The Clowns in Quebec are Crying

Actually, the clowns are in public office. First they make it so police can claim a group that is assembled peacefully is illegal (which is a clear violation of Charter rights). Now Loi 78 and the City of Montreal is going after mask wearers at public gatherings celebrating political events. Au revoir, Bonhomme! I always knew he was a shifty character out to cause mischief.

Will ballgames where a couple fans out of tens of thousands throw something at authorities, be declared illegal assemblies? The other night a fan threw something at an ump. Was tear gas fired back, and the SkyDome crowd told to disperse by police? Yes, that’s an extreme comparison, but you should ask yourself why sports fans have more civil rights than people walking on the street for a better education system.

Progress

In Grade 10 I read The Chrysalids, a John Wyndham science fiction that starts out describing an agrarian culture where they talk of God-like old people who could move the Earth into walls and hills. There were enough clues in the first chapter that I soon figured out that the book was describing the future, but many kids in my class didn’t comprehend the fiction. It was too far fetched for them to even consider in fiction that humans could regress in our technological abilities and knowledge. What could cause that sort of disaster, they hopefully wondered.

In my day, we read books, they couldn’t be bought on the Internet for a tablet, and young people knew that things only got better and more possibilities were going to present themselves. Cars would fly, computers would make holodecks, cameras would take holographic pictures, and holograms would carry messages to Jedi. Now we’re lucky if cars will move after peak oil (or ever drive themselves), if computers will have electricity with doubling power bills, if cameras aren’t telling the government exactly what we are doing at all times (assuming we switch off our tracking device by Apple or Samsung or RIM), and if 3D TVs don’t give us a headache and brain damage, let alone save our planet from the Death Star.

MOS’s blog post made me think of The Chrysalids. It’s a good book, and completely relevant to today, even with the threat of MAD war somewhat off the table. I happened to see this graphic on FAILblog too, which fits with this post. It’s the age old question, “Is the current batch of kids stupider than average, or is this the old crumudgeon effect taking shape?” The paradox in perception is dangerous, as it can lead to acceptance of sub-par child rearing and behaviour, or on the other end of the spectrum, an over-controlling adult class that is unwilling to listen to the untainted perceptions of the less-indoctrinated.

More Bad Lips to Read

Last year there was a new musician made famous for singing not so well, to a professionally produced music video. Rebecca Black became an Internet sensation, for being blah. Her video, “Friday”, quite possibly has the most dislikes of any on YouTube. Why might you care? Because it’s given rise to some pretty funny parodies.

Conan O’Brien has one. Jimmy Fallon made a good one too. And some “hot girls” made one this year that is more of an homage to Black’s lameness, and their inability to put effort into singing their song.

This parody of Hot Girl Problems is the best I’ve found so far.

Bad Lip Reading, an anonymous dude from the music industry, does the bad lip reading, lyrics, music, and production. Yes, that’s a guy singing as these two girls. It’s now “Time to Rock”.

I hate gorillas. They’re going to haunt your junk.

ConCalls: Two Month Link Backlog

There’ve been so many robocall stories in a wide range of newspapers, blogs, and online magazines. It’s really hard to keep track, and I’d not so humbly claim I’m in the top 1% of Canadians who understand what went down and the impact it had. There are dozens of tabs open in my Firefox window, waiting to be linked to from my blog for easier reference. Here are some related tabs I can now close, and you can refer to from the convenience of the WWW.

Democracy Watch points out that we don’t really know if Elections Canada has been enforcing election law. It appears they have not been. I want them to ENFORCE THE DAMNED LAW.

POGGE kindly repeats my assertion that the Elections Canada investigation into Pierre Poutine has been frustratingly slow. Sixth Estate has called it a spade, and that shovel was slow and allowed evidence to be buried by the sands of time. Evidence in CIMS may have been missing around election night last year, or it could have taken a walk to a shredder after McMaher popularized #Robocalls with details from a return on a production order filed by EC.

It was all probably just database errors. Go back to sleep (if you can, after seeing this). You could even read a lullaby on McGregor’s blog.

ConCalls: #RoboCon RoboContinues

Thx! RT @kady: Meanwhile, if you've lost the thread of the #robocalls plot, the intrepid @laura_payton has you covered: is.gd/Xzrnby—
Laura Payton (@laura_payton) May 16, 2012

There’ve been a few days of no new news reported in the robocalls criminal investigation. What has been said today in CBC, while factual, does make one claim that is disputable.

With the public paper trail cold for almost two months, there’s still little that’s certain in the Elections Canada investigation[...]

Alison’s preemptive retort says it best:

The trail is not so much ‘cold’ as overwhelming.

No, the main story is :
Why did someone in the Guelph Con campaign – who would normally call RackNine to set up legit campaign robocalls directly via their Rogers IP- feel the need to use a proxy server to hide their ID at all?

There are the facts CBC presents, and there are the obvious deductions to make from them. Those deductions should have led to charges being laid, and/or a Royal Commission to be called into how Elections Canada could bungle and delay this investigation so badly that a random Canadian in Regina with an IT background could stay ahead of their progress to a certain extent. How well do you think the perpetrators feel knowing they’ve had a year to cover their tracks, and let evidence like the Shoppers Drug Mart tapes be destroyed?

CBC also left off this big fact (as reported in newspapers, and previously on CBC notes Payton):

Why is one of the three CIMS reports downloaded by Andrew Prescott – phone numbers identifying supporters and non-supporters – now missing from CIMS?

That fact points to a cover-up, because the CPC haven’t claimed their system security was violated, and that sort of log doesn’t just go missing. The person at a local campaign who downloaded the phone numbers would not have had the system permissions to remove the log for what they did at CPC HQ’s database. A co-conspirator is at large, (more likely, many of them, in many ridings too) and the media isn’t talking about them because Elections Canada hasn’t revealed any details (or the media hasn’t uncovered them in courts) yet. Since it’s taking EC’s Mathews more than a year to gather evidence for fraud in one riding, if we assume little overlap in the people conducting crimes in 200 ridings, it should only take 100 years to finish investigating so we can get on with trials. (EC added a second investigator, Lamothe, sometime in the last couple months.)

Justice Delayed, is Justice Denied. You’re being denied justice.

Small Time Video

Gormley was critical of the bad language in Gunderson’s videos. I don’t care for foul language in most music either, but at least Gormley has a valid excuse for acting like a crotchety old man; I don’t know what my problem is.

I do love Dirty Spaceman, however.

And I wish UMG would screw off and accept a parody that uses some of their video, but has different lyrics and music is not copyright infringement. It’s 2012, not the stone age. Oh, wait, scratch that, C-11 is passing.

Don’t let Gotye kick your monkey, or anywhere near your goat. He’s a Wookie snatcher, and he’ll eat your pie.

You Scratch My Back

There’s an interesting glimpse into how the Conservatives get around that pesky no-corporate donations rule. While it could be a co-incidence that people swept up in an investigation into crooked building shenanigans in Quebec just happen to be large Conservative Party donors, the cynic in me wonders why someone would pick $666.66 as a donation value too. There are legitimate reasons I’m sure. Maybe they just happened to have $2000 to donate to their favourite causes, and divided it equally to give to their favourite three (before being charged with criminal activity).

A special Quebec task force has been investigating the role of engineering-consulting firms in wider scandals over collusion, kickbacks, Mafia ties, illegal political financing and money-laundering that have raged at the provincial and local level.

Little has been written about the industry’s ties to federal politics.

An analysis by The Canadian Press of federal data indicates that donations from certain firms, now under scrutiny, helped transform one Tory association in a no-hope Montreal riding into an improbable financial juggernaut in early 2009.

In Laurier-Sainte-Marie, a left-leaning fortress home to some of the most progressive politics in the country, the Tory riding association pulled in $288,823.37 in donations that year — despite the party placing fifth there in the previous election, behind the Green party.

Read it on Global News: Global BC | Companies involved in Quebec construction scandals have deep federal ties

As Dan Gardner said, “But, But… Adscam!”

Impolitical has a few more thoughts on the subject of Conservative ah, ahem, fundraising.

Regina City Council meeting – Deadblog

(Liveblog notes, but no wifi to upload in real time so this is a deadblogging instead.)

First attempt at council being paperless. When we entered the chamber we were all handed a paper package. Paperless fail. Still, good an effort is being made with their iPads.

City Manager Davies asked their iPad techie Jonathan to not tweet during the meeting, jokingly.

First up is talk of a dog park in industrial park. Seems like an okay placement to me. It would be nicer if it were closer to residential housing so it wouldn’t require motor vehicle access for the majority of users. In the planning stages yet, they didn’t know exactly how parking would work out, but figured the on-street wasn’t utilized in the area.

As a side note, I see some mayoral candidates in the crowd, and not many council candidates (as I may soon become). I’ve been to council meetings at least four times in the last year or so, and Mayor Fiacco hasn’t been at one I’ve attended.

Fifty eight single family lots seeking R1 designation by The Creeks. Sprawl alert. As the city builds outward, the infrastructure costs for the future get more expensive for taxpayers. People living in the new areas have new infrastructure, while those living in older areas pay as much in taxes for older servicing.

2100 people living in The Creeks when development is done. Fifty percent done now.

Some land in Glencairn sold for just over $100K.

Hawkstone apartments and condos discussed next. About 184. North of Argyle Park, Walmart and east of Capital GM. Intention to make it livable and include employment in the area. Complete neighbourhood concept (like from Design Regina, good).

Professional property managers cited by the delegation as wanting to maintain this new development as rental accommodations for the long term. Not sure which one, they are all over Western Canada apparently. Not sure if they mean Boardwalk or another.

Now with rents so high, apartment buildings are being built, which will address supply, and indirectly affordability. They are not affordable per say. Some units will be “barrier free” meaning wheelchair accessible I think.
Clipsham points out correctly the same, that these are not “affordable housing” units at Rochdale and Elgaard Dr.

-Novak delegation in Rider jersey

RRI talked about first by Chad Novak who is running for Mayor, then RDCC John Hopkins. 112 responses to a survey. Not very many for a sound survey, in my opinion (, but apparently lots for the average conducted by his org.).
The CP main line would remain.
Shortage of labour to build the stadium is a serious question. And where is the labour going to live? The record-low rental rate in Canada was cited many times this entire meeting.

O’Donnell suggests that the question is now if we build a stadium with a dome, or without a dome. I ask, if no dome, why not simply renovate Taylor Field for a quarter of the cost of new? Do we have the money to build a dome? “It doesn’t appear that we do.” (shocker comment) Comparing a stadium to an old Ford: “At some point you need to get a new car.” (You can buy a motorbike instead, or walk. I wonder if Italy feels that way about the Coliseum?)

He also hopes we don’t leave the project to the next generation, and “shirk our responsibility”. Well, we should instead leave a debt for the next generation to pay instead, without the prospect of jobs building the stadium even? I understand leaving a legacy, and infrastructure is a sort of legacy project so I sympathize with that aim, but ~$450M-$995M would go a long way to eliminating poverty in Saskatchewan, which is a stronger legacy than a single sports facility.

One thing that hasn’t come up as a question from council about all of these new building projects is what sort of plan is there to operate the buildings if energy prices double as expected within the next ten years.

Clipsham does say the key question will be affordability.

Terry Hinks makes a jab at Novak for not having grown up in Regina. Hinks knows what Regina is about, hew grew up here. WTF? Where’s The Friendliness? Insulated much?

Wade Murray takes a jab at a five year Macleans article. The lack of vacant lots to build affordable housing in North Central, and much higher property values are indications of a “revitalization” or Regina, apparently. Taylor Field is never going to be a “hybrid” to continue the old car metaphor. His attempt at a stirring speech, whilst claiming Taylor Field could never be renovated with energy efficient components was so awkward I had to stifle laughter. It sounded like a person trying to speak a language where they have no experience with the nouns. I heard “rainwater retention” and “LED lights” with no context for how they fit the car metaphor or what a complete stadium and neighborhood rebuild had to do with his words.

Szarka talks about “sustainability, that word we use” very often. I don’t get the sense that he’s seriously considering financial sustainability of Regina when he invokes the word to imply the stadium would be ecologically sustainable in some manner.

2007 the Riders said it would take $110M to refurbish Taylor Field, says Louis Browne. He says sometimes you have to build new. Income taxes and consumption taxes are high contributions to the province from Regina residents, so he doesn’t feel bad about asking for a return to help fund the stadium construction.

$985 Million for the Vikings new domed stadium, says O’Donnell. Still need to negotiate with CP for land.

Left to catch bus. Went for the #3 and missed it by one block. Should have gone for the #4.

ConCalls: Fraud Not all Robocalls in #RoboCon

Take a look at what also happened to swing the election in key ridings for the Conservatives. Harassing phone calls pretending to be from Liberals, and plenty of voters voting without the documentation to prove they were citizens or lived in the riding.

To date, the Etobicoke case has revealed a tangled tale of sloppy paperwork, some of which is ascribed to a natural instinct on the part of Elections Canada officials to facilitate voting, rather than to obstruct it with red tape.

But, still: a whole range of problems has turned up which seem to push the boundaries of what’s normal.

And also worrying were comments from Marc Mayrand, the CEO:

Appearing before a parliamentary committee, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand, objected to “sweeping and vague allegations of irregularities being made public many months after the election and not supported by specific facts.”

Mayrand added that, “In some cases, the complaints are made to the media without any information being forwarded to Elections Canada. Such allegations cannot be verified.” He was referring in part, he said, to the case of Eglinton Lawrence, noting that “no specific actionable information has been provided to us, making any kind of review challenging, to say the least.”

What is striking about these comments is that, in truth, getting the evidence was not challenging at all. That’s because the special ballot forms were all provided to Elections Canada, by its own officials, immediately after the election. The same is true in every riding. By definition, all those forms belong to Elections Canada, and have been in its possession ever since.

Very suspicious excuse making from Elections Canada.

Of course, Mayrand also noted that the robocall scandal is far more serious. “Outrageous,” he called it — and who could argue? By comparison, even hundreds of incomplete special ballot forms don’t stack up.

Then again, they do stack up a little too high for comfort. In a country where you don’t even have to prove citizenship to be handed a ballot, it couldn’t hurt to make sure that voters at least provide an address.

Where’s our Royal Commission? His Excellency, the Governor General, has been silent on the issue. He must not remain so, as he cannot wait for the Prime Minister of a party at the center of the accused corrupt activity to advise him to call for a wide-sweeping investigation.

Andrew (Andy) Suknaski of Wood Mountain and Moose Jaw

Andy Suknaski, award winning poet and visual artist, has passed away at age 69.

-Photo sent to me by Dale Caragata. Andy is front-center.

Andy was from my home town of Wood Mountain, and I have some memories of him as I grew up. He lived only a block away (not big odds on that, when the village is only five blocks in any direction), and the two not very notable memories I have of him are him working in his backyard on some yard work, maybe chopping caragana branches back to prevent overgrowth, and of him visiting with my parents and Bob Shields in Bob’s backyard. I was later vaguely aware of Andy’s relative fame, and am realizing he may not yet be included on the village website or Wikipedia entry, which is something I’ll have to correct. I recall a documentary about him appearing on CBC, and my Mom being somewhat unimpressed by their depiction of him. During his last years he was not particularly well, and it prevented him from writing more.

From the UCC website:

One of the most acclaimed Canadian poets of the second half of the 20th century, and a visual artist Andrew Suknaski was born in 1942 on a homestead near Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan in July 1942 to Julia (Karasinski) and Andrew Suknaski, Sr. He was educated at the Kootenay School of Art, the University of Victoria, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts School of Art and Design and Simon Fraser University. He has worked at a variety of jobs from farmhand to night watchman to managing a portable one-man publishing venture that specialized in limited edition mail-outs.

Suknaski’s narrative style was the dominant influence on the Canadian Prairie poetry in the 1970s and 1980s. His published works include The Ghosts Call you Poor (1978), East of Myloona (1979), In the Name of Narid (1981), The Land They Gave Away (1982) Silk Trail (1985). His works are included in the anthologies Canadian Literature in the 70s and The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English.

In 1979, Suknaski won the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Award for The Ghosts You Call Poor. He has been the subject of a great amount of critical attention, including articles by Jars Balan, “Voices from the Canadian Steppes: Ukrainian Elements in Andrew Suknaski’s Poetry.” Studia Ucrainica (1988), Dawn Morgan’s, “Andrew Suknaski’s ‘Wood mountain time’ and the chronotope of multiculturalism.” Mosaic (1996) and Tatiana Nazarenko’s “Ukrainian-Canadian visual poetry: traditions and innovations.” Canadian Ethnic Studies (1996).

In 1978, the National Film Board of Canada made a documentary film on Andrew Suknaski entitled Wood Mountain Poems. In it, Suknaski talks about his part of the world, about its multicultural background, its Indian heritage, and the customs and stories of its different ethnic groups. In June of 2000, the BRAVO! channel aired a 30-minute interview with Suknaski.