Tag: Canada

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Quotations

2014.5.29

It is telling that among the prime minister’s most trenchant critics these days is Tom Flanagan, once one of his closest advisors, an academic-cum-political strategist who is at once both deeply conservative and shrewdly pragmatic. This government is neither. It is reckless, not in the style of governments that overread their mandate, but in an aimless, scattershot way. It is partisan, but for no purpose other than stubbornness and tribalism. It will take every fight to the limit, pick fights if none present themselves, with no thought to the consequences of either victory or defeat but seemingly out of sheer bloodlust. Like the proverbial dog chasing the car, it has no idea what it will do when it catches it.

Andrew Coyne, “The Harper Government Playbook: Frontal Assault or Spectacular About Face”
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Videos

Why the Cyberbullying Law is a Lie

Definitely one of the better (and more accessible) discussions of Bill C-13, aka the federal government of Canada’s lawful-access-in-disguise-legislation. Of note: that piece of legislation is “now under a time allocation order that will likely see it sent to committee by mid-week.” If the Committee is rushed, then it’s entirely plausible the legislation could be passed into law before this session of parliament closes for the summer.

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Links

Canadians’ rightful access to public information being blocked, experts say

Information watchdogs, researchers, media and others say government, institutions keeping citizens in the dark even as opportunities for transparency increase.

A good long form piece about the existing deficits in Canada’s access to information policies and laws. These laws are designed to let Canadians understand their governments and hold them to account. Unfortunately, our laws have become so atrophied that they are often more helpful for getting documents of some (routinely minor) historical import instead of getting documents that can meaningfully enable citizens to be active in their democracies.

Source: Canadians’ rightful access to public information being blocked, experts say

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Links Writing

CMHC again moves to tighten mortgage insurance rules as housing market cools

The government continues to engage in (somewhat) quiet actions to reduce its exposure to a mortgage or more general financial crisis. At this point we’ve seen shifts in EI, routine concern about Canadian debt levels and risk of increased interest rates, and now tightening of the mortgage insurance rules. CMHC’s decision parallel’s former Minister Flaherty’s earlier comments, summarized as:

Former finance minister Jim Flaherty had also expressed concern that CMHC had become too large a player in the market, needlessly exposing Canadian taxpayers to risk should there be a housing crash. The agency currently has about $560 billion in outstanding mortgage insurance on its books.

When/if there is a mortgage crisis in Canada that leads to substantial job loss, I don’t think Canadians are going to be thrilled by how their social infrastructures have been quietly reshaped around them. Or the relative lack of monetary policies that are the result of long-term low interest rates. Let’s hope nothing happens to make Canadians practically realize the implications of the past 3-4 years EI, monetary, and now CMHC changes.

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Aside Links

Canada Bought $50 Million Worth of ‘Secure’ Phone Systems from the NSA

Canada Bought $50 Million Worth of ‘Secure’ Phone Systems from the NSA:

Technically, the Canadian Prime Minister shouldn’t have to worry about being snooped on. Declassified information on the so-called Five Eyes partnership—an intelligence-sharing agreement between America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand—supposedly forbids the five friendly governments from snooping on each other. But we don’t know what caveats exist in that agreement, because it’s kept top secret. We do know, however, that the NSA was operating in Toronto during the G8 and G20—and that CSE knew about it. That sort of cooperation, Parsons says, is to be expected by the Five Eyes partners.

“There is of course a concern that in the Five Eyes agreement there is an proviso that members of the Five Eyes network can engage in surveillance on other partners if it’s in their sovereign interest,” Parsons said.

It’s certainly interesting (and newsworthy) that Canada is buying cryptographically-secure systems from the NSA, though not necessarily surprising: the NSA is recognized as a leader in this technical space and has economies of scale that could reduce the cost of the equipment. These isn’t, however, any indication whether CSEC examines or tests the devices for backdoors. Presuming that the math hasn’t been compromised, and the phones and faxes aren’t being compromised by our close ally, then there are presumably (relatively) few worries with the Canadian procurement strategy and lots of benefits.

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Links

Air Canada flight from Vancouver carried child with measles

Air Canada flight from Vancouver carried child with measles:

Health officials in Edmonton are issuing warnings after a passenger who arrived in the city on a flight from Vancouver was later diagnosed with measles, but similar warnings have not been issued in Vancouver.

I think that bad movies, and unpleasant contagious outbreaks, are premised on such realities.

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More than half Canada’s Navy vessels are either being repaired, modernized or otherwise at reduced readiness

Of a total of 33 main ships and submarines, 15 are being repaired or undergoing upgrades, while another four are at a lesser state of readiness as they conduct tests on recently installed and modernized systems.

This is an embarrassment given that Canada is (in theory) a naval nation. We have no serious land-borders to defend and are largely unable to project any significant force abroad via our navies. Such force projection needn’t be in the service of aggressive or ‘peacekeeping’ missions: simply being able to guard major shipping lanes is something that Canada is increasingly ill-suited to contribute to. Decades of failed procurement process have led to an embarrassing state of affairs, and one unlikely to improve anytime in the near future.

Source: More than half Canada’s Navy vessels are either being repaired, modernized or otherwise at reduced readiness

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Links Writing

Stubborn negatives undermine Tories’ shot at another majority

Den Tandt writes:

Third, and most important: The Conservative government, read the prime minister, has ignored this glaring strategic reality: To counter a Trudeau-led Liberal party and a Mulcair-led NDP, the Conservatives needed to curb their anti-democratic tendencies — epitomized by omnibus bills and constant, intransigent resistance to compromise, which looks like the arrogance of long-held power — and make themselves credible on the environment. Unfortunately for their more moderate supporters, they have done neither; if anything, they’ve doubled down.

Core Conservative support, just under 30 per cent of the voting population, has kept the party more than solvent; but it can’t win it a majority. That is a fundamental problem for the Harper team, and one it has precious little time to solve.

While I’d like to agree that the current governing party of Canada’s anti-democratic approaches should cost it seats, if not the election, I have strong doubts. I often speak with Canadians (of various political stripes)  and ask whether they want decisive action (demonstrated in the form of the current government’s omnibus legislation) or a more drawn out periods of action as parties communicate to develop some kind of quasi-consensus on issues (often as characterized in a minority government situation). Save for the extremely rare person, most state a preference for decisiveness and regard omnibus legislation as efficient. The rationale is almost always that ‘government should be doing things, not stuck just talking for a long time and wasting taxpayer monies’.

Personally, I find such responses extremely depressing. But if my anecdotal conversations have any resonance with the broader Canadian public then I’d be doubtful that ‘anti-democratic’ approaches to governance will be what relieves the current governing party from power. Scandal, perhaps, but I don’t even think the Duffy affair is sufficiently scandalous to cost the government too much.

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Links

The Wright affair: The RCMP falls off its horse … again

Beyond a short press release announcing its decision to drop the Wright probe on the eve of a state funeral, the RCMP’s top brass has taken up residence in the cone of silence to skirt all sorts of uncomfortable, unanswered questions about this discreditable affair.

The ordinary citizen part of me is perturbed by yesterday’s surprising events — which signal, yet again, that the rich, powerful and politically-connected are seemingly immune from any meaningful accountability for their actions.

The former investigative reporter in me is resigned to it all. I recall that the RCMP decided not to do a damn thing when it was revealed that former prime minister Brian Mulroney pocketed at least $225,000 in cash-stuffed envelopes from Karlheinz Schreiber, a notorious Austrian financier and arms dealer, while the pair met in New York soon after Mulroney left office in 1993.

Andrew Mitrovica, on the sadness and frustration that passing 90K to a sitting Senator is apparently neither a summary or indictable offence.

Source: The Wright affair: The RCMP falls off its horse … again

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Aside Links

CSEC dodges questions on relationship with Big Three telecom companies

Canadian spy agency head John Forster fielded questions from MPs, and says organization’s focus is foreign intelligence collection, not domestic

Takeaway from the article? CSEC boss “can’t really disclose” what kinds of access it could have to data flowing through Bell, Rogers and Telus.