Many have referred to those in the Truckers Freedom Convoy and their followers as "Idiots". They are not "idiots". Many are well educated although in some important respects, they are undereducated. Many do not have a good understanding of one or more of the following: scientific method, probabilities, logical reasoning, critical thinking, democracy, fact checking. A sad commentary on our educational system.
It appears that over 50% of the funding came from the USA, and a disturbing amount came from right wing organizations and their followers. This is a new peril in our modern society. That peril is the ability of deep pocketed extreme groups (from anywhere in the world) to fund and rally these undereducated to disrupt society for their own political purposes. We need a major educational effort, not just for children, but everyone. We need to learn new skills in order to navigate this fast-changing digital world.
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Many people in Canada are caught in a poverty trap and/or a debit trap and do not know how to get out of that trap.
As a society we do not help these people get out of the trap. Kids are not taught how money works - they don’t know how to budget, they don’t understand the true cost of borrowing (of debit), they don’t know how to save, they don’t know how to spend wisely, they don’t know how to plan, etc It is not surprising we have poverty problems. This is an idea that could help many Canadians. This could break the poverty/debit cycle for many. The government of Canada will work with all those institutions who issue credit and debit cards to incentivize or require them to issue a special Better Life Debit/Credit Card to anyone who wants to sign up for a Better Life. These special cards will have a phone companion app. Here’s how Better Life works.
Better Life can be life changing for many Canadians who are perpetually caught in a poverty / debit trap. This program could even be beneficial for many people who are not officially in poverty or have huge debts, but are living paycheque to paycheque. This program will help Make Canada a Better Place to Live. If these people learn to save, they will contribute more to society over the long term and have better retirement prospects. There are many social benefits to breaking the poverty cycle. Here is a link to the Canadian Government “Dimensions of Poverty” https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/topics-start/poverty It is estimated that 3.7 million Canadians live below the poverty line. That is 10% of the population. Not all will choose to participate in the program. Costs
However, there could be a huge payback involved in reducing poverty and all the social costs of poverty. Also, as people are lifted out of poverty, they will pay more taxes. Over time, Better Life will more than pay for itself. Over 60% of the Canadian population lean left of centre politically. The Liberals, NDP, Greens and even the BQ are left of centre parties. Currently, only about 35% of the population lean to the right of centre politically. The Conservatives and the new Peoples Party are right of centre. And yet ironically, it now appears that the Conservatives, with less than 40% of the vote, could form the next government, albeit a minority government.
Remember what happened in Ontario in the last provincial election. Doug Ford won a majority with about 40% of the vote. Ford then went on to apply the Conservative platform without even consulting the other 60% of the population. And now the same sort of thing could happen federally. This is exactly why the majority of the population supported the idea of proportional representation during the last election. To avoid such lopsided results. So what happened to proportional representation? Shortly after being elected in October 2015, the Liberals formed an all party committee charged with proposing a proportional representation electoral system for this 2019 election. The Liberals had the majority of the members on this committee to which the Conservatives vigorously objected. The Conservatives also helped to whip up a media frenzy around this issue. If the Liberals really believed in a proportional representation system, then they should appoint such committees on that basis. So they relented and gave up the majority on the committee. The Conservatives then said they would not support any proportional representation without a referendum. The Liberals chose to give up proportional representation for this election cycle rather than have a very polarizing referendum. After seeing what happened with Brexit, that probably was the best call for the country although not for the Liberals. It is exactly what the Conservatives wanted. As a result, they have a chance of forming the next government. What can be done at this late date? The Voters should vote strategically. The Liberals should announce that they will commit a position in the Liberal Cabinet to both the NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, and the Green Party leader, Elizabeth May. This would be on the expectation that they will work to achieve consensus on proposed legislation rather than apply obstructionist vetoes. By doing this, Trudeau and the Liberals will go part way towards a form of proportional representation. Trudeau and the Liberals would not ask long term supporters of NDP or Greens to change their vote, but they would have to ask that swing voters to vote strategically and support the Liberals to ensure that the Conservatives do not win. In really tight races, even long term NDP and Green voters might choose to vote strategically to ensure they have a seat at the table. In Quebec, the situation is more complicated. If there is a significant swing towards the BQ and its charismatic leader Blanchet, that alone could swing the results enough nationally to enable the Conservatives to win. It is difficult to offer a seat in the Cabinet, which works for all Canadians, to a leader who says he speaks only for Quebecers. Perhaps some other accommodation could be worked out. So Quebecers are also going to have to choose whether or not to vote strategically. To have a strong voice in Ottawa, supporting Liberals would be their best option. Liberals have been strong supporters of Quebecers. One thing that is crucial is that everyone exercises their right and civic duty to vote. Then we will all own the result, whatever it may be. Margaret Wente’s opinion piece published 28 February 2019 about the SNC Lavalin affair is an example of a press feeding frenzy. The press smells blood and like sharks they circle in for the kill, oblivious of the consequences.
In her testimony, Jody Wilson-Raybould outlined 15 key interactions in a 4 month period which she interpreted as undue pressure or political interference on the SNC Lavalin file. Lost in all the rhetoric is the fact that she is both Justice Minister and Attorney-General. As part of her role as Justice Minister, she is responsible for ensuring that Canada has a rigorous but fair set of laws. One would expect that she would have many more meetings about this and other such matters over the course of 4 months. Having one person serve as Justice Minister and Attorney General has served Canada well for most of its existence. Perhaps politics is just too complicated these days for one person to fulfil both roles, at least it seems it is for Jody Wilson-Raybould. It is time to split the role as it is in the UK and many other democratic countries around the world. In the SNC Lavalin case, there is already a provision for a Deferred Prosecution Agreement. Not a slap on the wrist, but a very significant penalty that would financially hurt SNC Lavalin executives and shareholders enough to create real change so that such illegal activity did not occur again. The SNC Lavalin case is very significant to Canada since the potential of a prosecution approach could be to put them out of business or cause them to relocate their head office to another country. Thousands of jobs could be lost, huge tax revenues could be lost, and perhaps even more significant in the long term there could be huge losses of Capital flow into Canada. To Ms Wente’s credit, she did acknowledge that she did not have any solutions for this problem, but then blithely goes on to endorse Jody Wilson-Raybould’s decision as the only right solution with no acknowledgement or even understanding of the devastating consequences for Canada. And similarly, Andrew Scheer has not offered any solutions and has implied that if he had been Prime Minister, he would not have talked to the Justice Minister and Attorney General about SNC Lavalin, in turn implying that he would not fight to save Canadian jobs. Does Canada want a Prime Minister that will not fight to save Canadian jobs or a Prime Minister who will? I am not ashamed for my country nor a Prime Minister who fights for Canadian jobs. Here is Ministerial Accountability as outlined in official government document
"Our Parliamentary Framework".
Here are Roles and Responsibilities of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada as outlined in the Official Justice Department Website.
Jody Wilson-Raybould had a responsibility to “defend Cabinet decisions” as Justice Minister but had political independence as Attorney General while still being accountable to Parliament. Parliament has the responsibility of ensuring that she does both jobs appropriately. One would assume that Parliament would have the right to inquire about anything she does, provide guidance on what she does and how she does it without directing her final decision. A position fraught with difficulties as we have seen. With Respect to SNC Lavalin, she had the responsibility in her due diligence to consider the case through the prism of Canadian Law. What was her due diligence process? Nobody has asked and she has only said that she did do due diligence. From everything we know so far, it appears that her due diligence primarily focused on the legalities of persecution. There is little evidence that she considered a DPA (Deferred Prosecution Agreement) with equal due diligence. If she did, and given this is the first time in Canada’s history that we have prosecuted such a significant case, it would be reasonable to expect that due diligence on a DPA would be to consult with outside experts such as Beverley McLachlin or even the UK and the US given their much greater and longer experience in such matters. It would be right for Parliament to direct her to do so as part of her due diligence. Did this happen? What other aspects did she consider or not consider? While she does have political independence, she also has a responsibility to Parliament to demonstrate that she is doing an appropriate job and should expect some guidance from Parliament. It appears that the dialogue between Jody Wilson-Raybould and other members of Parliament diverged from a discussion to find a solution to two entirely different opinions of what that discussion actually was. Is there still not room for some sort of compromise solution? After all, that is how our democracy is supposed to work. What if the prosecution goes ahead but the law in modified to allow for the consideration of a Negotiated Agreement, if convicted, as the penalty in this case. If SNC Lavalin is found guilty of the charges, then the government would have more leverage in negotiating such an agreement. Penalties under such an agreement could be very severe, but stop short of putting them out of business. This would be a win for democracy, a win for the people with jobs at SNC Lavalin, a win for Canadian taxpayers, and a win for business in that SNC Lavalin will likely lead the way in developing a more socially moral business ethic. Trump publicly said that he may intervene with the Justice Dept to use Meng Wanzhou as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with China. Trudeau should immediately declare that Canada will not extradite Meng Wanzhou because she will not be guaranteed a fair trial in the US.
Imagine a world where governments around the world started to arrest important people from other countries in order to use them as negotiating chips in some perceived dispute. This is very, very, very dangerous. We cannot allow this to happen. Canada can be a leader in the world in taking a stand against this disintegration of justice, even if there will be short-term consequences from the bully south of the border. For a safer world, it seems that we have to give up some personal privacy. Sometimes we willingly do so, but often we don’t even know the extent to which our privacy has been compromised.
Through social media such as Facebook, we willingly, although usually unwittingly, share a lot of information about ourselves. Any single Facebook post does not seem to compromise our privacy very much, but now there are AI bots / algorithms that skim off so much info that an eerily accurate profile can be constructed about each of us. Twenty years ago in the UK, which was one of the first countries to extensively use CCTV cameras, there were very passionate debates about loss of privacy over the use of CCTV. Cries of 1984, here we come, and many other alarmist scenarios dominated the news. But over time, the public learned that there were good safeguards in place so the CCTV footage was not abused and that the presence of CCTV cameras actually decreased crime where they were deployed. Today UK citizens are the most CCTV tracked people in the world. And yet, the British are petitioning their local and regional governments to install even more CCTV cameras in an effort the reduce crime further. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, we unknowingly lost a lot of our privacy when much more of our personal communications were monitored by the NSA and similar government organizations around the world. We did not learn about the extent of this until Snowden leaked shocking details about the NSA. There will never be a zero risk scenario, but there must be ways of substantially reducing crime and terrorism to create a safer world. Well, there is. In an open and public process, we could agree upon safeguards and track everything everyone does - phone, email, social media, location, CCTV, banking, etc. The technology exists today to do much if not all of this automatically such that humans would never see the encrypted information unless flagged by AI bots / algorithms. Of course, this will not happen, for cries and protests of outrage will overwhelm any government trying to implement such a plan. To be sure, it is only a matter of time before terrorists will escalate their attacks to kill thousands, maybe even millions. When that happens (and it is when, not if it happens), you can bet we will lose a lot more privacy and very likely will not even be aware of it. We will not participate in setting up safeguards. We will not know how this information will be used. We seem to be stuck between these two unsatisfactory realities. But perhaps there is a way avoid these two extremes. There could be a way to ease into greater surveillance and avoid clandestine loss of privacy. The result could be a much safer world in the future. What if anyone convicted of a crime is automatically subjected to tracking as described above? It automatically becomes part of the punishment of any crime. There are several benefits to this approach:
Controversial, for sure, but perhaps better than unknowingly losing our privacy in knee jerk spasms with every gruesome crime or terrorist attack. |
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