Excited Delirium

Stories about Excited Delirium, the Shock Economy and a little fiction here and there.

Daily Archives: October 31, 2009

Cracks in the Road to a Harper Majority

Conservatives make poor public policy makers because they simply don’t believe in public policy.  Even Stephen Harper has gone on record saying that he doesn’t believe in taxes which would, of course, eliminate any funding for government.

We’re seeing how poor the Conservatives are with real genuine ‘what’s in the public interest’ public policy as we witness the rollout of the vaccination for the Swine Flu, or H1N1 virus.

Even this situation has been turned into political gamesmanship and it must end before Canadian lives are put at stake.

While Canadians have been whipped into a state of panic, the Conservatives are still spending buckets of our cash in their own ridings on roads, pipes and a few other tawdry infrastructure projects, all the while sending us ’10-percenters’ from Jay Hill who are too obsessed with Michael Ignatieff living out of Canada than creating a real action plan to protect Canadians.

ASIDE:  As a brief reminder, all of these projects are funded by ALL levels of government.  Taking full credit for this activity is akin to taking credit for a functional minority government.  Oops.  They’re doing that too.

Anyways, with the H1N1 virus, Canadians were promised that there would be enough vaccine to inoculate 100% of the population, if they wanted it.

When Dr. Sheila Bennett accused the Conservatives of playing games with this situation, the Liberals ultimately backed down and were ridiculed in the House of Commons.  RIDICULED!

Now, yesterday, we heard from the Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health that the rollout of the vaccine for the general population has been suspended.

By the time it does arrive, there will be no point taking it (assuming you still want it).

The flu season will be over.

I can’t help thinking there’s something very suspicious in all of this.  Why is it that we were promised one thing and we can’t deliver according to the demand?  Is Ontario getting hit the hardest?

Why are only TWO clinics open in the city of Toronto?  Why hasn’t the Rogers Centre been converted into a giant distribution centre for people that want the vaccination?

Why is the whole country not better prepared for this situation when we knew it would be a situation 6 months ago?  Where’s the ‘Pandemic Action Plan’?

The answer is simple:  Our leader and his supporters are incapable of doing things that are genuinely good for the public.  Worse off, it looks like they’re starting to play the ‘Teflon’ game by transferring all blame as issues deepen to provincial leaders (which is, admittedly, the jurisdiction of health in Canada).  This will prove to be the same disaster for Ontario Liberals as the HST has been.

I’m optimistic though.  This situation has exposed the cracks that exist in the road to a Conservative majority.  With any luck, they will turn into potholes and the Canadian public will finally understand that they need policy managers and not political mandarins running their government.

PS:  This review by the CBC is a great resource for people who have questions about the vaccination.  If you read the comments, you’ll see that most people will not get vaccinated, including me.  So … feel free to take our place in line!

It’s Criminal What They Say About Crime

Last week, I read about more Conservative plans to tighten up on crime.  Again.  This time, it’s white collar crime.

What is it with these guys?  Why are they so obsessed with crime?

Don’t get me wrong:  I’m OK with locking up someone who breaks the law repeatedly or even once if it’s a harsh crime, but there are more important political issues having an impact on our economy such as … the economy or the Flu virus or a thousand other concerns.

Why is it that crime always seems to trump other more important problems?

I also resent the idea that being opposed to a Conservative crime bill makes anyone ‘soft on crime’.

For the record:  it doesn’t.  And it shouldn’t.

It just means you have better ideas about the causes of crime and how to handle issues related to crime, including poverty, class and wage issues and general social concerns.  Incarceration is NOT the only solution and the creation of a mega-complex of holding cells is ultimately a poor use of public funds.  This has been proven time and time again in the US, the world’s largest prison state.

What bothers me most about crime issues is that the numbers are never used correctly.

All we ever hear is that crime is out of control.

But let’s look at some of these assertions.

Here are some facts about crime:

  • Crime rates are lower than they were 20 years ago.
  • Violent crimes have been dropping and were lower in 2007 than at any time in two decades.  The same goes for property crimes:  the recent rate is nearly 40% below that reported in 1991.
  • Violent crimes are an extremely small percent of all crimes.  The most common criminal charge (24%) is for breach of court order and probation conditions, followed by impaired driving (8.9%), common assault (7.9%), and theft (7.5%).  Charges for drug trafficking represented about 2.5% of the  total last year, sex offences just over 1% and homicide barely 0.04% of the total.
  • More than 2 out of 3 crimes are committed by white Caucasians (67.5%), 60% of whom are either Catholic or Protestant.  African-Canadians represent about 6% and Muslims about 3%.  Unfortunately, these two groups tend to get singled out as the greatest perpetrators of crime in Canada.
  • Critics claim that most crimes occur in urban areas, but the stats show that the West and North represent our ‘hot spots’ on a per-capita basis.  This is because there is no social infrastructure to support people.
  • Threatening people with longer, more harsh sentences doesn’t work.  The US has used this approach for decades and all they have is a massive tax bill that pays for private management of criminal incarceration.

Given that the average annual cost of keeping someone in jail is about $93,000, throwing more people behind bars will simply add to our tax bills as well.

Instead of ‘getting tough on crime’, Canadian politicians should be looking for ways to ‘get tough on crime causes’:  unemployment, social and class issues, prohibition on ‘soft’ drugs like marijuana, education, lack of opportunity, guns, low wages and child support.

Data Source:  London Free Press (with apologies, I couldn’t find the original article that outlined the original data and information.  If someone has a link, please post it in the comments and I’ll update the article).