Canadian Views

The Fear of the Unknown Strikes Again

Canadians have increasingly soured on immigration and multiculturalism over recent years. This is a direct result of virtually daily reports in the media of terrorism, violent and gang-related crimes, and what are often seen as unreasonable demands by immigrants to have their distinct and ethnic quirks accommodated by mainstream Canada.

Anti-multicultural, and particularly anti-Islamic, sentiments run especially high in the wake of high-profile terror attacks, such as when the “underwear bomber” was thwarted in midair by passengers and crew, or when a Muslim member of the US Armed Forces killed over a dozen soldiers on American soil in the name of Allah.

Mistakes are being made on both sides of the cultural divide. In the West, there are extremist voices that equate all Muslims with terrorists, ignoring the fact that only a radical fraction of that religious community is actually prepared to commit such heinous and cowardly acts. In the Muslim world, too many radicals are allowed to ply their unholy trade of jihad with impunity, while the vast majority of Muslims merely look on and say nothing. Only recently, following the underwear bomber incident, did a sizable number of Muslim leaders find the strength to denounce terrorism and even issue fatwas against any Muslims who would perpetrate terrorist acts against the US, Canada or the West in general.

Tax recovery of social benefits

As the debate rages on about the ballooning costs of universal health care in Canada, and with the upcoming federal budget raising fears that the government may cut health-care spending, every expert seems to have an opinion about what needs to be done either to make public health care more affordable or to reign in the costs. The latest entry in this area comes from Tom Kent, who served as assistant to the former prime minister Lester Pearson.

His proposal for reforming health care boils down to the controversial concept of “tax recovery of social benefits”. In other words, people who receive social benefits, such as health care, would be expected to reimburse the government a portion of the cost. While this may strike any socialist as cold-hearted, when one looks more closely at Mr. Kent’s proposal, it actually begins to make a lot of sense.

It would now be practicable to report the total cost of the public-health services received by an individual or family during the year. But, unlike other T4 forms, only a small part of the money, up to a maximum of 10 per cent of other income, would count as taxable.

For example, someone with $50,000 income otherwise, who got medicare benefits costing $2,000, would next year pay back (at the present 15 per cent rate) $300 of it. If serious illness resulted in costs of $5,000 or more, the payback would be, at most, $750. For high-income people, the proportionate recovery would be somewhat greater of course; at the other extreme, people with too little money to be taxable would not be affected.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Kent’s idea of tax recovery is quite fair and does not result in ruinous tax-recovery payments. Those who earn more money can easily afford to pay up to 10 per cent of their taxable income for any medical services they used in the previous year. At the same time, people in a low-income bracket would still receive completely “free” health care and would not have to pay back a single penny.

The one improvement or refinement that should be added to Mr. Kent’s plan is that anyone who does not use any medical services whatsoever in one year should receive a tax credit or reduction of the maximum 10 per cent of his or her taxable income the following year.

This way, a lot of the criticism that is regularly directed at universal health care would be defused, as this system would satisfy, to some degree, all ideologues, both those on the left and those on the right. Those who have money would pay more for health care, those who have very little money would continue receiving fully publicly-covered services, and those who do not use any services in the system would be rewarded with a tax relief.

A way to fix health care?

Canada spends, depending on what source one consults, between $5,000 and $6,000 on the health care of every Canadian. When Canada introduced universal health care some forty years ago, there were barely 20 million Canadians. It was also a time when life expectancy was an average of 71 years (average of men and women). To put it crudely, people did not live long enough back then to become a substantial burden on the taxpayers who paid for universal health care.

Today, however, Canada’s population has grown to over 33 million, and Canadians can expect to live up to 81 or 82 years on average. As a result, experts have warned the Canadian government of a coming “demographic time bomb”, which will see ballooning costs for providing medical coverage and taking care of seniors, who are living longer and longer and, therefore, experiencing more old-age-related conditions such as dementia.

There is no question in Canadians’ minds that public health care must be maintained. It is, indeed, rare to hear even right-wingers advocate for American-style health care. Health care, like education, is, and should be, an area in which government should play a key role, if not an exclusive one. Therefore, abolishing universal health care in Canada and putting in place a system like the one Americans are now so desperate to change is not an option.

But some changes and reforms will be required to prevent Canada’s fiscal health from flatlining. It could be argued, quite safely, that a private-sector approach could be injected into the public system, for example, to deal with the disastrous shortage of doctors and health-care professionals. Improving the system’s logistics would also go a long way towards addressing the issue of long wait lists.

Canadian TV doing much better

Canadian TV broadcasters are regularly lambasted for being nothing more than “playback machines” for US TV networks. For the most part, and for (too) many years, this has been true. Even today, the commercial networks CTV and Global rely on American imports to fill close to 95 percent of their primetime schedules.

But in recent years, there has been a not-so-inconsiderable change. CBC, the national public broadcaster, made the bold move several years ago to cut all American imports from its schedule. It was not long after that time that Canadians started seeing some quality “CanCon”, or Canadian content, on TV, such as Da Vinci’s Inquest.

More recently, CTV has done its own share on the CanCon front, and some of its shows have actually made it to the primetime schedules of major American networks: Flashpoint, The Listener or Defying Gravity.

This coming week, CTV launches another round of CanCon. First out of the gate are Hiccups, Brent Butt’s (of Corner Gas fame) new show, and Dan for Mayor (another half-hour comedy from the team that brought you Corner Gas). Then, later in the week, CTV débuts its new series The Bridge with a two-hour pilot.

What do people want? More government? Less government?

People tend to be difficult to please. Regardless of what government does, there will be one group of people saying it is too much, one group that feels it is not enough, while a third group may, perhaps, be satisfied.

Extreme positions can, by definition, never please the largest possible number of citizens. Turn too far to the left, or the right, and you will easily lose half to two-thirds of your constituency. Libertarians, therefore, who wish to see any and all forms of government disappear will lose just as much as supporters of Big Government will.

It is an unfortunate trait of human nature that at least a minimum level of control or authority is required to ensure that people conduct themselves in a halfway decent manner. Impose too much control, such as in a “Nanny State”, and people will quickly become irresponsible and immature entities incapable of thinking for themselves and accepting responsibility for their own actions. Give them too much free rein, and life will come to be dominated by the law of the jungle.

Naturally, a middle ground must be found that provides a healthy balance between control and freedom. It can also be safely said that some countries or cultures require more control, whereas others could do with more freedom than they currently enjoy.

Online Newspapers: Pay Before You Read

The New York Times has announced that readers will have to pay for access to its online content starting in 2011. Most pundits who have commented on this story so far seem to agree that it will be only a matter of time before virtually all newspapers and magazines will erect pay walls around their online content.

It is a surprising development insofar as the New York Times has tried this before and had to abandon it again. In Canada, the Globe and Mail followed suit and opened up its entire site. It is not surprising, however, in view of the current problems the print media are facing. In the US several newspapers have already folded, and more may be on their way out. In Canada, the CanWest newspaper chain has filed for bankruptcy, and it is still unclear whether all the newspaper in the coast-to-coast chain can be saved. Also in Canada, magazines may soon disappear, or at least reduce their circulation. The federal government is about to make changes to the way magazines have been funded and subsidized to date, which could see a lot of titles disappear. Canada’s weekly news magazine Maclean’s could also be hurt severely by this sudden change.

But maybe this move towards pay-as-you-read might trigger a renaissance for physical newspapers and magazines. Anyone who has ever maintained an interactive site such as a blog will know that users are extremely reluctant to create user profiles and log in every time they wish to post a comment, especially if they follow a lot of different blogs, which requires them to keep a Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad or Twitter account. OpenID is an attempt to provide access regardless of the underlying platform, but it is still beset with glitches. So, people may actually go back to the printed newspaper (and magazine) and have it delivered to their door every morning, as this is still more convenient than signing up and paying for a multitude of sites.

It is, therefore, extremely doubtful that people will create a series of accounts for different online newspapers and also pay for the privilege. Instead, the more likely scenario is that they will seek out free content – or whatever free content remains, such as blogs. In other words, this new trend could bring a lot of new readers to blogs, but only those that provide original content. The 95% of blogs that consist of snippets taken from other sites will disappear, because the bloggers will not be in any position to pay for access to all those newspapers to which they have been linking for years. Then again, a few bloggers with deep pockets could carve out a niche for themselves if they subscribed to a variety of online newspapers and then provided “exclusive” snippets around which they created their own original content. But they, too, may then be tempted to charge for access to their blogs.

Public Transit: On the Move?

Cities in most parts of the world have grown into gigantic and sprawling metropolises with millions and millions of people, as well as millions more who merely pass through them every day. Most people still like taking their own car, a growing trend that has resulted in some cities’ air quality becoming extremely unhealthy. Apart from the pollution issue, it is also becoming ever more difficult to navigate one’s way through cities, as most highways and main streets have come to resemble 24-hour parking lots.

One way of dealing with congestion is to build more and wider roads and highways. Another, such as practised by the City of London in England, involves road charges or tolls. Then, there is the option of building and/or expanding public-transit systems. Needless to say that all these scenarios have friends and foes.

Building more roads is not an option everywhere. Cities have used up most of the space available to them, and annexing more and more land is impractical or even impossible. Besides, people seem to want convenience, and in places that boast a dense and functional public-transit network, they tend to embrace the “public option” quite enthusiastically. It does add to the quality of life if one can easily hop on a bus or train at all hours and get just about from any point A to any point B, like in London, Vienna or New York, for example.

Climate Change - Time for a Fresh Start?

When it comes to climate change, one can identify four groups of people. Those who are genuinely concerned about the health of their planet based on the scientific evidence they have seen. Those who have jumped on the bandwagon of global warming to promote an ideology of wealth redistribution, without actually caring about the environment. Those who discard the whole idea of climate change on purely ideological grounds. And, finally, those who disagree with the theory of man-made global warming based on the scientific they have seen.

Which group is right? Which one gets it all wrong? No one can answer that, not with the evidence there is for and against climate change at this time. All anyone can say with certainty is that there is a change afoot, but what its causes are is far from “settled science”. For every scientist who says climate change is man-made, one can find at least one other reputable scientist to say the exact opposite. If “climate change denial” were a criminal offence, all those charged with such “crime” would have to be acquitted now in the wake of the Climategate e-mails, which, at the very least, constitute (more than) reasonable doubt.

The most recent fallout from Climategate concerns Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and purveyor of the theory that the Himalayan glaciers are melting. His claims have been refuted by the Indian government. As well, the Times of London has found that his claims were not based on science at all, but only speculation.

The truth, as always, is probably found somewhere in the middle of all those positions. But what the world needs is facts and proper inquiry, not a growing mountain of reasonable doubt. With most countries around the world now prepared to cause considerable damage to their national and global economies in what they have been led to believe is a fight for survival, it is absolutely crucial that all the facts be available and that they have been proved beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever. Both the IPCC and the British university involved in the Climategate affair have done more than any “denier” ever could to discredit their own views. Therefore, the world deserves a fresh start, and this time world governments must take every conceivable precaution in selecting reliable and ethical scientists who can be relied on to conduct actual scientific research into climate change without any ideological baggage or bias.

Will Obama create more apathy?

Voters everywhere in the West are becoming more and more disillusioned with politics and politicians. Turnout for elections has been abysmal and embarrassing for anyone who believes in democracy. Canadians last went to the polls in a federal election in late 2008, and while the percentage of voters bothering with the exercise was yet again low, Canadians did find something to get excited about in the almost simultaneous election in the United States.

Back in 2008, Canadians, Americans and the rest of the world were glued to their TV and computer screens following every morsel of news about the new political icon and hero, Barack Obama. He was admired by some, worshipped by others, and generally held up as a historic-figure-to-be who would change America and, essentially, the entire world.

It was not only the left that supported him; even conservatives outside the US, such as in Canada or Britain, told pollsters that they would wholeheartedly vote for Obama. The way in which he delivered his speeches, which earned him the title of Great Orator, and his stated commitment to post-partisanship cast a spell on many people, many of whom saw in him a Messiah-like angel of hope.

Guest Column: The scam of our lifetime

Global Warming Caused by Human-made CO2?

By: Bill Bell

The idea that humans are causing global warming is little more than nonsense. The goal of the perpetrators is a transfer of wealth with the apparent forfeiture of power to a proposed environmental world government formed by the United Nations. A possible vote on this socio-political concept could be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, this month.

This would be the abandonment of everything hard working, decent individuals have accomplished over hundreds of years, and satisfies only the cravings of a power hungry, unscrupulous intelligentsia that somehow believe they should rule the world. The cost will be horrendous. Unbelievably, the British, led to believe by a fear-mongering socialist government that their nation would soon disappear beneath the sea, passed a Climate Change bill which that same government concedes will cost 18 billion pounds a year. Tax on a new car in England is already over 5,000 pounds.

A recent study commissioned by the Toronto Dominion Bank to the Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute projected a cost to Canadians at between $46-$72 billion dollars over the next 10 years.

The Harvard Business School recently concluded that consumers’ energy costs using cap and trade (one of the current proposals for reducing CO2) will increase the energy costs of a family of four by $6,800 US per year by 2025.

Why should Canadians grovel in fear and be browbeaten into actions that have no rational explanation or purpose? Someone said “we must never burn our bridges” but clearly this is a time for everyone to voice their opinion no matter whom they antagonize, for as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Our lives begin to die the day we become silent about things that matter”. Adolf Hitler took power in 1933 to the detriment of the entire world because no one cared and if common sense is not discovered soon we are headed for a similar nightmare, albeit without guns and other weapons of war.

Briefly, here is a little history of this horror story. Temperature showed a small increase between 1975 and 1998, but we know it had gone both up and down much more precipitously many times in the past. Secretary General U. Thant, tapped Maurice Strong (yes, the same Maurice Strong who engineered the National Energy Program that had a very detrimental effect on Western Canada) to organize the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment or the First Energy Summit. Strong gathered a few climatologists, environmentalists and political activists to form the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) which in retrospect appears to have been little more than a plausible excuse for world domination by the United Nations. Dr. Neil Hutton states, “The IPCC never made a multidisciplinary effort to determine the oscillatory nature of climate change, its history, and its principal drivers.”

A few brief comments on Strong, the man who started this debacle, and I quote, “The Great Depression left me very radical”. In Strong’s musings, “North America will be Hell on Earth - - - New Orleans will be ravaged by tropical diseases to such an extent that it becomes little more than a shrinking fortress held only with poisonous amounts of lethal pesticides”. In Los Angeles, “water vendors with armed guards roam the streets” and “Florida will have fallen into the sea.” Strong further states, “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized nations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”

Initially encouraged by huge numbers of research dollars, some well meaning and highly respected scientists were attracted to the IPCC such as Dr. James Hansen, the NASA scientist who inaugurated the Global Warming scare in 1988, and believed initially catastrophic warming would be caused by CO2. By 2000 he admitted he had significantly exaggerated any risk from increasing CO2 levels. Not a single catastrophe predicted by this group has ever occurred, but that has not deterred them from using fear mongering to build their case for global warming. There was the Michael Mann hockey stick, a computer-massaged compilation of tree ring data, supposedly showing that air temperature had been stable for 900 years then rose dramatically in the 20^th century. This became the poster child of the IPCC until discredited by Canadians Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre. Despite the warnings and cautions of outstanding scientists Richard Lindzen, Hendrik Tennekes, Freeman Dyson and others, climate research has come to rely on computer generated simulated models whose predictions prove nothing and are evidence of nothing (Hutton 2009).

Australia’s highly decorated scientist Ian Plimer recently published a book “Heaven and Earth, Global Warming, the Missing Science”, which clearly outlines the inadequate and scientifically unsupportable claims made by the IPCC reports. This book led to the Australian Senate failing to pass cap and trade legislation which may yet lead to a general election and the possible defeat of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who since explains he knows the science of climate change is settled because 4,000 scientists stood behind the most recent IPCC reports. Lawrence Solomon, Executive Director of Energy Probe, takes exception to this in a recent issue of the Financial Post. He quotes John McLean, an Australian analyst who has done detailed work on the numbers, and concludes the all important Chapter 9 of said report, “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”, had only 53 authors and received comment from 55 individuals and reviews leading McLean to conclude that only about 60 people, not 4,000, “explicitly supported the claim made by the IPCC that global warming represents a threat to the planet”.

In Japan the Japan Society of Energy and Resources issued an advisory that said, “global warming is not man made,” and in Germany some of its most influential scientists wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel stating there is no evidence to support anthropogenic (human caused) warming.