals said "we don't think that will happen" but declined to outlaw the possibility. Now TTC (among others) is paying the OHIP Tax on behalf of their unionised staff, at a cost of $6 million annually to the Commission (that's over two million TTC tokens, Dalton). Before the last election, the Liberals promised an extra holiday - Family Day - in February, which will cost Toronto taxpayers $2.3 million but some private sector workers are finding out that they will lose a non-statutory holiday in August in return . Typically, the Labour Minister's response is a shrug - "no big deal". "I think it's a terrific initiative and 83 per cent of Ontarians agree it's something this province should be doing," ...

Found this from Paul Wells' blog . While I fully subscribe to the failings generally inherent in a hereditary monarchy, there is no question that the King of Spain has brought his country successfully through a potentially disastrous post-Franco transition to democracy, and that he would know a fascist if he saw one. The advantage of not having to worry about election cycles means you can face down bullies in a human rather than calculated, nuanced, triangulated way. Here he is in Santiago, Chile, telling the ludicrous, anti-democratic, puffed up on his sulphur laden petroleum leader of Venezuela to "just shut up" . Chavez, having accused the recent prime minister of Spain, Aznar, being a "fascist", continued to rant with his microphone off as Prime Minister Zapatero reminded him that he was in a democratic forum and that some respect wouldn't go amiss. ¿Por qué no te callas? Sadly the following day Nicaragua's Ortega gave some of his time to back up C...

Independent TDs given "party leaders allowance" - 39,000 untaxable, untraced Euros each. This should be abolished immediately and factored into the public funding per vote parties receive - it's a recipe for more and more single issue candidates.

I'm with Kinsella on this one: July 18, 2007 – Wow. "F*** you and your grief." Just when you think the blogosphere can’t get any more hateful, someone comes along to surprise you. Amazing. In subsequent posts, Canadian Cynic, who describes him/herself as "progressive", demands Blogging Tories and hard-rightwing bloggers generally apologise for posts about Cindy Sheehan and for generally being dinks. Well, you could have done that before you decided to tell a mother whose son died that she wasn't entitled to express her grief as she pleased in her own country and before you stooped to the level of those who rant against Muslims and anyone who believes in even the slightest social interdependence.

I meant to blog about this when I saw it on Torontoist a few days ago but am catching up now.  A Blue Jays fan waves a Maple Leaf at Dodger Stadium and gets hassled .   Various Canadian expats get stroppy with the rent-a-goon.   Apparently being cosy with the Governator , bolthole for their soldiers and the largest source of their oil imports still gets the Canadian flag classified as "a sign or a banner", as a Dodger VP (one of a hundred, no doubt) tries to justify it.  A couple of fans were chucked out and a few others left in solidarity. Apparently the US flag is also banned - a clear case of justifying a stupid policy with a stupider (and puzzling given the mawkish wrapping in the flag American sports teams do so frequently).   I'm all for restrictions at certain times and places - like Belfast Giants hockey team banning flags and especially Celtic and Rangers jerseys,  but this was very irritating when Canada puts up a bunch of securocratic crap from the US - no f...

I'm sure Jason Cherniak could find a way to justify this - I sure as hell can't.  From the beginning of the manoeuvering to acquire and move the Nashville Predators, the thing that didn't seem to be missing was money. Jim Balsillie was throwing down 240 million US dollars to acquire a team worth far less than that, having failed in a 175 million offer for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Meanwhile, in the Manitoba Provincial Election, the Manitoba Liberals decried the Tories pledge to assist the bringing of a team back to Winnipeg , and the NDP's assertion that they would be more likely to make it happen sooner, better etc. No money mentioned (directly anyway), but Bob McCown ridiculed it as a stunt on the FAN590. All very principled by the Libs but you could understand in a way that in an underpopulated province like Manitoba it might take government grease to make it happen. Not in Ontario, though. Not in the Golden Horseshoe. Not with deposits for season tickets alre...

To any CIE types reading, here's a primer .  God knows after various past fiascos one would have thought you'd have taken notice, but here we are, back in court . Mr Dunne (54), of Rowlagh Avenue, Clondalkin, Dublin, told the court yesterday that he had found the lands "wild" in June 1977 ànd had placed his horses there after erecting fences, poles and wire. Over subsequent years, he built stables for the horses and stored hay and feed. He said the local children called him "Dinty" and described the land involved as "Dinty's field". There have been various dark mutterings on message boards about possible encroachments on the Claremorris-Collooney railway line - maybe that's why the new government has declined to commit to its construction?

" McGuinty vows Liberals won't raise taxes if re-elected ". Uh-huh. While the Health Tax won't be McGuinty's version of the Poll Tax, it should and will hurt him with lower middle class voters. Yes, Ontario had a deficit, how big depends who you ask, but he rammed in this tax without consultation and in such a way that some employers had to swallow it due to old collective agreement dating from the OHIP Premium. The tax discriminates against work, since it taxes two lower incomes more than one large one. I don't object to higher taxes - I object to stupid ones, and especially ones which entail zero improvement in services delivered.

Apparently a tax break has been introduced by the Tories and outside of one company in Immigration Minister Diane Finlay's riding nobody can find an eligible recipient. But irrespective of the sneaking in of a tax break for a single Tory MP - WHAT THE HELL IS THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA DOING GIVING TAX REDUCTIONS FOR PRODUCTION OF TOBACCO?! Worse still - it appears this tax break is in part to assist the MP in avoiding the fallout from the Caledonia debacle - so now federal as well as provincial taxpayers are shelling out for that particular fiasco.

Dublin driver driving an articulated vehicle at way over the posted 50km/h limit in the new Dublin Port Tunnel with U2 blaring and one hand on his mobile phone. Hopefully with enough eyeballs on it this person will either be prosecuted or get a good kicking, whichever is convenient, before other people have to suffer.

To most Europeans coming from the system of VAT where tax is shown on the "sticker price" to North America where you have to do mental arithmetic to know how much you would pay at the cash register is a bit frustrating. Buying electronics is swiftly making that transition even more annoying. The latest scam is the "mail-in rebate". You open a store flyer and see that a $159 camera is marked down to $70. Good news you think, with tax that's about $80. Then you notice that only $9 of that is "instant savings" and the rest is a mail-in rebate. Well, that's not so bad - you just pay the $150 and tax on the $70 price and you get $80 back in the post. Well, no - in Ontario tax is 14% of the price you paid at the till after store discount. Your "$159 down to $70 camera" means you pay $150+$21 - $171. Then you have to put your receipt in an envelope and send it somewhere. But your rebate may not be what you were promised, since the fine ...

The rationale for this (CBC, seen at James Bow ) escapes me. Space robotics is a field when Canada can truly claim to be a world leader, where the Canadarm and Canadarm2 are integral parts of current space missions, but the Harper government has just refused to permit the Canadian Space Agency's participation in a European Mars Rover project even though no additional funds were required, just permission to reallocate existing funds. The Europeans appeared to regard it as a formality and are now scrambling to find a replacement. Is it because Marc Garneau ran for the Liberals ? Were the funds being reallocated originally destined for Quebec and thus Minister Bernier couldn't abide it? Who is going to get answers to these questions? Via Hassenpfeffer , New Scientist's David Shiga writes : For a country with a relatively small population, Canada has made some very respectable contributions to spaceflight, producing several astronauts and a robotic arm for the space shu...

TSN: Why do you promote hockey via the "my NHL" advertisements... during hockey games? Surely if you want to increase the reach of hockey you should be advertising during non-hockey telecasts or on other channels? I'm just asking. NHL: Still think it was a good idea to mess Jim Balsillie, respected and VERY RICH executive of Blackberry, around just to try and force him to keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh? Now you appear to be stuck with (a) loudmouth Mark Cuban or (b) a guy who even the CFL wouldn't give a franchise to and who employs drug cheat Ben Johnson in ads for his Cheetah brand.

During the Liberal leadership campaign, the argument against Ignatieff was that he shot from the hip and was too liable to gaffes. Harper, Time Canada's Man of the Year , was the opposite, too in control of his agenda and those of his subordinates. Well, it turns out Harper's "Qana was a warcrime" may turn out to be "so-called greenhouse gases". As usual, Youtube provides ...

This is one of those posts I read that would be funny if it wasn't deadly serious - that not only would Simcoe County build a rubbish dump on top of an unusually high purity groundwater supply but that they would deliberately divert some of that water into the dump with a view of keeping leachate from leaking into said water supply. Enough clean water to supply 250,000 homes is being dumped into a creek to allow the dump to be built. The Province of Ontario has approved this apparent lunacy. The federal Liberal Party may have found "environmental religion" but Dalton McGuinty sure hasn't, if the complete mishandling of power generation policy hadn't already given that away. More information can be found at the Stop Dump Site 41 website. It has a stupid Java scrollbar which slows the pageload but I suppose it's in a good cause. It also has a song (bottom of page) which does weaken my support a little more.

The federal Liberal Party conference is going on at the moment and it's the worst of all worlds - partly Canadian, partly American. Thursday night's content was execrable - mawkish tributes to Bill Graham and Paul Martin, interminable speeches. It also warned of the "CPAC TV" to come - the incessant Franglish made even more unbearable by the translators. There was Howard Dean because apparently none of the 33 million living Canadians could be trusted to be a keynote speaker without being seen to favour one of the candidates. As for Friday, say bye-bye to two hours of CBC and CTV prime time (although this probably constitutes an INCREASE in CBC viewership). The hoped-for absence of thundersticks was not to be and undoubtedly as I type on Saturday morning balloons and confetti are being hoisted to the rafters for a proper Republicat/Democran finale. Can't politicians speak English then French, or French then English then French? Why must it be Engfrenengfreneng...

Hansard, November 27 Hon. Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.): next intervention Mr. Speaker, I realize how difficult this must be for the minister. Just today we had two soldiers killed in Afghanistan and tomorrow or the next day their remains will be brought home, draped in a Canadian flag and a nation will be very thankful of the work that they were doing in that part of the world, not a nation of nations, but a nation. I am sure that the minister will join me in recognizing that we are paying respect to them as a nation for the work that they are doing in fighting for human rights, justice and peace around the world. I am wondering what we tell the parents of the two soldiers who are coming back. Do we say that this is a nation which is grateful to your sons and daughters or is this a nation of nations which is respectful to your sons and daughters? I am wondering if the minister will share with us the exact expression that he is going to use when he meets those t...

It's difficult to credit the actions of the UCPD cops who resorted to Tasering a student (youtube.com) who, against regulations, was in the college library without student ID and was reluctant to leave. The student should not have refused to leave but I doubt the announced review will allow what appears to be current UCPD practice to go unreproved. It is even more difficult to credit Kathy Shaidle who considers herself a Catholic rebroadcasting this intolerant cackle of glee : Let's see more of this… Police taser UCLA student for behaving like a jackass. My God, this cannot happen often enough. Do you have any idea how happy it makes me to watch a black cop taser a college student who is being a huge, whiny baby and screaming "This is an abuse of power!" (No, it's the violence inherent in the system.) And just when you think this story can't get better, there's a hilarious video. Screams of anguish never sounded so beautiful. What makes this even b...

Seen at Dunner's blog . Not content with self-portrayal as barbarians on camera at Abu Ghraib , these soldiers have added video, making Iraqi kids run in an attempt to get a proffered water bottle. One poor kid ran for ages and then when the idiot grunt tossed the bottle some kids standing nearby got it anyway. Let freedom ring, huh?

A quote from Michael Hackenberger, owner of Bowmanville Zoo, in response to Toronto City's charges in respect of bringing elephants downtown. Not the first time a resident of this city has asked that particular question. Apparently if you are making a movie bringing animals downtown is fine, but not if you're trying to raise money to keep the zoo open . Fortunately, the pit-bull defender (the dog mind, not a description of the eminent counsel) Clayton Ruby is on the case and perhaps the nine ermined souls in Ottawa will yet hear of this - Ruby thinks this one is up there with the flying squirrel .