Tag: Non-partisan blog posts

Bored Election Blogging

Would it surprise you to find out that if I really thought about it, all this daily election blogging I am doing is getting to be dull. I have done a daily post over at the CBC roundtable and maybe half as many again here. That is something like 75 posts on one topic. It is getting dull out there.

Why is it dull? Because I have become aware of what is really happening. It is sort of like watching a movie in a cinema. People all reacting in a group emotional event together, having a moment of shared swing syndrome. Sooner or later you realize this at the movies and it suddenly feels like a sort of techno-evangelical church praising Lord Pictures-on-the-wall.

This is not like me. Usually my gut reaction to “where two or three are gathered” is an urge to be elsewhere. Something happens to people when there are few ideas and lots of expectations and an election is the worst example for a couple of reasons. First, it is not about the details or what will really happening. As soon as the platforms were all finally released last week, they dropped off the radar. Second, it is too much like a bunch of branding consultants talking. If there is one thing worse than listening to a branding consultant talk about what your brand should be, it is a group of branding consultants talk about branding theory. And as branding is making something without certain characteristics appear to be something with those characteristics…well, you get the point.

Will I learn to blog again after all this is done? I worry about that more and more. I wonder what will fill the hours when I can’t jerk my knee to the last poll or the last gaffe.

Baby Bok Choi

When the world that is Canada comes out of its fixation with the election and has yet to slump back towards the TV screen for the Winter Olympics, there may be a moment to consider something new including new things to eat. In winter there are chinese greens to consider.

Bok Choi is that thing that looks like celery at the bottom and romaine lettuce at the top. Last night we had it simply done. Quarter them length-wise. Heat the pan moderately hot. Olive oil and a drop of sesame oil and bash in the bok, moving and flipping until the tops are wilted and the thicker base warmed through. Light in taste and texture, they pile well upon a steak.

This has been a public service announcement.

Day Forty-Five: The Bill Of Rights

A couple of conservative bloggers got me thinking. This in tiself has me a bit worried but we are all working towards that grand CPC/NDP coalition…right? Right?

  • The Liberal Party has voiced opposition to the entrenchment of property rights in The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada’s primary constitutional document defining the limits of how far any part of the state can intrude on the rights of individuals – relying, oddly, in part of a heretofore unknown creature, the prominent blogger.
  • The Liberal party has run the Federal government for the last 13 or so years and for the best part of the preceding decades of Canadian existence and should have a sense of the powers which were entrusted to it.
  • on 10 August 1960 The Bill of Rights received Royal Assent. It contains the following provision:

    1. It is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely,

    (a) the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;

  • The next section of The Bill of Rights has a very interesting provision:

    2. Every law of Canada shall, unless it is expressly declared by an Act of the Parliament of Canada that it shall operate notwithstanding the Canadian Bill of Rights, be so construed and applied as not to abrogate, abridge or infringe or to authorize the abrogation, abridgment or infringement of any of the rights or freedoms herein recognized and declared…

    This section means that the laws of the Federal Goverment need to comply with The Bill of Rights. In this sense, like a piece of human rights legislation or an Interpretation Act, The Bill or Rights is quasi-constitutional. Not quite as over-riding as the Constitution but one that demands compliance within its sphere of influence. We learn that in section 5(2) which defines “law of Canada” as follows:

    The expression “law of Canada” in Part I means an Act of the Parliament of Canada enacted before or after the coming into force of this Act, any order, rule or regulation thereunder, and any law in force in Canada or in any part of Canada at the commencement of this Act that is subject to be repealed, abolished or altered by the Parliament of Canada.

    A somewhat broad definition limited only as follows in 5(3):

    The provisions of Part I shall be construed as extending only to matters coming within the legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada.

  • Although rather ineffective as an instrument of societal change and even though it was overshadowed The Charter of Rights and Freedoms came in twenty-one years later, The Bill of Rights continues to apply in law for certain purposes. While the Supreme Court of Canada held in the Anderson case in 2003 that The Bill of Rights could not provide protection for certain injured and ill veterans and their families against legislated expropriation without hearing, it did confirm section 1(a) continues to exist:

    …The Bill of Rights guarantees notice and some opportunity to contest a governmental deprivation of property rights only in the context of an adjudication of that person’s rights and obligations before a court or tribunal.

    So not everything but something. The court stated that where no adjudicative procedure is necessary for the non-discretionary application of a law, the provision provides no benefit and the court illustrates this with the example that a taxpayer could not claim procedural protections against a change in income tax rates that adversely affected him.

What I think this all means is that where a Federal law sets out a process for deprivation of properly it must be due process and provide certain procedural rights such as fairness. Where, however, the act in question is not delegated but imposed directy by the Parliament itself there is no benefit of The Bill of Rights because of that pesky word “enacted” highlighted in bold above. The protections of the Charter get into the “enactment” of a statute and that is the difference. Hence the practical uselessness of The Bill of Rights as a tool against the legislated fiat such as in Anderson.

So when the Liberals say that placing property rights in the Constitution “would dismantle Canada’s social safety net” it might be fair to say that it would do so if there was some anticipatible consequence in a Court ruling supporting a previously unentrenched property right lurking there in The Bill of Rights. All The Bill of Rights can do is ensure the Federal Government must uphold property rights in its delegated processes. In other cases, the Federal Government and the provinces would need to agree to put property rights in the Charter at risk of unacceptable outcomes. But in that case, there is alway section 33 of the Charter and the notwithstanding clause. Right?

Day Forty-Five: One Small Break

No one really wishes ill on anyone specifically – do they? But you can bet there have been a few prayers of a general nature rising from the Liberal war-room with this bit of divine intervention news this morning:

The federal Tories are standing behind a B.C. candidate who has been charged with attempting to smuggle a car and booze across the U.S. border last year. Derek Zeisman is running to replace retiring Conservative MP Jim Gouk in the riding of British Columbia Southern Interior. The party only found out about the six charges on Wednesday after being contacted by the media. Canada Customs and Revenue alleges Zeisman tried to smuggle a 1989 Mercedes Benz from the U.S. into Canada, as well as 112 bottles of liquor in July 2004. He’s also accused of lying to customs officers about the incident. If convicted, Zeisman could be fined by up to $50,000 and could face six months in jail.

Is this the same guy?

Derek Zeisman, BAHons/94, BJ/95, is a sessional instructor at Capilano College in British Columbia. Derek is also a trade commissioner with the International Trade Centre in Vancouver, where he also resides. He can be reached at zeisman.derek@ic.gc.ca.

Yup. From the Tory’s candidate’s page:

Upon his return to Canada in 2002, Derek accepted a job as a trade commissioner at Industry Canada’s International Trade Centre in Vancouver, a position which allowed him to work closely with BC-based businesses by assisting them in exporting their goods and services around the world.

So while I am not exactly thinking that Stephen Harper counselled Mr. International Trade Wizard 2006 to bring the car over without declaring, he is up there in the all-party gallery of fools with our pal also known as the country’s dumbest blogger.

And just for full disclosure, all posts at A Good Beer Blog are based on full declaration to Canada’s fine customs officers.

Update: Harper did exactly the right thing. John Reynolds, however, clearly did not as Brooksy notes:

John Reynolds, the Tory campaign chairman, says the party intends to stand by Zeisman and the charges against him were only “administrative” in nature. “He will go to court, and he is still an innocent man until he goes through this process,” Reynolds told the Vancouver Province. “But even at that point, it’s not a criminal offence.”

I would have told Brooks directly but for his devotion to blogger software and its demands that I sell my soul to leave him a comment.

Day Thirty-Eight: YIKES! I’m a-Scared

It has happened. The Liberal Party of Canada’s plan to roll out Ray Steven’s hit “Everything is Beautiful in its Own Way” is now officially on hold because the headline in the Toronto Star this morning reads “Tories Jump Into Clear Lead”:

The survey, conducted by EKOS Research Associates for the Star and La Presse, found that 36.2 per cent of decided voters say they will support the Conservatives, while 30.4 per cent favoured the Liberals. The NDP is supported by 17.9 per cent of voters, while the Bloc is at 10.4 per cent nationally and the Green party is at 4.7 per cent.

The SES poll dated 3 January shows a three point lead for the Tories, too. Expect it to bump again as everyone who votes for a winner now mooes over to the other side and practices their “I saw it all along” talking points.

You know…isn’t it sort of time? Even if it were the Visagoths, which it almost isn’t, don’t even the mad marauding hordes get a chance at governing once in a while? A Tory minority would accomplish a few things. They would finally have to put up or shut up, something we have all sort of wanted since we first heard Preston Manning speak. And also they would have to face a leftist majority in the house. Would the other four parties (if the Greens win one) have the guts to create a grand coalition?

Best of all it would be a call for the creation of the Party of the Flea whose storehouse of slogans such as Fleatastic and Now is the time at the Flea when we dance would go so well with anime characters and car show lassies on election posters. Nation-wide Flea power. Fabulous thought.

US College Football

There are moments in life when you hit a wall, when you realize in all honesty “hey, I can’t do this.” It must be odd, however, to be a good kid, a great athlete and on TV before a massive continental audience and then get hammered. [Ed.: I think “continental” will be the word of Genx X at 40 for 2006.]

I stopped watching the Ohio State victory over Notre Dame when I started feeling uncomfortable for the kids in the gold helmets. I am assured I will not feel so itchy shirted in relation to tonight’s Penn State v. Florida State game. I will try to love again.