Then There Was Silence

The Canadian Association of Journalists are starting to make a stir about the level of secrecy being displayed by the Conservative Government*.  To quote The Globe and Mail:

The federal government was named for keeping information out of public hands on files such as the F-35 program, avoiding questions at media events and for restricting both public and media access to contentious information.

The article also notes that the Conservative Government almost exclusively communicates with the media by email. As one of the comments point out, the most amusing part of this story seeing the light of day is The Globe and Mail's endorsement of Mr.Harper. Like many Canadians, The Globe should take these actions as something of a point of introspection. It's not coming out of left field that the Government is withholding information from both the press and therefore public. In fact, it's the reason behind the impending motion of contempt that was only avoided by a vote on the budget. This was the exact reason for Andrew Coyne's endorsement of the Liberal Party in the last election.

Our citizenship has become so disengaged that the relevance of the media outcry is limited at best. The electorate is far more interested in the anniversary of William and Kate's wedding than they are in having information on how their government is behaving.

There are those of us that see the light, that feel like people will at any moment wake up and demand accountability from their government. There's little evidence to support this theory. Sure, polling numbers say that the NDP has drawn even with the Conservatives but years away from an election you can hardly count on that. There's an Omnibus budget bill on the way that will pass without much fuss, because after all it's nearly summer and people have more important things to think about than the future of our nation.

*It's recently occurred to me that anyone discussing or writing about the practices of the current government should withhold from referring to the Harper government. Only recently has this become a thing, but it paves the way to suggest that once Mr.Harper has been removed from power that the new Conservative government would act in a significantly different way. What the Conservative Government has created is a structure of information distribution and governance that citizens should expect to see carried over once a new Conservative leader is installed. The policies of this government are not only Stephen Harper's but also that of the Conservative Party of Canada - a distinction that we should not allow Mr.Harper to have us forget.

A Smorgasbord of Things

I can't lie, I've always wanted to find a way to work the word "Smorgasboard" into one of my writings. This title seemed fitting as I don't have any thoughts to pontificate about at length. Instead, I offer you bite sized thoughts from my bite sized mind.

That House


This country and presumably others are filled with "that house". "That House" where many people have lived, and there's an entire friends circle that has either grown from or with the abode. In many cases "that house" was an apartment. The physical location was less important than the people that occupied it.

I was at a farewell party to one of those houses last night. People came with stories of the shenanigans which had gone down in the living room. They looked longingly for the table that was once danced upon with some regularity. At other places I've been, there was a fondness for the old McDonalds trash can that was drunkenly acquired one evening on a stumble home. Yet others some come back to wondering if the bong hidden away on the balcony upstairs still has its home in the corner (it did not).

These places are usually just some combination of brick, wood, steel and drywall, but they hold inside of them a connection to our youth that can't be unchained. The stories we tell in our advanced years will reference back to "that time on ___________ street" and those that were there will know exactly what we're talking about. Those that weren't, will think of their own communal locations. There will be other locations that act as touchstones in our lives, where you bring your first child home or the first home you buy for example. There's something about these first communal houses, though. They are places of community. Places where children learn together how to be adults.

Anyone who's lived in one of these houses knows that it's not all roses, as heads butt and personalities clash. However, there's little doubt in my mind that it's an invaluable life experience that everyone should have the chance to participate in during their formative years.

Conservatives on Abortion 


I must be feeling ill because I felt moved by something a prominent Conservative said in the House of Commons this week. It's a kick in the face for those Conservatives who vote as such for social reasons, which I'm certain is why the PMO didn't note if he was speaking on behalf of the government or himself. A copy of the Government WHIP's* statement can be found here, but it's this excerpt that I found myself especially agreeing with:

Abortion is a very serious and long-lasting decision for women, and I want all women to continue to live in a society in which decisions on abortion can be made, one way or the other, with advice from family and a medical doctor and without the threat of legal consequences. I do not want women to go back to the previous era where some were forced to obtain abortions from illegal and medically dangerous sources. This should never happen in a civilized society.

Whether one accepts it or not, abortion is and always will be part of society. There will always be dire situations in which some women may have to choose the option of abortion. No matter how many laws some people may want government to institute against abortion, abortion cannot be eliminated. It is part of the human condition.

I cannot understand why those who are adamantly opposed to abortion want to impose their beliefs on others by way of the Criminal Code. There is no law that says that a woman must have an abortion. No one is forcing those who oppose abortion to have one.

Within the free and democratic society of Canada, if one has a world view based on a personal moral code that is somewhat different from others, then live according to those views as long as they are within the current laws. On the other hand, citizens who are also living within the reasonable limits of our culture and who may not agree with another's particular moral principles should not be compelled to follow them by the force of a new law.

...

I am sure we all recognize that the issue of abortion raises strongly held and divergent views within and outside Parliament. However, I firmly believe that each of us should be able to pursue our lifestyle as long as it is within the boundaries of law and does not interfere with the actions of others... Society has moved on and I do not believe this proposal should proceed. 

If only an American conservative would have the courage to say the same thing now. 

HST in PEI 


The HST is coming to PEI and the Islanders are livid! I was unaware of many of the tax loopholes for the previous PST, and am completely unsurprised that a people who had such a sweet deal (and quickly ballooning deficit) are getting pissed off that their lollipop is being taken away. For example, there was no PST on Tobacco. Certainly there were other provincial taxes, but somehow not the sales tax. Nearly everything to do with a funeral had no PST, along with manicures, pedicures, and salon visits. Needless to say, I think the province was long overdue for a change. However, there's some parts where the government might of actually had it right in the first place.

• The future of health care is in prevention. There's a ton of evidence to show that dollars spent in prevention of illness (i.e. promotion of healthy and active lifestyles) saves in future treatment costs. So when I saw that previously untaxed gym memberships or children's karate/ballet/hockey lessons will now be taxed - I was a little perplexed. It seemed like short term thinking. 
• Heating Oil amuses me. If you have oil heating, you get a tax break. If you have a wood stove, or electric heating, you have to pay. The government should not be favoring one style of heating over another. Either tax it all the same, or don't tax it at all. 
• I always thought it was interesting that PEI chose not to tax books. I don't really have a strong opinion on how important that was, but am certainly disappointed to see it go. It's an indirect tax hike on  post secondary students, which is not what they need. 

There's also sales tax on an item that makes absolutely no sense as far as I'm concerned: Feminine Hygiene Products. We don't charge sales tax on prescription drugs, glasses, hearing aids, or basically anything that it would be unreasonable to ask a person to go without if they need it. I feel pretty comfortable speaking for women when I say that they need feminine hygiene products. There's no reason this should be taxed, in fact it's incredibly sexist to do so. It's a tax on being a woman, and it's not right.

The NDP Has A New Leader (Professor?)

I'll be honest. I haven't read the budget. It's 500 pages long, and I am not one of the fortunate people who get to participate in the lock up*. So I'm going to write about the NDP race in this blog, but I promise to read much of the budget and come back with my thoughts in the next week or two.

The NDP is 100% Committed to Losing the Next Election

As reported by Kady O'Malley, the NDP has stated they will not run attack ads. That's not how they work. The NDP also elected the man who publicly questioned if there really were Osama Bin Laden pictures. I don't feel like I need to make much more of a case than that for Mulcair not getting elected the Prime Minister of Canada. Just in case, I'll link you to his speech after having won the convention.

In reference to being attacked, Mulcair called it secondary school behavior and said that they have a different approach. When told it worked with Ignatieff, he said they can't do any worse than his brothers and sisters, something I could never imagine a secondary school child saying.

Here's the biggest problem: He looks like a professor. We tried that. Well, the Liberals tried that. Mulcair also tried to say that the way to win the election is to get the 67% of 18-25 demographic that didn't vote in the last election. Mr. Mulcair doesn't seem to understand just how distracted this generation is. To cut through the noise, Professor Mulcair will debate policy and not engage in personal attacks.

To rephrase, Mr.Mulcair's plan to become Prime Minister is to reach out to the demographic watching 16 and Pregnant, Jersey Shore, and Keeping Up With The Kardashians, by civilly discussing policy. I truly wish we lived in a society where this would be a realistic approach, but it's not. It's unrealistic, it's La La Land - in other words it's right in the wheelhouse of the NDP.

I look forward to the Liberal leadership race, because right now there is no reason to think there's a party capable of beating the Conservatives.


*One day in my life I WOULD like to be one of the people locked in a room with no cell phone for seven hours while going through a 500 page document. #thingsthatwouldonlyexciteme 

Writers Block

I've been wanting to update this, as I'm trying to stick to my blogging once a week theory.

It's just not happening though. Whenever I try to write about anything politics related, I get the feeling of being the man yelling at the freight train running him over.

So for now, this blog will be unoccupied again. Until I can muster up the courage to lose my discouragement about the future.

All This Talk About Food Is Making Me Hungry!

The last 48 hours of my life have been a crash course in a broken food system. 

This is not to say I didn't care about food issues previously. My love has made me quite aware of some of the challenges facing our current food consumption style from the day we met. Since then I've been frequenting farmers markets and trying to ensure as much of my food dollar goes to the people producing it as possible. Supporting local farmers for my meat and veggies along with any other sustenance available has quickly become a part of my lifestyle. On top of this, I've tried to severely limit the amount of money that I'm spending at fast food. This scene from Food Inc can best describe why I haven't eaten a nugget in at least a month. 

I sat in at the PEI Adapt Conference yesterday and learned a great deal. I brought my notebook with me, as I tend to do everywhere. In the last three months I've scribbled about six pages of random notes about random things as I wandered the Atlantic Provinces. Yesterday's conference quickly saw an additional six pages of notes added. This post is my attempt to pass on what I've learned in the last 48 hours: 

Do You Know What  CSA Is? If So, Why Don't You Have One?  

CSA stands for Community Supported (or shared) Agriculture. 

With a CSA you give your farmer X dollars at the beginning of the season. "X" will change depending on what you're buying. Obviously, a meat CSA is more expensive than a veggie CSA (per pound). With the money that you give the farmer, they use it for their operating costs. Seeds/livestock, tractors, etc. Many of these farmers even have greenhouses to help them produce some of the more sought after veggies like tomatoes and peppers. After that, at different intervals (some go weekly, some biweekly, others as one time returns) you get a box of food from your farmer. Most farmers just have a set box that has a mix of items. In the early part of the season it's usually greener - but as the season goes on you'll see more carrots and other colorful items crop up* as they come to harvest. Other farmers (like presenter Jen) will have something where you have a mostly set box, but can grab other items as wanted. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone likes broccoli. 

More often than not these are coming from small family farms that are using organic production standards and not the industrialized food model. My love and I will be participating in at least two this year, and I'd encourage you to do so. 

We Can Learn From The South

Dr. Av Singh's discussion outlined lessons that can be learned in the north from our neighbors to the far south.

In our culture we've redefined innovation as being something new and often technological, and fallen away from appreciating innovative ideas. For something to be an innovative idea, it does not need to be the most cutting edge technology. In fact, the most innovative ideas right now are those going against the trend of technology. As Monsanto is suing farmers for saving seeds, and actively trying to destroy the practice so new seeds can be sold yearly one of the most innovative things a farmer can do right now is save their seeds for the next season. 

Innovation can take the form of where you seek your advice too. In Africa, there was nearly an entire generation of farmers killed by AIDS. So the new generation is having to go back two generations for knowledge in this regard. I fear that in our western culture we'd seek scientists and consultants, whereas there's this beauty in farmers that so many are willing to freely share knowledge and information. 

I found this quote Dr.Singh shared form National Geographic was quite profound: 

Still, storing seeds in banks to bail us out of future calamities is only a halfway measure. Equally worthy of saving is the hard-earned wisdom of the world's farmers, generations of whom crafted the seeds and breeds we now so covet. Perhaps the most precious and endangered resource is the knowledge stored in farmers' minds.

Land was briefly discussed, and it was noted that in the south there's significant land acquisition taking place. This acquisition is mostly for the purpose of carbon credits and sprawl. The soil quality doesn't contain any currency, much like our culture. The land is only worth as much as you can exploit it for. 

There were two stats from Asia that I found particularly interesting: 

• In China and India there are 200,000,000 rice farmers. (Close to 6x the population of Canada) 
• In India, 70% of their milk comes from farms that have 1 or 2 cows. 

As CBC reported (or sensationalized depending on your viewpoint), another part of the discussion was that we need to see a shift in our culture to spend more on food. When I asked him how we move people from where we are currently (most don't visit farmers markets, for example) he said two things that stood out to me: 

• "Food can also be part of our entertainment" 
• "We need to challenge Sobeys and Superstore and let them know that we want real food"

We should reevaluate the money that we're spending on our entertainment budget (movies, video games, vacations etc) and shift some of that into the food pile. If we do that in conjunction with increasing our social activities over food (dinner parties, pot lucks, etc) we could have a significant positive impact on our farmers, our culture, and our health. 

The Little Hippies That Could

Jeff and Debra Moore kicked things off after a delicious lunch from Papa Joe's. They founded Just Us Coffee Roasters Cooperative.   

Jeff first outlined how the quality of coffee dropped significantly during the 80's as the big players raced for the bottom in price. Once that happened, people started shifting to other carbonated beverages, namely colas.  

They started a fair trade coffee company. As they put it, they wanted to have a coffee producer that was "...not subsidized by economic and social injustice." They started by traveling around to local food stores and other retailers that would have them giving out samples to anyone interested. People were impressed by the quality of their product, and success was not far behind. 

"The worse industrial food becomes, the more large the opening for local producers"  

They then outlined how small producers have started to lose control over fair trade. As people started to demand fair trade products (thanks, Coldplay), corporations wanted to look responsible and join on part of this. Nestle famously had under 1% of its purchases as fair trade, but chose to market its fair trade coffee heavily to give the impression it was a fair trade company. As part of this influx of corporations, the fair trade price stayed stagnant for almost 20 years. Furthermore, multi-nationals would use this minimum price (per pound of coffee) as THE price, whereas smaller roasters like Just Us would use this price as the minimum. 

With all that said, Just Us products are now featured in Atlantic Superstores and business is booming with expansions planned. How did they break into the Superstores? "It only takes a couple of people to say something" said Debra. She explained how as few as one or two people would ask at their local store, and sure enough they'd get a call seeking product.  

This couple also had my two favorite quotes of the day: 

• "Never trust a man who says he's the boss, because you don't know what else he'll lie to you about." 
• "There's a lot of awareness but not a lot of solutions"  

What Did You Learn At School Today? 

We need to make better choices with our food. Not only that, but we need to hold our retailers accountable for what they're stocking the shelves with too. If your grocer isn't giving you healthy choices, talk to them! The much better option is to talk to a farmer though. Sure it might be slightly less convenient, but the positives for our culture, your health, and society as a whole are immeasurable. 

*Sorry, I can't resist puns sometimes.

Camerica

At some point in my tweenage years a grown man punched me in the face. My friends and I were playing road hockey outside of his house. While I was in "the penalty box" (aka, the steps of my friends house) this man asked me "What's the matter with you, huh?" as I didn't run away when he came storming out of his home. When my friends saw this cranky man leave his home and come toward us, they instinctively ran. Apparently this "man" had a history of being the neighborhood crank - essentially the local Mr.Wilson. He left his home to shoo us off, I stayed on the steps as the egg timer on my penalty hadn't finished, he felt disrespected, and he punched me in the face.

I ran to my friends house crying with a bloody lip, and the police were called. The man was arrested, and put in the back of a police car. While in the back seat, he laid on his back and kicked the windows, eventually popping one out of place. Months later, an officer arrived at my home and delivered a subpoena to appear in court. The mere delivery of this summons sent tween me back into tears as I apparently hadn't resolved whatever issues I had around the incident. 

In the court room it was explained to the judge that the mans wife had recently had a dental procedure, that the man had drank much of a bottle of wine, and that otherwise he was an upstanding citizen. The Crown wanted a fine (a little over $1000 if memory serves me correctly). The defense wanted community service. The judge didn't even appear to take any time to think about the two options, and provided the man with ~100 hours of community service. I was shaken again. How does a grown man punch a child in the face, and only have to pick up a bit of garbage as a result? This was the day that whatever innocence I had left from parents divorce died.  

My friends and family were all aware of this and many of them found it to be absurd. A grown man punches a boy in the face and only has to pick up a bit of trash as a result? Outrageous. "In America, this would never happen. They'd throw this asshole in jail right away." This was a thought that I heard in some form on multiple occasions. Essentially that the Canadian justice system was broken if something like this could happen. 

I am nowhere near naive enough to think that mine is somehow a unique story. A story like this must happen almost every day in Canada, and six degrees of separation would tell us that everyone knows someone (or someone who knows someone) who's been through a similar incident. Perhaps not the grotesqueness of a man hitting a child, but of perceived injustice in our criminal system. Depending on the immediacy of relation they may even have completely emotional view of it. For example, "My brother was hit by a car, has to take pain medication for years, and the guy who did it is running around fancy free." 

So now we're faced with new crime legislation in Canada, that will soon become law. This story, and many like it, can serve to show that there is need for some reform of our criminal justice system. The Conservatives know this and have promised change for many years. 

The only problem with the changes they're proposing, is that they'll only make the situation worse. As outlined by the university of Ottawa, the CCLU, and the Canadian BAR association - the legislation which passed in December has many provisions that won't actually keep Canadians safer, but instead create more criminals. The bill follows the American blue print, which as their neighbors to the north we've seen fail over and over again. 

This is not a unique Americanization, however. Character assassinations have been frequent from Conservatives toward the last two Liberal leaders. Of course, when Vic Towes was called out for proclaiming family values while being a convicted criminal and adulterer, attacks on character were decried as inappropriate. When I try to think of political candidates promoting family values, only to act in the very nature they decry, I again think of our neighbors to the south. 

Recently, the robocalls scandal has been the flavor of the month. A conservative affiliated robocall company has been accused of making robocalls to Canadians misdirecting them from their voting locaton. Since this issue has become public, Elections Canada has indicated that it's received 31,000 contacts in regards to the issue. A few years ago I read a book by Allen Raymond called, "How To Rig An Election." In it, he took actions to try to stop people in liberal households from voting. They did this by targeting the campaigns though, not the voters directly. Conservatives, it seems, found a way to improve his methods.   

When bill C-30 was first discussed in the house of commons, Vic Towes channeled George W Bush, and proclaimed that people can either stand with the government, or with child pornographers.  

In another Bushism, scientists are being muzzled by the government. Remarkably as Nature journal points out, America has actually been improving in this regard while we're declining toward bush-era scientific regulations. 

I wrote a blog during election season where I noted that the conservatives were trying to convince us that a duck was actually a moose, and that I wasn't buying it. In that light, I'll start calling our country Camerica, as our government has clearly adopted many of the most unsavory themes from American style politics. These aren't just politics as usual in Canada, this is a systematic attack on how our democracy operates.

Camerica is a place where anecdotal evidence outweighs real evidence, where misdirection outweighs integrity, and the public service needs to be cut back - in every area but communications.  

When I was a tweenager hit in the face by an adult, I lost my innocence about humanity. The Harper Government has now taken away my innocence about governance. The first made me question the public's intentions, the latter has made me question their intelligence. 

So it begins

On Tuesday pitchers and catchers were required to report to Blue Jays spring training in Dunedin Florida. As a long time Jays fan, I have begun to apologize to my loved ones. This morning, as I threw my Jays T-Shirt on, I turned to my love and proclaimed, "Sorry - you're going to need to get used to this."

Being a sports fan is something that those who are not can rarely understand. As self-reflective as I may be, I can't exactly determine where this comes from. Google pointed me to this explanation, but no level of intellectualizing can properly convey exactly what it is to be a sports fan... in particular a Toronto sports fan.

The Curse Of The Torontonian 

Being born in Toronto, and raised to understand that The Leafs are "Gods team" creates an expectation of disappointment. This hockey season has played out like many:

1. The Leafs start by winning more games than the fans expected
2. Their fans/media expect the trend to continue, extrapolating the small sample size to continue throughout the year
3. The Leafs fall back to where their talent should have them
4. The fans/media freak out as their new found expectations aren't being met. A media circus ensues. 
5. The Leafs fall even further back
6. The fans/media proclaim that someone must be fired.

And this is just the horror of being a Leafs fan. Imagine being a Raptors fan! In existence for more than a decade, a good portion of their ticket/box holders are only doing so because they're required to for their Leafs obligations, American born players don't want to play in T.O. When it's all said and done, there's more players who have publicly asked to get out than there are play-off series won.

In fact, the only team in Toronto with any "recent" history of winning a championship is The Jays. This is only if your definition of "recent" is "within the last 20 years".


There are reasons for optimism in Blue Jay Land, however. Legitimate reasons, which is much more than we can say for fans of any other Toronto sports team. So without further adieu, I give you my thoughts on why the Blue Jays have a chance at making the post season.

Blue Jays 2012 Season 

As much as any fan over paying for internet/cellphones/cable with Rogers would like to think that the Blue Jays have unlimited resources, they do not. Rogers executives are looking to make money, and Paul Beeston (Jays President) has made it very clear that the payroll will only go up when revenues do.

This is why paying 8 million dollars for Jose Bautista instantly makes this team competitive. Jose was the AL Leader in:

• Home Runs 
• Slugging
• Walks 
•  On-Base + Slugging (In my opinion the most important stat in baseball) 

For 8 million dollars!!! That's 1/4 of what Alex Rodriguez is being paid. Not only that, but Jose is only in the second year of a 5 (team option 6) year contract. So whatever happens this year, there's a reason for long-term optimism. 

This isn't exactly breaking news, but the Jays year hinges on Bautista. Without him in the lineup, the middle of the order has no teeth. Pitchers can walk the lefties they don't want to face - and pounce on what is a weak collection of batters otherwise. With Bautista in the order, the 1/2 hitters will get pitches to hit since the starting pitcher sure as hell doesn't want to walk men on for Bautista to drive home. This will require some batters who aren't exactly free swingers at the top of the order for the team, which in itself may be a challenge. Even for Bautista, you could see as the year wore on and pitchers were less willing to give him a pitch to hit - he became somewhat more willing to go outside of the strike zone for a pitch to hit instead of just taking the walk that was handed to him. As Anthopolis noted in yesterday's Globe and Mail, Lawrie may also fall victim to this.

So I stated that this team has a chance to make a playoff run, but there was a reason I both bolded and italicized "chance". This requires so many things to go right that it can only be labelled as a chance, similar to that of hitting "00" in a roulette game.

JP Arencebia, Brett Lawrie, and (potentially) Eric Thames are all going to be sophomores this year. The Sophomore Curse is real, as close to 2/3's of rookie of the year winners regress in their second year. This means that two of these players should be expected to get worse, and potentially one could get better. Of course all three could excel, all three could regress, or any combination. However regression is the most likely outcome for each of these players. Add to this Kelly Johnson's striking out 26% of the time last year, and Adam Lind's strike out percentage nearing 20% - you start to wonder where the runs come from outside of Bautista.

But IF Rasmus gets his act together, the sophomores don't have a huge regression, and Bautista continues to produce - the offence could lead this team to the playoffs.

None of this even begins to address pitching, and I fear to dive into that subject as everything beyond Ricky Romero seems like a complete gamble. The only bright side to the off season was the aquisition of Santos, and even that feels like a gamble considering his youth. If that kid is the real deal, fixing some part of the 25 blown saves from 2011 would make a huge influence on the Jays playoff chances.

There's really only one thing that matters though:


How Many Games Do We Win? 

Vegas has the over/under at 80.5. With a gun to my head, I'd say under. However it's entirely possible that it could be ten games over, especially with an early acquisition of another big bat to protect Bautista.


Who Wins The Ring?

We will see many prognostications in this regard in the coming month, and none of them matter. There's a reason there's 162 games in a baseball season, and it's because the outcome of seven game series have too many values that could be attributed to luck. Forced to make a decision, I'd gamble on the Red Sox. The psychology of their slow start and finish last year set aside makes them prime candidates for a redemption tour.

Before I go, I need to get this off my chest...

Dear Pittsburgh Pirates:


Are you out of your freaking minds? AJ Burnett is a 500 pitcher, which he has been his entire career, and he's made millions of dollars on the expectation that eventually he'll be able to put it all together. Many teams have tried to get this guys head right, and many teams have failed. Why you would bring a cancer like that into your dressing room is beyond me, and why you would put him in a leadership position with all those young players seems even crazier. Whatever lack of success your team has this year I will attribute to AJ. Is that fair? Nope. Neither is what this man has been paid for his horrific consistency over the years. AJ is doomed to failure, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy every time he failed.