Blogcritics

Canada's Safe Injection Site Given Reprieve By Courts

Richard Marcus — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:09:44 EDT

British Columbia's Supreme Court declared that allowing addicts to inject drugs in a safe, medically supervised environment is a matter of sensible health care.
Insite, Vancouver, British Columbia's safe injection facility for intravenous drug users, has been granted a stay of execution, and possible full time salvation. On Tuesday British Columbia's Supreme Court ruled that users and staff be granted a permanent constitutional exemption from Canada's drug laws. In his ruling Judge Ian Pitfield...

Just Say Yes: To Safe Injection Sites

Richard Marcus — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:55:45 EDT

Isn't it time to stop saying no, and start saying yes to safe injection sites?
I'm an addict. I ran from my pain for twenty years - from thirteen to thirty-three I drank and ingested more substances than I care to think about. The only wonder is that I managed to stay alive long enough to stop. I was lucky. So I'm not about to tell you that drugs are romantic or that being a drunk or an addict anything special. There's...

Logic And Reason: The Latest Victims Of HIV/AIDS

Richard Marcus — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:08:18 EDT

It seems that logic, reason, and statistical evidence mean nothing to people like the Prime Minister of Canada and his fellow travellers.
There's an old saying about health care that follows along the lines of something like an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure. That's probably not it exactly but you get the general idea; preventing an illness is a heck of a lot more effective a means of health care than curing it. It only make sense, once somebody gets sick there's no...

What Do Canada's Native Residential Schools And Barack Obama Have In Common?

Richard Marcus — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:06:17 EDT

You can't just wish away history or whisk it under the rug as if it never happened.
At first glance there might not appear to be much in common between the Canadian government's announcement of who will be heading the Truth and Reconciliation Committee looking into the history of the Residential School System in Canada and the presidential aspirations of Barack Obama and the controversy surrounding the pastor of his church,...

Multiculturalism And The Melting Pot: Immigration In Canada And The United States, Part One

Richard Marcus — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:38:04 EST

Through the 1960s it was easy to portray Canada as a happy, multicultural paradise.
What I thought was going to be simple comparison between the multicultural and melting pot immigrant society of Canada and the United States has turned into an overview of the social history of immigration in both countries. Not a topic to be covered in a few hundred words, it has become a two part effort, with part two to follow tomorrow. In...

Canadian Politics: Intolerance Rising

Richard Marcus — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:36:47 EDT

Fear of something because you don't understand it is the behaviour of a coward, and intolerance is the coward's defence against fear.
When you witness a sudden change in the attitudes of a majority of people in your community it raises a number of questions. The first question you are bound to ask is how could so many people change their minds so fast. Perhaps what you should be asking yourself though is not why or how the change happened, but how much of a change was it really....

The Politics Of Fear

Richard Marcus — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:47:54 EDT

Politicians don't even like themselves enough to give people reasons to vote for them.
Have you ever noticed how there's nothing like an election campaign to bring out the absolute worst in people? Politicians are prostitutes for power most of the time, but that's nothing compared to what they're like when seeking office. It's bad enough if they've never been in power, but give them a taste, and they're worse then a junkie desperate...

Book Review: Rick Mercer Report - The Book by Rick Mercer

Richard Marcus — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 04:40:09 EDT

If Rick Mercer Report can make an iconoclast like me think seriously about why I love my country, think what it can do for you.
According to the good people at Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, the definition of the word rant is as follows: "a noun meaning to speak in loud, violent, or extravagant language; rave." Seeing as rave is part of the definition, in an effort to be thorough I checked it out as well: "To speak wildly or incoherently."...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Canadian Politics: Military Spending Part 2

Richard Marcus — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 22:02:42 EDT

One of the most lucrative contracts a private company can sign is any sort of deal they can make with a government. Not only do they know they will be guaranteed payment, supply contracts are usually long term. Whether it's supplying a ministry with office supplies or the janitorial staff with cleaning fluid you can usually be sure of your contract being renewed if you approach competence and the government doesn't change.It's an accepted fact of life that somebody is going to hire their brother in law's firm to clean the toilets on Parliament Hill over a complete stranger. It's one of the ways that party loyalty is repaid the world over, and not even an ethics commissioner would raise a fuss about it. But it's supposed to be a different story when it comes to matters like multi-year, multibillion-dollar defense contracts.In Canada, government military contracts involve four separate ministries. The Department of National Defence (DND) sets out the specifications that the military requires from a particular piece of equipment; the Department of Public Works and Supply issues a request for proposals to determine a supplier; Industry Canada are asked to identify Canadian companies that could potentially act as sub-contractors for the production of required equipment and assess the regional economic benefits of each bid; and finally the Treasury Board finalizes the contract - they sign the cheques - and ensures everything is on the up and up according to their policies.This may a sound a little complex, but what it is supposed to do is make sure that the bidding process is transparent and fair and that Canada is getting the best deal it can for the taxpayers money. But according to a recent report prepared for Canadian Center For Policy Alternatives called No Bang For The Buck, the government of Canada has managed to arrange that more then 40% of the contracts signed in the fiscal year 2006-2007 were non-competitive. This information was obtained freely from Business Access Canada data available on Public Works contracts. They do add the caveat that the government can and will withhold information about procurements that they consider matters of "National Security" - they can even reclassify items after they have been released if they so desire, as they have done with documents pertaining to the purchase of the Mercedes Benz "G-Wagon" troop carrier.Instead of using the standard of bid on a tender and the company that can do the job best for the least amount of money wins the contract, the government has been using two systems which allow them to pre-select a company of their choosing. Advance Contract Award Notices and Solicitations Of Interest And Qualifications are the two ways that the government has been able to circumvent its own policies concerning accountability during the procurement process.An Advance Contract Award Notice notifies the public that a company has been chosen by the government to fill a contract. The notice is posted for fifteen days on the Public Works web site. At any time during those fifteen days, another company may submit a proposal showing how they could fulfill the requirements of the contract with their equipment better than the one the government has selected. Somehow or other, they never seem to measure up to the one the government has already selected. Or in the case of the Solicitations Of Interest And Qualifications procedure, it's amazing how only one company seems to be able to make something just the way the government wants it. It's especially surprising when you consider they are all pretty much making the same thing. Now although government claims that these practices both qualify as competitive bidding practices, the Auditor General of Canada, Shelia Fraser, disputes that. In fact she states that her office made it's position on the subject clear in 1999-2000, "that Advance Contract Award Notices contribute very little to competitiveness". It appears to me that there are just too many ways for the government to manipulate the process to favor one company over another.Of course that impression isn't helped any by some other information the No Bang For The Buck report reveals. Prior to his election as a Member of Parliament in 2004, Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor had been a lobbyist for twenty-six companies that sought government contracts. As a retired Brigadier-General in the Canadian army it should come as no surprise that a good many of them were companies who sought contracts with the Ministry of Defense. This meant that in 2006 when he became Defense Minister, he was only two years removed from lobbying that department on behalf of industry for lucrative contracts. Now there has been no evidence to implicate the minister in anything duplicitous. But the fact remains that he is in a position to influence decisions as to who gets awarded defense contracts, and the process for awarding the contracts has become far less competitive since he became minister.The government has argued that it uses these methods as an attempt to speed up the process of acquiring equipment. They say that the equipment is badly needed for the soldiers in the field. If that were the case why have only 3% of the contracts been designated with the "Extreme Urgency" label that can be used to justify limited competition? Or if the materials are so important to our soldiers in the field why will the majority of it not even be available to them until after they have been withdrawn from Afghanistan?According to former Deputy Minister of Procurements at DND, Alan Williams, this process is actually often as slow if not slower, than normal tender processes. According to him, the time spent by politicians and bureaucrats arguing over the requirements to fill the contract and which supplier should be used can sometimes take longer then a bidding process. They also increase the potential for a lawsuit against the government by disgruntled losing companies because decisions are made in secret. Currently, Airbus Military is considering legal action after losing out on two bids through this system.Of course, the other problem with non-competitive bidding is that the government ends up paying more money and losing potential industrial benefits. A United States Air Force study on procurement showed that in a non-competitive bidding situation the average cost of purchase was 20% higher. The Canadian government has awarded contracts worth 16 billion dollars in non-competitive contracts, which means that we are paying out around $3 billion we didn't have to.But the real kicker is the money we lose on industrial spin offs. If these were competitive, a bidder would know they would have to give something to sweeten the pot -- thus ensuring contracts to Canadian companies. But with no leverage over them, companies are playing fast and loose with the rules of the game. The rules state that for every dollar awarded to a foreign company, to do sub-contract work a dollar has to be awarded to a Canadian company.But what happens if a contract is awarded to a foreign government? Well, that doesn't count and that dollar amount doesn't have to be matched. When Boeing was awarded the contract for four C-17 planes and a 20-year service contract, they subcontracted the service to the US Air Force at a cost of 1.8 billion dollars. Because the US Air Force is not a private company that's 1.8 billion dollars in spin off industry Canada misses out on.If Boeing had been in a competitive bidding situation with another company, and that other company was willing to sub-contract the service contract to a Canadian company, who do you think would have been awarded the contract? At the least Boeing might have felt compelled to match those terms.The Conservative Party of Canada rode to power on the backs of promising open and accountable government. The previous government had been caught in a horrible cover up over the misappropriation of taxpayers money and the Conservatives were going to be the new broom that swept out corruption from Parliament Hill. Judging by their behavior in awarding defense contracts, I'd say their broom isn't much different from the previous government's, if not actually worse. Perhaps we should be holding a public inquiry into how the government actually does figure out which company gets which contract? It's taxpayers money they're spending after all, and aren't they the ones who said they're needed to be more government accountability for how taxpayer money was spent? Sixteen billion dollars is a fair chunk of change and I think I'd like to know how they made their decisions, wouldn't you?

Richard Marcus is a long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at Leap In The Dark and Epic India Magazine.

Canadian Politics: New Military Spending Part 1

Richard Marcus — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:17:58 EDT

When the Conservative government took power two and half years ago no one could have guessed how much they intended to change the face of the country. It was obvious that their social policies were going to be a lot more conservative than most of Canada had been used to up to that time. Most people hoped that because they did not have a majority in the house of parliament that they wouldn't be able to implement the worst of their platform.But no one had counted on the opposition parties not being willing to stand up to the government and letting them get away with murder. The previous government had negotiated agreements with all the provinces for universal day care, funding for programming for Native Canadians, begun implementation of the Kyoto accord, implemented gay marriage, and begun the process of decriminalizing marijuana. Aside from being unable to overturn the Supreme Court of Canada's decision permitting gay marriage, they reversed or overturned every single positive piece of legislation and then proceeded to slash and burn other areas of social spending that were considered "extraneous". But in spite of claiming that this was all in aid of cutting spending and lowering taxes they have been able to find millions if not billions of dollars on military spending.Now before anyone thinks I'm going to have some knee jerk liberal reaction against military spending, let me be clear about something. As long as we are going to have an armed forces its criminal to under fund them to the point that the non-commissioned soldiers and their families are forced to use food banks or have them use equipment that puts their lives in danger when they are in the field.I have no argument with a government that wants to correct those inequities, and if that were what the spending was for I would support it. But there's the rub, the money they have been spending has been on equipment that will change the role our military has played on the world stage since we invented the concept of peacekeepers for the Suez Canal crises in the 1950's.With the exception of a squadron of F-18 fighters and a couple of Frigates during the first Gulf War Canada has not sent troops into a battle situation since Korea until their deployment in Afghanistan. Until then the primary mission of the Canadian armed forces has been humanitarian aid and United Nations sponsored peacekeeping missions. Even our initial commitment under Prime Minister Jean Chretian to Afghanistan was to primarily assist in rebuilding and peace keeping after the ouster of the Taliban.But the recent infusion of government money into the military is for purchasing equipment that has more of a place on the battlefield than in the aid station or the demilitarized zone. Even the pay increase that has been authorized for soldiers has only been for time spent in battle - hazard pay. Wouldn't you think that it would show soldiers more support if you increased their overall wage, telling them they are doing a valuable service for their country even when they are not in danger of being killed?Of course they are using the excuse of terrorism for changing the role our military plays on the world stage. But what they fail to mention is that if Canada were to keep to it's role as peacemaker and not associate itself so closely with American foreign policy we wouldn't be considered a target for terrorist attacks. One only needs to look at abject failure of the invasion of Iraq to stop terror attacks against Americans, and indeed have led to their increase, to see how unsuccessful the policy of aggressive retaliation is.I still find it amazing that supposedly brilliant military strategists would fall for one of the oldest ploys in the revolutionary's handbook. Get the big guy pissed off so that he retaliates and the people will rise up in revolt against ensuing oppression. The longer the occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan continue the more local opposition has grown. If the government was serious about wanting to protect our country they would worry less about buying tanks, long range military air transports, troop transports and other weapons for the field and concentrate on our peace keeping capabilities, and defending our Artic territories and coastal waters. In all the most recent polls conducted in Canada a clear majority of the country's population has shown themselves to be against our involvement in Afghanistan continuing. It might be prudent for the government to remember that the majority of Canadians also opposed sending troops into Iraq or hosting American missiles on Canadian soil and previous governments acquiesced. Most Canadian are more than willing to show support for the men and women who protect our country, but that doesn't mean they have to support what the government wants to do with them. In fact as most Canadians want to keep our soldiers out of a war that's not of our making and that has resulted in the most fatalities for Canadian troops since the Korean war, it's safe to say they probably support our troops more than the government does.Before the government signs the contracts committing us to spending more than 17 billion American dollars on changing the role our armed forces play on the world stage, they may want to consider the wishes of the people they supposedly represent. Or is that asking too much?

Richard Marcus is a long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at Leap In The Dark and Epic India Magazine.