Life in Canada: 2015

Immigration- shifting of the goalposts

That the federal government will miss its self-imposed, once-revised, entirely arbitrary end-of-year deadline of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees is no extraordinary revelation: an incumbent government would have had difficulty relocating that many people in such a relatively short amount of time, to say nothing of one hobbled by the bureaucratic challenges of only having been in office for eight weeks.

OTTAWA — Canada’s immigration minister says the government is still working towards its goal of bringing 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of the year but would not guarantee it will actually happen.
John McCallum said the government will have identified the 10,000 refugees who will be on Canadian soil in the coming months, but could not provide specific details on exactly when all will actually arrive.
McCallum blamed delays on inclement flying weather, refugees wanting to say goodbye to friends and families, and other circumstances beyond the government’s control.

Still, up until the last week of November, the Liberals remained defiantly committed to their plainly unfeasible pledge to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees by year’s end, relying ostensibly on power of positive thinking and other mantras to which the public was not privy. Then, Immigration Minister John McCallum conceded that the initial target might have been a bit too ambitious, and he announced in a press conference that the goal would be revised to welcome 10,000 Syrian refugees by year’s end, and another 15,000 by the end of February.
That was then. This is now: on Wednesday McCallum, said that Ottawa might fall short of reaching that revised target, attributing the delay to factors including weather complications and the variability of “human nature.” Though Canada likely wouldn’t see 10,000 refugees by Dec. 31, McCallum said, he was still confident that it would bring in a total of 25,000 people by the end of February. As of December 21, 1,869 Syrian refugees had landed in Canada.

Predictably, this shifting of the goalposts has provoked chiding from Conservative benches, but the fault here isn’t that the Liberals broke another promise, or that they couldn’t make their expedited mass migration plan happen. Rather, it’s that the government insists on setting such silly, quixotic targets in the first place, with seemingly little regard for feasibility, associated costs or reception from ordinary Canadians.

Indeed, there’s a burgeoning optics problem here. What Canadians have heard from the government over the last couple of months is a fixation on a target number of refugees arriving in Canada by a certain time. What they’re reading, however, is that the government is expected to spend $61 million to $77 million on hotel stays for new refugees, and that it will reimburse up to $61 per day per refugee for hotel meals. For the average Canadian — who, according to Statistics Canada, spent roughly $22 per household per day on food in 2013 — those figures are astonishingly inflated. Canadians are thus left to wonder what the costs might have been had the government not been so preoccupied by its wholly arbitrary deadline, and instead tried to balance the need for expediency with the responsibility to control ballooning expenses. Surely, in that aspirational case, $15 hotel breakfasts would not have been part of the plan.
The fixation on numbers and deadlines also seems to overlook the fact that moving refugees is not quite the same as shipping crude oil: refugees have personal belongings, assets, friends, families they have to leave behind behind. They have legitimate, very human reservations about moving to a place they know little about, and hold out hope — however baseless — that the fighting in Syria will soon end and they’ll be able to return home. That is why it was also no extraordinary revelation that only 6.3 per cent of refugees contacted by the United Nations in late November said they were interested in coming to Canada, especially when, according to CBC News, some refugees have only been given two or three days notice before being shipped to a totally foreign land.

Canada might have wanted to welcome 25,000, then 10,000, Syrian refugees by year’s end, but Ottawa quickly realized that refugees aren’t mere hapless entities — especially not those who are actually able to escape the fighting and make it to a refugee camp. They can’t be expected to move at will to fulfil a campaign promise 10,000 kilometres away.

It doesn’t matter that the Liberals are breaking another promise: it matters that they’re latching themselves to these dumb promises in the first place, and that they then refuse to concede their impracticality. The same stubbornness is playing out with the Liberals’ pledge to withdraw Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets from Syria and Iraq, which the Canadian government stands by, for now, for a reason that still isn’t entirely clear, other than that it was a campaign promise. Eventually though, team Trudeau will have to acknowledge that campaign promises don’t always make for the best policies. That, or it will have to start writing its targets in pencil instead of pen and shelling out for overpriced hotel meals.

Harper cheats again - Changed the Election Rules

Canada Changed the Election Rules So It Could Negotiate the TPP

The Canadian government found itself in a tough spot when Prime Minister Stephen Harper called an election right in the middle of Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, a hugely controversial international trade deal that’s so far been discussed in secret.

Past election rules would have made it difficult for the government to continue negotiations until a vote was held, since the “caretaker” phase of elections the government is now in prevent it from doing things like signing a deal that could result in an overhaul of the country’s copyright law.

So the government again changed rules.

For the first time, the Privy Council Office (PCO) released updated guidelines that describe how government officials should act during the caretaker period. Why now? Well, rather suspiciously, the document contains a section seemingly tailor-made to allow the government to continue trade negotiations during an election—and according to a representative from the PCO, the new guidelines were indeed crafted especially for this election, and for just the TPP.
“It has been clear for months that the TPP negotiations could overlap with Canada's fixed election date, and that questions would arise,” Raymond Rivet, director of PCO corporate and media affairs, wrote Motherboard in an email. “As such, it was decided to add some clarity in this edition of the guidelines.”

“It is definitely a tricky position for Canadian negotiators to be in"

Notably, while the government is free to continue negotiations, the PCO rules state that a treaty cannot be ratified until after the final vote has been counted on election night. What this means is that, whatever happens during negotiations, when a government is formed after the election, whether or not the TPP stands will be up to them. While all three major parties have come out in support of the agreement, they disagree on key details.

“It is definitely a tricky position for Canadian negotiators to be in,” Liberal member of parliament and party trade critic Chrystia Freeland said in an interview. “Being in a caretaker government puts them in a more complicated position.”
And the political stakes are high. If Harper comes out on top in negotiations, pundits believe it will cement his persona as a leader that’s strong on trade. NDP leader Tom Mulcair has resorted to calling the Prime Minister “weak” and “vulnerable” during talks.

When asked by reporters on Monday whether the government would sign a TPP deal during elections, Harper replied, “We will make sure, should there be a deal, we will get the best possible deal for this country,” according to a transcript provided to Motherboard by a Conservative Party spokesperson.

But ratification, although prevented by the PCO’s election rules, is actually the last step before a treaty can go into effect, according to University of Ottawa policy researcher Michael Geist. Before that, there’s signing, which the rules don’t explicitly ban. But it’s unclear whether even that can be done.V
“Once the agreement is signed, it’s not that you’re bound by anything; you’re only bound by a treaty once you’ve ratified it,” said Geist. “But signing signifies that you largely agree with the agreement and have an intention to ratify. It’s sometimes described as the difference between becoming engaged and becoming married.”

Canadian economy shrank again- into Recession

The Canadian economy shrank again in the second quarter, putting the country in recession for the first time since the financial crisis, which of course accoring to our Governmant did not happen with no bailout and now with a plunge in oil prices taking a toll as business investment fell and inventory accumulation slowed.

Gross domestic product contracted at an annualized 0.5 percent rate in the second quarter, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday. That was better than forecast, though revisions showed the first quarter's contraction was steeper than first reported.

Two consecutive quarters of contraction are typically considered the textbook definition of a recession. The confirmation of a modest recession is likely to figure heavily into the election campaign as Canadians head to the polls next month.

Some economists and members of the Conservative government have argued that such a definition is too narrow and that other economic measures should be taken into account, such as unemployment, which has remained relatively subdued.

Encouragingly, the economy grew in June for the first time in six months, suggesting the recession may be short-lived. While the price of oil and other natural resources have weakened since June, many expect non-commodity Canadian exports to benefit from a strengthening U.S. economy.

The Canadian dollar pared losses after the data. [CAD/]
"Despite the technical recession materializing, it does look like the Canadian economy is jumping back, is rebounding strongly in the third quarter," said Derek Burleton, deputy chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

The last time Canada was in recession was in 2008-09, when the U.S. housing market meltdown triggered a global credit crisis.
In the second quarter, Canadian business investment sank by an annualized 7.9 percent as spending on non-residential structures, machinery and equipment fell. Inventory accumulation slowed by C$4.91 billion ($3.74 billion).

Activity in the goods-producing industries declined 2 percent on a quarterly basis, with a 4.5 percent drop in the mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction component. But a rebound in that same sector helped the economy perk up by a better-than-expected 0.5 percent in June.

Following the data, traders saw a slightly lower probability the central bank will cut rates again next week. The Bank of Canada has cut interest rates twice this year in an effort to revive the economy. BOCWATCH
"They'll wait and see how the third quarter's unfolding to get more information," said Burleton. "But it does look like the weakness in the first half is in the rear view mirror."

Taxpayers Paying $18 into MLA Pension Plan for Every $1 Paid by MLAs

HALIFAX, NS: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has crunched the numbers on the MLA pension plan and notwithstanding two independent reviews and reforms in 2011 and 2014, MLA pensions remain a rich golden parachute. Last year, for every $1 contributed by politicians to their pensions, taxpayers contributed $18. That is down slightly from 2010 when the contribution ratio was $22 to $1.
“It’s time for our politicians to do the right thing and scrap this rich pension scheme once and for all,” said Kevin Lacey, Atlantic Director with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). “The province is broke. Yet, our politicians are accepting this fat pension plan while asking Nova Scotians to accept cuts in services and higher taxes,”
In 2014-15 alone, MLA pensions cost taxpayers $10.4 million.
The calculations on the MLA pension plan come from the “Financial Statements of Members Retiring Allowances Plan And Members Supplementary Retiring Allowances Plan” released by the Nova Scotia Pension Agency.
You can get a copy of the Financial Statements of the MLA Plan HERE
Particulars as to how much each individual MLA is entitled to as of December 31^st, 2013 can be found HERE
To see how the $18 to $1 ratio was calculated, you can find more information HERE
A copy of the CTF’s report on MLA pensions from 2010 can be found HERE

Harper:preventing federal scientists from freely sharing their results

As an outsider, I have been following with great interest and deep unease the ongoing story of the federal government’s fight to prevent federal scientists from freely sharing the results of their work. I include myself in the word "we"

This government has used a culture of fear— achieved by de-funding, and the strategic dismissal of key leaders— as a means to suppress the flow of information from federal scientists. This ‘muzzling’ of researchers has been noticed in Canada and indeed around the world.

It has even, astonishingly, become an election issue. When was science ever an election issue? Never before to the best of my knowledge — which shows how bad the situation really is.

For all of these reasons, I was highly suspicious, and unfortunately not the least bit surprised, to learn that Dr. John Wilmshurst, Resource Conservation Manager for one of Canada's most precious natural resources, Jasper National Park, had been fired.

Dr. Wilmshurst is the same scientist who was quoted in the Canadian Press around this time last year for his observations regarding the rapid shrinking of the Athabasca Glacier within Jasper National Park.

In a recent article, Jasper’s Fitzhugh newspaper mentioned the ‘mystery’ of Wilmshurst’s dismissal. While the reason for Dr. Wilmshurst’s dismissal has not been revealed, its news keeps the chill wind blowing on the Canadian scientific community, and on federal researchers in particular.

It is a mystery, but it is also tempting to connect the dots: federal government scientist notes environmental issue relating to climate change, communicates that information to the press, and about a year later that scientist is summarily fired.

Is this yet another skirmish in the government’s ongoing war on information? It could scarcely be more obvious by now that this government does not welcome information, particularly when it reveals instances of economic weakness, environmental decline, or both. Indeed, Jasper’s success as a park and a town that attracts two million visitors a year is directly connected to its fragile environment.

The role of scientists is to acquire and communicate information. In fact, scientists generally believe that it is their responsibility to publish or otherwise publicize data they perceive to be important to the public interest.

Im my opinion no scientist paid with public funds should be compelled to filter the information they collect away from the public simply to keep our politicians happy. We all have the right to decide for ourselves what information is of value. That our government appears to be working so very hard to keep information from us should be deeply troubling to all Canadians who value their democracy and the roles of our institutions within it.

Yet another federal scientist fired may be lost in the noise of the daily news cycle, but as a scientist, I cannot let it pass without voicing my concern for the overall trend. The government of Canada seems to be fighting hard to not just spin but actually suppress the flow of information that we all require to effectively engage in the conversation about the state of our expansive, shockingly beautiful, and vulnerable country.

This is in my opinio,n fundamentally undemocratic and even dangerous in the long term, particularly if we allow ourselves to become accustomed to it. Don't underestimate the insidious decay that will ensue if we continue to allow this government to bury information vital for our nation's integrity.

Just as scientists have a responsibility to communicate research in the public’s interest, Canadians have a responsibility now to stand up for their right to hear what our federal scientists and researchers have to say about issues related to their safety, health and prosperity.

I sincerely hope that Canadians seize the opportunity this October to elect a smart, science-friendly government that respects our democratic values of transparency and accountability.

THE prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, his peculiar hatred for sharing information.

THE prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has called an election for Oct. 19, but he doesn’t want anyone to talk about it. .He has chosen not to participate in the traditional series of debates on national television, confronting his opponents in quieter, less public venues, like the scholarly Munk Debates and CPAC, Canada’s equivalent of CSPAN.

His own campaign events were subject to gag orders until a public outcry forced him to rescind the forced silence of his supporters."

Mr. Harper’s campaign for re-election has so far been utterly consistent with the personality trait that has defined his tenure as prime minister: his peculiar hatred for sharing information."

Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education.But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government. His stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively. He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance.

His relationship to the press is one of outright hostility.

At his notoriously brief news conferences, his handlers vet every journalist, picking and choosing who can ask questions. In the usual give-and-take between press and politicians, the hurly-burly of any healthy democracy, he has simply removed the give.

Mr. Harper’s war against science has been even more damaging to the capacity of Canadians to know what their government is doing. The prime minister’s base of support is Alberta, a western province financially dependent on the oil industry, and he has been dedicated to protecting petrochemical companies from having their feelings hurt by any inconvenient research.

In 2012, he tried to defund government research centers in the High Arctic, and placed Canadian environmental scientists under gag orders. That year, National Research Council members were barred from discussing their work on snowfall with the media. Scientists for the governmental agency Environment Canada, under threat of losing their jobs, have been banned from discussing their research without political approval. Mentions of federal climate change research in the Canadian press have dropped 80 percent. The union that represents federal scientists and other professionals has, for the first time in its history, abandoned neutrality to campaign against Mr. Harper.

His active promotion of ignorance extends into the functions of government itself. Most shockingly, he ended the mandatory long-form census, a decision protested by nearly 500 organizations in Canada, including the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Catholic Council of Bishops.

I beleive, in the age of information, he with the aid of Canadian apathy has stripped Canada of its capacity to gather information about itself. The Harper years have seen a subtle darkening of Canadian life. Has anyone else notiuced it besides me?

The darkness has resulted, organically, in one of the most scandal-plagued administrations in Canadian history. Mr. Harper’s tenure coincided with the scandal of Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto who admitted to smoking crack while in office and whose secret life came to light only when Gawker, an American website, broke the story. In a famous video at a Ford family barbecue, Mr. Harper praised the Fords as a “Conservative political dynasty.”

Mr. Harper’s appointments to the Senate — which in Canada is a mercifully impotent body employed strictly for political payoffs — have proved greedier than the norm. Mr. Harper’s chief of staff was forced out for paying off a senator who fudged his expenses. The Mounties have pressed criminal charges.

After the 2011 election, a Conservative staffer, Michael Sona, was convicted of using robocalls to send voters to the wrong polling places in Guelph, Ontario. In the words of the judge, he was guilty of “callous and blatant disregard for the right of people to vote.” In advance of this election, instead of such petty ploys, the Canadian Conservatives have passed the Fair Elections Act, a law with a classically Orwellian title, which not only needlessly tightens the requirements for voting but also has restricted the chief executive of Elections Canada from promoting the act of voting. Mr. Harper seems to think that his job is to prevent democracy. Sadly in my opinion he is backed by Canadian apathy

But in my opinion, the worst of the Harper years is that all this secrecy and informational control have been at the service of no larger vision for the country.

The policies that he has undertaken have been negligible — more irritating distractions than substantial changes. He is “tough on crime,” and so he has built more prisons at great expense at the exact moment when even American conservatives have realized that over-incarceration causes more problems than it solves. Then there is a new law that allows the government to revoke citizenship for dual citizens convicted of terrorism or high treason — effectively creating levels of Canadianness and problems where none existed.

For a man who insists on such intense control, the prime minister has not managed to control much that matters. The argument for all this secrecy was a technocratic impulse — I beleive he imagined Canada as a kind of Singapore, only more polite and rule abiding.

The major foreign policy goal of his tenure was the Keystone Pipeline, which Mr. Harper ultimately failed to deliver. The Canadian dollar has returned to the low levels that once earned it the title of the northern peso. Despite being left in a luxurious position of strength after the global recession, he coasted on what he knew: oil. In the run-up to the election, the Bank of Canada has announced that Canada just had two straight quarters of contraction — the technical definition of a recession. He has been a poor manager by any metric.

The early polls show Mr. Harper trailing, but he’s beaten bad polls before. He has been prime minister for nearly a decade for a reason: He promised a steady and quiet life, undisturbed by painful facts. The Harper years have not been terrible; they’ve just been bland and purposeless.

Mr. Harper represents the politics of willful ignorance. It has its attractions.

Whether or not he loses, I think he will leave Canada more cenrally governed, ignorant police state than he found it. The real question for the coming election is a simple but grand one: Do Canadians like their country like that?

Art

The job of media is not to inform, but to misinform

The job of media is not to inform, but to misinform:

In my view to it is to Divert public attention from important issues and changes decided by the political and economic elites, by the technique of flood or continuous flood of distractions and insignificant information.

Journalists who have access to highly placed government and corporate sources have to keep them on their side by not reporting anything adverse about them or their organizations. Otherwise they risk losing them as sources of information. In return for this loyalty, their sources occasionally give them good stories, leaks and access to special interviews. Unofficial information, or leaks, give the impression of investigative journalism, but are often strategic man oeuvres on the part of those with position or power (Ricci 1993: 99). ‘It is a bitter irony of source journalism … that the most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the “best” sources’ (quoted in Lee and Solomon 1990: 18).

The Ten Strategies

1. The strategy of distraction
The primary element of social control is the strategy of distraction which is to divert public attention from important issues and changes determined by the political and economic elites, by the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.

Distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the public interest in the essential knowledge in the area of the science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics.

“Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think, back to farm and other animals” (quote from text Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars).

2. Create problems, then offer solutions
This method is also called “problem -reaction- solution.”
It creates a problem, a “situation” referred to cause some reaction in the audience, so this is the principal of the steps that you want to accept.

For example: let it unfold and intensify urban violence, or arrange for bloody attacks in order that the public is the applicant’s security laws and policies to the detriment of freedom.
Or create an economic crisis to accept as a necessary evil retreat of social rights and the dismantling of public services.

3. The gradual strategy
Acceptance to an unacceptable degree, just apply it gradually, dropper, for consecutive years.

That is how they radically new socioeconomic conditions (neoliberalism) were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s:

• the minimal state
• privatization
• precariousness
• flexibility
• massive unemployment
• wages
• do not guarantee a decent income,

...so many changes that have brought about a revolution if they had been applied once.

4. The strategy of deferring

Another way to accept an unpopular decision is to present it as “painful and necessary”, gaining public acceptance, at the time for future application. It is easier to accept that a future sacrifice of immediate slaughter.

• First, because the effort is not used immediately
• Then, because the public, masses, is always the tendency to expect naively that “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the sacrifice required may be avoided
This gives the public more time to get used to the idea of change and accept it with resignation when the time comes.

5. Go to the public as a little child

Most of the advertising to the general public uses speech, argument, people and particularly children’s intonation, often close to the weakness, as if the viewer were a little child or a mentally deficient.

The harder one tries to deceive the viewer look, the more it tends to adopt a tone infantizing

Why?

“If one goes to a person at the age of 12 years or less, then, because of suggestion, she/he tends with a certain probability to react with a response or reaction also devoid of much critical sense like a person of 12 years or younger might have.” (see Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars)

6. Use the emotional side more than the reflection

Making use of the emotional aspect is a classic technique for causing a short circuit on rational analysis, and finally to the critical sense of the individual.

Furthermore, the use of emotional register to open the door to the unconscious for implantation or grafting ideas , desires, fears and anxieties , compulsions, or induce behaviors …

7. Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity. The mushroom technique.

Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslavement.

“The quality of education given to the lower social classes must be the poor and mediocre as possible so that the gap of ignorance it plans among the lower classes and upper classes is and remains impossible to attain for the lower classes.” (See Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars).

8. To encourage the public to be complacent with mediocrity

Promote the public to believe that the fact is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and uneducated…

9. Self-blame Strengthen

To let individual blame for their misfortune, because of the failure of their intelligence, their abilities, or their efforts.
So, instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual auto-devaluate and guilt himself, which creates a depression, one of whose effects is to inhibit its action.
And, without action, there is no revolution!

10. Getting to know the individuals better than they know themselves

Over the past 50 years, advances of accelerated science has generated a growing gap between public knowledge and those owned and operated by dominant elites.

Thanks to biology, neurobiology and applied psychology, the “system” has enjoyed a sophisticated understanding of human beings, both physically and psychologically.

The system has gotten better acquainted with the common man more than he knows himself.

This means that, in most cases, the system exerts greater control and great power over individuals, greater than that of individuals about themselves.

But it's one thing to speculate; it's something entirely different to have hard proof.

And while speculation was rife that just like the CIA-funded al Qaeda had been used as a facade by the US to achieve its own geopolitical and national interests over the past two decades, so ISIS was nothing more than al Qaeda 2.0, there was no actual evidence of just this.

That may all have changed now when a declassified secret US government document obtained by the public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad.

According to investigative reporter Nafeez Ahmed in Medium, the "leaked document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, despite anticipating that doing so could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the ‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of the strategy, but described this outcome as a strategic opportunity to “isolate the Syrian regime.”
And not just that: as we reported last week, now that ISIS is running around the middle east, cutting people's heads of in 1080p quality and Hollywood-quality (perhaps literally) video, the US has a credible justification to sell billions worth of modern, sophisticated weapons in the region in order to "modernize" and "replenish" the weapons of such US allies as Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iraq.

But that the US military-industrial complex is a winner every time war breaks out anywhere in the world (usually with the assistance of the CIA) is clear to everyone by now. What wasn't clear is just how the US predetermined the current course of events in the middle east.

Now, thanks to the following declassified report, we have a far better understanding of not only how current events in the middle east came to be, but what America's puppermaster role leading up to it all, was.

From Nafeez Ahmed: Secret Pentagon report reveals West saw ISIS as strategic asset Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to ‘isolate’ Assad, rollback ‘Shia expansion', originally posted in Medium

I have gleaned this via the various media reports by looking for and examining contradictions etc..ib tabloid and other news media

Nova Scotia Gas price Hike

WHEN WILL IT GO DOWN TO NORMAL-
Nova Scotia gas prices shot up by more than six cents per litre overnight as the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board invoked the price interrupter for the first time in more than two years.
Service stations in Halifax and other areas began charging 6.4 cents more per litre at midnight, while the price in some other zones increased by 6.5 cents. Will it ever be removed I ask? Did it ever go down last time it was used.

A URB press release blames the change on “significant shifts in the market price of gasoline.”
After the price increase, the lowest minimum price for gas rose to 99.8 cents per litre in the Halifax area. The most expensive minimum price is in Cape Breton at 101.8 cents per litre.

Diesel prices are not changed.

The URB said their weekly price adjustment, which happens regularly at 12:01 a.m. Fridays, is still expected to occur this week in addition to the price interruption.

According to the Petroleum Products Pricing Act and Regulations, the interruptor enables the URB to respond to significant, sudden price changes in pretroleum products.
“The Board will consider using the ‘Interrupter’ for a petroleum product when the market price for that product fluctuates by a range of plus or minus six-to-eight Canadian cents per litre versus the weekly benchmark price set by the Board,” according to the URB web site.

Harper finds an Engineering Job

Social engineering (read bullying and fear mongering) is a Harper engineering discipline in social science and refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale, whether by governments, media or private groups. Social Engineering can also be understood philosophically as a deterministic phenomenon. As Dr. R. D. Ingthorsson alluded to, a human being is a biological creature from birth but is from then on shaped as a person through social influences (upbringing/socialisation) and is in that sense a social construction. Just look at what is happening to our health and welfare

A social engineer often a sociopath (bully) is one who tries to influence popular attitudes, social behaviors, and resource management on a large scale. Social engineering is the application of the scientific method for social concern. Social engineers use the methods of science to analyze and understand social systems, so as to arrive at appropriate decisions as scientists, and not as politicians. In the political arena, the counterpart of social engineering is political engineering. So maybe Harper has two jobs?

Decision-making can affect the safety and survival of literally millions of people. Society can no longer operate successfully using outmoded methods of social management. To achieve the best outcomes, all conclusions and decisions must use the most advanced techniques and include reliable statistical data, which can be applied to a social system. In other words, social engineering is a data-based scientific system used to develop a sustainable design so as to achieve the intelligent management of Earth’s resources with the highest levels of freedom, prosperity, and happiness within a population.

For various reasons, the term has been imbued with negative connotations. But not Canada wher it is cultured at all levels of Government the culture being the ‘mushroom Technique (keep them in the dark and feed them manure) However, virtually all law and governance has the effect of seeking to change behavior and could be considered "social engineering" to some extent. Prohibitions on murder, rape, suicide and littering are all policies aimed at discouraging undesirable behaviors.

In Canadian jurisprudence, changing public attitudes about a behaviour is accepted as one of the key functions of laws prohibiting it. Governments also influence behavior more subtly through incentives and disincentives built into economic policy and tax policy, for instance, and have done so for centuries.

Canadian taxpayers lose $3.5-billion

$3.5-billion on 2009 bailout of auto firms

Canadian taxpayers will fall about $3.5-billion short of breaking even on the money the federal and Ontario governments invested in the bailouts of Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. in 2009.
The federal government’s sale of the remaining 73.389 million common shares it held in GM will close the book on the investment and the auto maker’s period of being derided as “Government Motors.”

Ottawa will raise about $3.2-billion from the sale, based on a report from Bloomberg Tuesday that the stake it sold to Goldman Sachs & Co. was priced at $35.90 (U.S.) a share.

A report on the auto rescue done by the Auditor-General last year said the two governments had received $5.4-billion (Canadian) of the $13.7-billion they contributed to the bailouts of the two auto giants.
Since then, GM bought back about $400-million (U.S.) in preferred shares and the Ontario government sold its remaining shares for $1.1-billion (Canadian), before the final sale by the federal government this week. That brings the total proceeds to the governments to around $10.2-billion.

The share sale by Ottawa will help federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver balance the federal budget.
But Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, which represents workers at GM plants in Oshawa, Ont., St. Catharines, Ont., and Ingersoll, Ont., said the government should have kept its shares and used the ownership as leverage to force GM to re-invest in Oshawa and St. Catharines.

“It is remarkably short-sighted of the federal government to sell off its shares in GM at a time when there has been widespread agreement that securing GM’s future in Canada is critical,” Mr. Dias said in a statement.

Unifor has been meeting with GM officials both in Detroit and the Canadian head office in Oshawa to lobby for new investment in St. Catharines and Oshawa. General Motors of Canada Ltd. announced earlier this year that the auto maker and suppliers will invest about $540-million at the plant in Ingersoll to make the next generation of the Chevrolet Equinox crossover utility vehicle.

“The federal government is selling off its shares for short-term political gain, as it prepares its last budget before the next federal election. We need leaders with more vision, strategy and savvy than this,” Mr. Dias said. “At some point very soon, the federal and provincial governments are going to have to take decisive action to secure the future of GM.”

Bell shares personal information and outside of Canada?

Yes Bell does share your information without your permission

We do not provide personal information to any party outside of the plethora of Bell companies and asscoicated companoes except in limited circumstances in which it is necessary for us to do so. These third parties may include:

An agent acting on behalf of Bell, such as a company hired to perform installation work on our behalf.
Another communications service provider, in order to offer efficient and effective communications services (e.g., to provide mobile service while roaming in another company's coverage area) or as required by law.
A collection agency, for the express purpose of the collection of past due bills.

When we provide personal information to third parties, we give only the information that is required under the specific circumstances. That information is used only for the purpose stated and is subject to strict terms of confidentiality. The employees of the companies that we share this information with must meet and respect our privacy standards.

Directory listing information
Please note that, pursuant to federal legislation, publicly available information, including a directory listing of your name, address and telephone number, may be collected, used and disclosed by organizations without your consent.
If you prefer not to have your listing information provided to select organizations, please contact us.

Sharing information among the Bell companies
Occasionally we may share information between the Bell companies to help understand your information, communication and entertainment needs, and to provide you with relevant information to meet those needs.

Option to opt out
If you don't want your information shared among the Bell companies, please contact us.
Please note that when you choose to opt out (or opt back in), it may take up to 30 days to update our databases.

Legal and emergency exceptions
It' s important to note that in certain circumstances, we may collect, use or disclose personal information without your knowledge or consent. For example:

During the investigation of a breach of an agreement or the breaking of provincial or federal laws.
If we' re asked to comply with a subpoena, warrant, court order or other lawful request.
If there is an emergency where someone' s life, health or security is threatened.

For a little more info but no depth:
http://support.bell.ca/Billing-and-Accounts/Security_and_privacy/How_does_Bell_respect_my_privacy#displayStep

New watchdog old tricks maybe?

Public service whistleblowers have a new integrity commissioner who says he’s committed to moving his beleaguered office forward, but critics and the official opposition maintain he’s too closely associated with its failures and that an outsider is needed to protect whistleblowers.
Joe Friday was confirmed last week as Canada’s new public sector integrity commissioner, a position he had held on an interim basis since the start of the year, after appearing before the House Operations and Expenditures Committee and the Senate’s Committee of the Whole.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper nominated Mr. Friday, formerly the deputy commissioner, on March 23. The commissioner, an officer of Parliament, is responsible for investigating wrongdoing in the public sector and helping to protect whistleblowers from reprisals.

Created in 2007, the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner has been embroiled in controversy in its short existence and critics of Mr. Friday’s nomination said someone without a history in the office or from outside the public service altogether is needed for it to be effective.

The first commissioner, Christiane Ouimet, retired abruptly in 2010. Her office investigated seven of the 228 cases brought before it and found no instances of wrongdoing or of reprisals for reporting wrongdoing. Then-auditor general Sheila Fraser found Ms. Ouimet “failed to properly perform her mandate,” that she berated and marginalized her staff and did little to help federal employees who complained to her office of wrongdoing.

Mario Dion initially took over the commissioner role on an interim basis following Ms. Ouimet’s departure before being formally appointed a year later. He announced his resignation for “personal reasons” last summer, partway through a seven-year term set to expire in 2018.
Mr. Friday joined the office in 2008, where he served as general counsel under Ms. Ouimet before taking on the deputy commissioner role in 2011. The office staffs 26 people.

Last year, Auditor General Michael Ferguson found that Mr. Dion and Mr. Friday were guilty of “gross mismanagement” in their handling of two whistleblower complaints that originated during Ms. Ouimet’s tenure and were handled with excessive delay.

Mr. Friday told the committee on March 26 that the office was a “different organization” from Ms. Ouimet’s time at the helm, with safeguards to ensure “Parliamentarians and Canadians that what may have happened in the past simply cannot or will not happen again.” Meanwhile he gets paid.

He said in an interview that he had learned from his experiences in the office, “both difficult and pleasant,” about the leadership the organization needs, and that his promotion should be viewed as a sign of his commitment.
“The reason I’m still here is that I believe in the importance of the work and I believe in the mandate given to us by Parliament,” he told The Hill Times.

But whistleblower advocates said the appointment would mean more of the same from the office.
“I think the primary objective is just to keep the waters calm,” said Ian Bron, a former naval officer and a director of Canadians for Accountability, an organization that assists whistleblowers and advocates for government accountability.

Mr. Friday is too close to the failures of the previous commissioners, Mr. Bron said in an interview, and someone “not solidly locked into the Ottawa bureaucratic community” is needed in the role.
David Hutton, who served as executive director for six years of whistleblower group FAIR (Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform), said the public service culture works against someone steeped in it from being an effective watchdog.
“People don’t progress in the public service as bureaucrats unless they very quickly realize that their main job is to protect the higher-ups, to protect the senior bureaucrats, and protect the minister above all,” he said in an interview.

“When there’s a conflict between that and serving the public or doing the job honestly, then they have to finally rationalize that set of priorities. So someone who’s been in the bureaucracy for any length of time and been successful and climbed the ranks doesn’t need to be told that’s the priority.”
Mr. Friday said his public service experience—22 years of it—was of “essential importance” to the role.
“You have to understand the machinery, you have to understand the culture,” he said in an interview, adding that his background was “less problematic” than others’ since he had only worked at the Justice Department before moving to the office, where he’s been for seven years.
During that period he’s been distancing himself from his public service background, he said.
“I don’t think it would necessarily be appropriate for me to act as if I was part of the regular public service when I’m working in an agent of Parliament external watchdog capacity.”
He also said the job, which comes with a seven-year mandate and an opportunity for renewal, would likely be his last position in the public service.

“I think it would be difficult to reintegrate into the regular public service,” he told The Hill Times.
Mr. Friday was questioned at the House Operations Committee about the number of complaints the office receives. It averaged about 80 per year before dipping to around 50 last year, which isn’t a significant number given the 400,000 workers covered under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.
“There was an expectation, I think, that when we finally beefed up the Office of the Integrity Commissioner through the Accountability Act, that there would be a windfall of whistleblowers coming forward, there would be a flurry of wrongdoing exposed in the public sector. And we really haven’t seen that,” said NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.), who chairs the committee.
“Either there isn’t a great deal of wrongdoing going on, or whistleblowers still don’t feel confident that they can come forward and tell their story without fear of reprisal.”
Mr. Friday told the committee that trust in the office dealing with complaints was needed for people to report wrongdoing and that it’s reaching out to the public service, outlining the options for whistleblowers. The permanent challenge facing the office is ensuring whistleblowers feel safe and confident coming forward, he said.

“[The act] has not fully addressed the issue of fear, of confidence, of—I don’t know if it’s institutional culture or it’s human nature—but it is something that we accept as a permanent feature of our professional landscape and it’s something that we have to continue to address to the extent we can, through our communications, through our decision-making process, through the [external] advisory committee,” he said.
Mr. Friday told MPs that he would like to see changes to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act—a review of which is long overdue—including allowing his office to acquire and use evidence held by people in the private sector or by retired public servants.
He also talked about his desire to remove the word “whistleblower’s” negative associations, often connected to disloyalty. And he described his office’s mandate as acting on behalf of whistleblowing, rather than individuals.
“We don’t represent whistleblowers. I’d like to say that we advocate on behalf of whistleblowing, we don’t advocate on behalf of individual whistleblowers. We don’t represent a party,” he told the committee.
The House Government Operations and Expenditures Committee’s Conservative majority supported Mr. Friday’s nomination, as did Mr. Byrne, the lone Liberal at committee, while the two New Democrats, Mathieu Ravignat (Pontiac, Que.) and Tarik Brahmi (St-Jean, Que.), voted against it.
Conservative MP Chris Warkentin (Peace River, Alta.) told The Hill Times that Mr. Friday has the qualifications to move the office forward.
“He’s demonstrated that competency during the time he’s served as interim commissioner,” he said.
Mr. Byrne said that he made the distinction between the office’s previous conduct and Mr. Friday, whom he said would make an excellent commissioner, but Mr. Ravignat said the appointment sends the wrong message, even if Mr. Friday is well qualified.
“We’re talking about an insider. It sends the message to whistleblowers in this country that this government is not serious,” he said in an interview.
A “robust commissioner” would need to be found outside the federal public service, he said.
Mr. Bron said the position needed someone like Ontario ombudsman André Marin.
“No deputy minister wants an aggressive integrity commissioner coming in asking hard questions in his department. The Prime Minister sure doesn’t want a scandal coming up. PCO, Treasury Board—nobody wants this to be effective. Every now and then you get an André Marin or a Kevin Page, but it always sort of catches them off guard,” he said, referring to the former Parliamentary budget officer who was often challenging the Conservative government.
“If they want to avoid that they picked the right guy.”
Allan Cutler, president of Canadians for Accountability who applied for the commissioner position, said a change of culture is required in the office and that it’s up to Mr. Friday to prove that he’s accomplished it.
“I can hope that things will change but I don’t see any reason to believe that things have changed or will change. This office was set up to smother whistleblowers the way it has operated,” he said in an interview.

Acronyms Kids use in texting..did you know?

Parents: Check Your Kid’s Texts for these 28 Acronyms, and what they mean
Texting can be fun yes..but do you know what your kids are actually saying? Below are 28 Internet acronyms, which I learned from parents I talked with, as well as from sites such as NoSlang.com and NetLingo.com, and from Cool Mom Tech’s 99 acronyms and phrases that every parent should know.After you read this list, you’ll likely start looking at your teen’s texts in a whole new way.

1. IWSN – I want sex now
2. GNOC – Get naked on camera
3. NIFOC – Naked in front of computer
4. PIR – Parent in room
5 CU46 – See you for sex
6. 53X – Sex
7. 9 – Parent watching
8. 99 – Parent gone
9. 1174′ – Party meeting place
10. THOT – That hoe over there
11. CID – Acid (the drug)
12. Broken – Hungover from alcohol
13. 420 – Marijuana
14. POS – Parent over shoulder
15. SUGARPIC – Suggestive or erotic photo
16. KOTL – Kiss on the lips
17. (L)MIRL – Let’s meet in real life
18. PRON – Porn
19. TDTM – Talk dirty to me
20. 8 – Oral sex
21. CD9 – Parents around/Code 9
22. IPN – I’m posting naked
23. LH6 – Let’s have sex
24. WTTP – Want to trade pictures?
25. DOC – Drug of choice
26. TWD – Texting while driving
27. GYPO – Get your pants off
28. KPC- Keeping parents clueless

Government - autocratic with no internal bottle

Who dare challenge Harper like party members did in past governments.It’s hard to think about any cadre of similar people in the Harper government, so completely dominant is the Prime Minister over this government. The new Foreign Minister Rob Nicholson is known as someone with steady hands, but no independent standing. Peter MacKay, the Justice Minister, is not regarded as Mr. Harper’s intellectual or political equal. Nigel Wright, the former chief-of-staff who didn’t grow up politically as a Harper aide, seemed to be able to push back occasionally. But he is gone, too.

The Conservatives have even developed a strategy, on display this week, whereby the Prime Minister replaces what used to be responsibilities of the Governor-General, the representative of Canada’s head of state. Early on, Mr. Harper asked Mr. Baird to think of ways of associating the Prime Minister with national awards. Since then, new awards with the Prime Minister’s title attached to them were created.
Last week, 50 flags were given to distinguished Canadians to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Canadian flag. Since the flag is a national, not political, symbol it might have been thought that the awards would be in the name of the Governor-General. Instead, the Prime Minister announced them.
Almost all (there have been exceptions) the important announcements in this government are made by the Prime Minister. Ministers tend to be in the wings, not in a portion of the limelight.
Inside the government, Mr. Harper is such a formidable and private person that not many people summon the courage to challenge him. Outside the government, he doesn’t have the network of friends that previous prime ministers did to tell him casually how things look.
He is the loneliest of all prime ministers.

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“It is definitely a tricky position for Canadian negotiators to be in"

Taxpayers Paying $18 into MLA Pension Plan for Every $1 Paid by MLAs

The Ten Strategies

4. The strategy of deferring

5. Go to the public as a little child

6. Use the emotional side more than the reflection

7. Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity. The mushroom technique.

8. To encourage the public to be complacent with mediocrity

9. Self-blame Strengthen

10. Getting to know the individuals better than they know themselves

$3.5-billion on 2009 bailout of auto firms

Yes Bell does share your information without your permission

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