Canada universities financially failing

I'd missed the story a few weeks ago. Laurentian University is insolvent. I just heard about it from some who are close to the academic scene. I guess a factor was a dangerous reliance on foreign students. With Covid-19, apparently a lot of that dried up. Regional high school enrollment has been in decline for a number of years, so there are fewer grade 12s incoming each year. 

They were heavily in debt was well apparently from a construction spree. Still, I'd heard of Laurentian, it's a first-tier university in Canada. So to declare insolvency, with the future by definition in doubt, seems like an important story. 

One news story from the time mentioned 60 years of history at Laurentian. that's not that much actually for a university. there are plenty of people alive today who were there the day Laurentian opened. it's probably the case that the number of universities opened in Ontario in the baby boom years of the 1960s is more than are needed today. Really, if Laurentian just closed its doors in May after exams what difference would it make. Students who are mid-degree could be easily absorbed into the numerous other Ontario universities.

the academics mentioned that here in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton University (CBU), is also highly reliant on foreign students, and their tuition. I don't have any visibility into CBUs finances as a result of Covid and travel restrictions, what if any shortfall there may be.

for CBU though, and the rest of Nova Scotia's universities, if it came to it (again I have no visibility into their finances and there have been no news stories, as far as I know everything is fine), there is a well established tradition when universities get into financial trouble. 

in 2011 NSCAD was bailed out. they were facing closure apparently after a bad real estate deal. in 2017 alone Acadia University was bailed out for over $10 million after a mysterious, massive hole apparently appeared in their budget. the running total for Acadia is now over $24 million. I've never seen an explanation over the $10 million shortfall. I guess the taxpayers are supposed to just shrug and accept it.

the truth is both NSCAD and Acadia should have just been left to close their doors due to the financial mismanagement. As with Laurentian, there is plenty of capacity to absorb any displaced students. there have been too many universities in Nova Scotia for a very long time now. if some just closed by their own mismanagement then its for the best in the long term.

I remember the Dr. Janet Halliwell years, a generation ago now. A good and smart woman. She noted there were too many universities in Nova Scotia. Alas she had little success consolidating campuses or programs. As in Northern Ontario, there are fewer grade 12s every single year in Nova Scotia too.

Universities tend to be long-lived. They cost a lot to establish, and once there, there is a sense of community, of generational continuity, of permanence. But they don't necessarily have to live forever. Maybe the public universities in Canada should move toward a model similar to private institutions. They can run well for a while, when they are most useful, when there are lots of students and opportunities for grads. Though they don't have to last forever. We have to recognize that even long-lived institutions can run their course.

if you forget your mask

 Many areas including Nova Scotia have COVID-19 restrictions and requirements around masks. 

So the local rule is indoor masks. Now when you are outdoors there's no mask. As stated you would have to put on a mask on going to an indoors public place.

Now if you have a mask with you, say ready in your pocket. Then on going in forget to put the mask on, an unfortunate but completely understandable oversight.

So what might then happen? I see four possibilities

• nobody who works at the place notices. it's pretty easy to overlook
• someone notices but decides to give the benefit of the doubt and choose to assume that there's a no mask medical exemption; and not say anything
• someone notices, believes they could or should say something, but chooses not to say anything
• someone notices and mentions it

Now in polite society, if reminded of this confusing new rule amidst all of the many changes and rules and restrictions, etc. of course if someone mentions it; quickly apologize for the error and put on the mask which is conveniently right at hand.

one of the millions of discarded masks polluting the environment

the conservative parties of Canada

 so the conservative party of Canada has a new leader, Mr. Erin O'Toole.

O'Toole replaces outgoing leader Andrew Scheer. in the fallout from the 2019 federal election where the Liberal Party won a minority government, Scheer was out as leader. I didn't really follow the conservative party story too closely, just occasional headlines from TV news. O'Toole seems like a decent fellow.

I was disappointed to see Scheer removed after just one election. Scheer won the popular vote, held the Liberals to a minority, and nicely increased the number of conservative seats. In Canadian federal election history a majority government is virtually never defeated after one term. So it was not realistic to believe or expect Scheer should have won, or he somehow cost the conservatives the win.

Scheer was well on track to follow the Stephen Harper 4-election strategy. When Harper became conservative leader he was facing a popular Paul Martin majority that appeared set to govern for a good decade or longer. In the Harper strategy

• election 1: hold the Liberals to a minority
• election 2: win a minority
• election 3: win a larger minority
• election 4: win a majority

In 2019 Scheer successfully completed step 1: nicely. But it is what it is. I understand some of the anti-Scheer faction want the conservative party to move toward the centre-left. If I'm following, the theory seems to be this is needed to win in urban Toronto (the GTA), Ottawa, Montreal, and the Maritimes.

With the rise of the Green Party, Canada already has three left-wing parties: Liberal, NDP, Green. the leftist worldview seems to be very well represented in Canada. I'm not sure if the left-leaning voter in Canada really needs or wants a fourth option, some kind of Red Tory, left-lite?? thing.

the other conservative party

The 2019 election featured the electoral debut of the People's Party of Canada (PPC). Maxime Bernier was able to get the new party launched, field a candidate in every riding, and win 1.6 percent of the vote. They cost Scheer a few seats, but not enough to tip the final 2019 result Liberal minority win.

Not too bad for a party only founded in 2018. How long and how many elections did the Green Party exist in Canada before they won their first seat? Bernier and the PPC don't seem to be going anywhere soon. PPC today is an option for the right-leaning voter in Canada. I'm guessing the legacy conservative party hopes PPC will turn out be this generation's National Party. Some good ideas, charismatic leader. Didn't form critical mass, failed and dissolved in a few years.

the long game in Canada

I'd suspect the PPC wouldn't mind following a trajectory broadly along the lines of the Reform Party of Canada. Reform was founded in 1987. By 2006, Stephen Harper of the conservative party, the merged Reform/Progressive Conservative Party entity, won a federal election. So 19 years, about a generation. The long game in Canada sometimes isn't all that long. In the mean time as I noted, there was generally fairly good government in Canada under Jean Chrétien / Paul Martin.

Problematic Privacy Commissioner

Canada's Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien has been in the news lately mobilesyrup, Ottawa Citizen. He has been advocating for Canada to adopt a European-style "right to be forgotten"

Canada does not have a right to be forgotten. Commissioner Therrien understands this. He admits "Therrien has said there’s no explicit right to be forgotten in any Canadian legislation"

It's good that there is no right to be forgotten for many reasons. The main problem is that it is a "positive right". That is, it compels other parties to take some action or provide some resources to satisfy the "right" of an individual.

Rights, properly defined, belong to the individual. Someone might have the right to free speech, but that does not compel the government or established media to provide a printing press or an audience. A person might have the right to live where he chooses in a country, but that does not require the state to provide a moving truck or damage deposit to enable someone to move to a new city.

The right to be forgotten inverts this. It compels search engines to take an action to "forget" something that they know about. They are forced to agree to keep something secret. To take action to conceal something. To knowingly mislead those using the search service by concealing public information. This is especially corrosive because the issues are actually public record. Criminal convictions, bankruptcies, divorces, lawsuits against, professional censure. In living memory these things were published in the daily newspapers of record.

In the Europe court case it was a lawyer who wanted to keep a past bankruptcy secret. hmmm as a potential client I might want to know if a lawyer I was thinking of hiring had a history of being irresponsible about money and mismanaging money. Lawyers are often asked to hold clients money in trust. Anyway it is the responsibility of the consumer of the search result to evaluate the information returned and weigh different data points. To decide what is material and relevant and what is not. An individual may like to wish away black marks from the past but that is his problem, not the search engine.


The major issue with Daniel Therrien is that he is attempting to bypass Parliament and use lawfare to get a judge to create a right to be forgotten out of thin air. From the Citizen article.

The privacy commissioner wants the Federal Court of Canada to decide whether Canadians have the “right to be forgotten,” which would allow people to request that search engines remove old or embarrassing links about them.

Daniel Therrien is asking the court to decide whether Google falls under federal privacy laws when it displays search results about Canadians; if the court finds the search giant does, the company would have to remove some references when requested.

So that's wrong. Therrien concedes there is no right to be forgotten in legislation. Thus there is no such right. As privacy commissioner it's fine for Therrien to advocate for a right to be forgotten, or advise Parliament to enact such a right in legislation. It's not for the courts to decide. It's for the elected Parliament to establish rights.

Using the courts to bypass Parliament to advance his agenda is wrong and inappropriate to his office. Prime Minister Trudeau should fire Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien.

Doug Ford and the notwithstanding clause

Some news out of Ontario. A court blocked a move by Ontario Premier Doug Ford to reduce Toronto city council from 47 to 25 members. Ford has responded by saying he will invoke the notwithstanding clause of the constitution to overrule the court ruling and proceed. This will be the first time Ontario has invoked notwithstanding since the constitution was enacted in 1982.

It's an interesting case to invoke notwithstanding on. The intent had always been that notwithstanding would be used very sparingly, only in egregious or important public interest cases. For example suppose some judge ruled that incarceration was unconstitutional. That's the type of case where notwithstanding would be called for. I'm not against a more active use of notwithstanding myself. On this site I've advocated it for some cases in the public interest and to maintain public confidence in government
Sally Campbell
Abdoul Abdi deportation

also in the Omar Khadr case the correct move was to appeal appeal appeal any adverse court decisions in the lawsuit and then finally if necessary invoke notwithstanding. in no case does Canada pay off those who fight on the enemy side in a war, or participate in terrorism. I like to believe that Stephen Harper if he had won; would have taken that tack and in no circumstance would the taxpayers of Canada pay off Khadr for what he participated in. Alas the people elected Justin Trudeau who saw things differently.

On the face of it, it won't make an ounce of difference anywhere if Toronto city council has 47 or 25 seats. So on its own it's not the type of case that calls for notwithstanding. So what's up? I believe there is something else there, something important that needs to be discussed.

What I believe Ford is doing, is reasserting the jurisdiction of the elected assembly over the activist courts. I don't believe it's about the 47/25 thing on its own. This is the first time activists tried to use lawfare to block and frustrate a legitimate act by the Premier. So Ford, early in his term, is sending a very clear message to the activist judges and their allies. Those seeking to use the courts to frustrate and overrule the elected legislature and impose their own agenda.

Ford saw what happened with Trump and the courts blocking the immigration ban. He saw what happened with judges and the Trans Mountain pipeline. In a larger sense Doug Ford is right. For a long time now, decades really, there has been gradually increasing aggressiveness from the courts. Some of the cases and arguments in recent years demonstrate this. Appeals and arguments to "right to enjoyment of life", "fairness", and other dubious claims not in the constitution or any statute. these aren't rights, it's just "feels good" law, judges overstepping their authority to "make things right" for favoured groups.

in the past a judge might hear a case, express sympathy for the appellant, then note that the court does not have jurisdiction, or it is up to the legislature to repeal or modify an unfair or onerous law. it isn't for judges to create new rights where convenient, or strike down laws or ministerial decisions they personally disagree with. judges exercised restraint and caution, and in general left it to the legislature to make things right in the law, rather than imposing their own concept of law. since judges generally did the right thing on their own, there was no need to use or threaten to use notwithstanding.

somewhere over the years this changed. unsurprising really. Dalhousie University has a law school. Plenty of students who took courses or majored in Communications at Laurier went on to law school. Inevitably at this point, 20-25-30 years on now, these same students have taken their place and world view into the judiciary. Doug Ford is taking an important step in the legitimate use of notwithstanding to make an important course correction against lawfare and judicial activism.

Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier

It's a bit funny I had a post in mind how well Andrew Scheer was doing. Just keeping quiet. Save your good stuff, hold it back, wait for the election campaign. A wise man keepeth his own counsel. Let Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh stumble and bumble along, stay out of that.

Well so much for that. Scheer's conservative rival Maxime Bernier has now left the Conservatives and launched his own political party. Well that sucks for Scheer. As the saying goes, with Bernier, "It’s better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in." Well now Bernier is outside the tent.

It's too bad. Bernier has a lot of supporters and very nearly won the race to succeed Stephen Harper as Conservative leader. Honestly I didn't pay much attention to the Conservative leadership race and I didn't appreciate distinctions between the candidates. Though what I've learned of Bernier these last few weeks has made a positive impression. Pure laine Québécois. An energetic, patriotic Canadian who actually defended Canadian identity and culture (by insisting that Canadian culture is itself a real thing, which means that there is some optimum amount of multiculturalism beyond which we should not pass).

The thing about dairy and supply management. meh w/e to me. I don't have a strong opinion on it one way or the other. It would be nice if milk was less expensive in the stores. Still, individual dairy farms and the supporting industry around them are vital to rural life. There is a goodness about the rural/agriculture/industrial economy. I guess supply management has always been there as long as I've been alive. There is a lot of inertia around it. Maybe it has run its course. People will still buy and drink milk. There will still be cows and farms. So again I'm fine either way with whatever the Prime Minister wants to do with supply management in dairy.

It is unfortunate Scheer couldn't keep Bernier in the fold. The Conservative party has to actually be conservative. It has to stand for something. The feel-good situation with media darling Rona Ambrose when she was interim leader. Gleefully embracing gay marriage and trans- everything. That wasn't right for an unelected interim leader Ambrose to make major policy changes.

Scheer has said he tends toward Stephen Harper for philosophy. For some Scheer is seen more as a Patrick Brown type, offering some kind of Trudeau-lite alternative, tweaks here and there, the checkboxes can go, a bit less virtue signaling on twitter, more competent administration. While Bernier is perceived more the Doug Ford type, wanting to aggressively repeal and rollback the Trudeau agenda.

So what might unfold. If we take Bernier at his word then it's a lot like the Reform Party situation a generation ago. The "real" conservatives left the Progressive Conservative party they felt had abandoned them and started their own party. One result was several Jean Chrétien majorities. Though it was eventually successful. Terms were negotiated, the Conservative party was forged from Reform/PC, Stephen Harper became Prime Minister and had a strong run.

So is Bernier right, are we today back at the PC/Reform divide? Is the current Ambrose/Scheer Conservative party hopelessly lost, unwilling to be unpopular with a leftist establishment media, seeking only to be in office and the personal gains of being in power.

We will see I guess. One result is that Trudeau is suddenly in better shape for the next election. If Bernier's new party becomes a real thing then their votes would come from largely the existing Conservative and to a lesser extent disaffected Liberal voters. That could make things difficult for Scheer. I think a realistic plan for Scheer before all this was the Stephen Harper playbook when faced with a Paul Martin majority.

• hold Trudeau to a minority in 2019
• Scheer wins minority in the next election
• Scheer wins majority in the next election

alas all of that is up in the air now. Trudeau could well slide to a majority in 2019 from Bernier's success. Maybe interesting times after that.

Canada Saudi Arabia Diplomatic spat

In the news lately there is a fight between Canada and Saudi Arabia. It seems to have started with a couple twitter jabs from Canada's foreign minister Chrystia Freeland against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).

KSA responded by throwing a haymaker. Expelling the Canadian ambassador. Dumping Canadian securities. Recalling 15,000 Saudi students studying in Canada. Suspending new trade. Trade embargo on Saudi oil to Canada and Canadian wheat to Saudi Arabia. A $15 billion military contract for Canada to supply Saudi with light armoured vehicles may now be in doubt. Saudi may be holding onto that one for now for leverage. or they may wait until the election campaign to cancel it calculating to cause maximum damage to Freeland and her boss Justin Trudeau.

My first impression of the whole thing is what an unforced error it is. This whole situation was instigated by unprovoked reckless tweets by Freeland against Saudi Arabia.

The foreign minister of a middle power ought to be aware that diplomacy is about being diplomatic. and words matter in diplomacy, a lot.

If there is a problem or concern then be diplomatic. Raise your concerns privately, quietly, respectfully, through the proper channels. So publicly calling out KSA on twitter. using inflammatory and pejorative terms such as "immediate release". appearing to side with opponents of the regime. It was a crass unnecessary cheap shot by Freeland against KSA. At some level Saudi was right to be offended and to hit back.

maybe KSA and Canada are not exactly close allies but there was certainly a friendly working relationship between the nations. Saudi medical doctors received training in Canada, Saudi patients received medical care here. Canadian contractors, oil engineers, and nurses have worked in KSA for decades. There was normalized trade and diplomatic relations between the nations. it was in everyones interest to maintain a positive working relationship. We don't have to agree on everything, especially internal matters in each nation.

as foreign minister Freeland ought to have known that KSA can be thin-skinned, and prone to overreaction. this completely avoidable situation demonstrates her incompetence.

Margaret Thatcher noted back in the 1970s certain middle powers such as Canada and Sweden sought to strut on a larger international stage. Twitter in its way is a leveler. Allowing middle powers to feel they are the equals of the great powers. KSA shows that having a blue checkbox on your twitter does not make a great power out in the real world. Trump/USA can more afford to be antagonistic. Trump has the aircraft carriers, the nukes, the industrial economy to back up his tweets. Trudeau/Freeland not so much.

yes this is an overreaction by KSA. Perhaps a signal to other nations to stay out of public comment on internal Saudi affairs. For other nations, KSA may be holding far more of their debt, currency, or market assets, or they may be highly reliant on importing Saudi oil. A sudden disorderly Saudi unwinding of financial assets or oil supply interruption might be a far more difficult situation than what Canada is experiencing. A similar thing happened in 2015 Sweden got out of line with virtue signalling and KSA and were punished for it.

There was a public service in all this. Thank you KSA for reminding us again that 9/11 was a Saudi branded attack. 15 of the 19 terrorists were Saudi. The leader and financier of the attack bin Laden is Saudi. And nice visual touch showing the passenger airplane flying into the CN tower. Freudian slip. Good to know where your heart is KSA. You don't just lead the world in the export of oil.


The thing about the Federal cabinet is. Some cabinet posts matter and some don't. It's critical to have capable people leading the key departments that are important
Department of National Defence
Finance
External Affairs
Justice

The other posts, environment, status of women, department of abortion checkboxes, minister of scheduling attendance at gay pride parades, whatever. You can fill out your gender quota with whoever for those jobs. let them feel-good virtue signal on twitter to the activist and feminist base and it's all sunny ways. But the cabinet jobs that are important require competence.

Christia has fumbled the external affairs post and should be moved to a less prominent role. Perhaps Candadian Heritage would be good for Freeland considering Chrystia Freeland's heritage.

Justin Trudeau could just call an election

Sheila Copps might be a close relevant precedent. about a generation ago Copps found herself painted into a corner around the hated GST tax, reminded of a campaign promise she made to resign if the GST was not repealed. When first reminded of her pledge she attempted to be breezy about it. Alas it became clear her commitment could not be brushed off, that every time she stood in Parliament or opened her mouth there would be a loud chorus of calls to resign. Sheila did resign and of course easily won the byelection in Hamilton. So in a way the resignation was moot, it didn't change or accomplish anything for Sheila or her opponents. but it did allow her to clear the slate, face the consequences of her foolish campaign promise, and put the matter behind her.

Today Justin Trudeau finds himself painted into a corner. Facing credible allegations that he groped a reporter in Creston B.C. in August 2000 at a festival. The exact details are unclear at this time but Trudeau, then 28 and not in politics, did apologize to the reporter the next day over something. Now the problem isn't as much the allegation, but the well established precedent established and enforced by Trudeau around misconduct. These people have all lost their jobs in politics due to usually anonymous allegations of some kind of sexual misconduct. In these cases Trudeau either was the final decision maker, or supported a decision someone else made.

Hunter Tootoo
Scott Andrews
Massimo Pacetti
Patrick Brown
Erin Weir
Christine Moore
Kent Hehr

Like Sheila Copps, Justin Trudeau would be expected to hold himself to the same standard he has imposed on others. It would be very difficult for Trudeau to try to split hairs and say his misconduct is further in the past, combined with lesser enough degree, along with not a public figure at that time, to say he should avoid the fate he imposed on others for broadly similar alleged misdeeds. When Parliament resumes Trudeau would likely face the Copps treatment, a loud chorus of calls to resign every time he rises and speaks in Parliament.

Now Trudeau does have an option as Prime Minister. He can dissolve Parliament and just call an election. Thus like Sheila, get credit for taking ownership and stepping down, without having to really back down or give up much. The polls aren't that bad for the Liberals right now. The NDP especially seems weak. Others have noted the removal of unpopular Kathleen Wynne in Ontario is actually a benefit as she was dragging all Liberals down. There was going to be an election next year anyway so it's just one year early. It would then close the matter, Trudeau gets credit for "resigning", allows everyone to move forward. Perhaps after the election if he wins there may be some rethinking of what is the appropriate response to these types of non-criminal, often anonymous, often years in the past, allegations.

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The whole Trudeau thing reminds me of something that some Twitter user posted

the male feminist

in public acts like Bill Clinton
in private acts like Bill Clinton

— Rob Grandy (@tookalito) January 4, 2018

isn't it ironic. the worlds greatest male feminist. the self appointed leader of listen and believe. well well well.

normally on it's own this is a non-issue. some minor matter from long ago that was resolved with an unenthusiastic, next-day, perhaps hung over, arrogant, insincere, possibly forced or requested, apology. police weren't called, no evidence that any crime was committed. but then again were the cops called in any of the cases above? but alas Trudeau took a rigid stance and made it an issue. now its an issue. oh well let it be his Robespierre moment.

Youth Action Now

I was sad to hear that former NDP MP Paul Dewar is dying. Too bad, he seems like a decent fellow.

One of Paul's last initiatives is to launch a Youth Action Now initiative. Obviously aimed at Canada's youth.

Paul has been admirably interested in children and youth in Canada for some time. He launched a Canada Youth Plan back in 2011 when he was running for leadership of the NDP party.

I wrote about children in Canada and Dewar's plan back then on this site. Over 6 years later, my take on it has stood up pretty well and is still relevant today.

The Abdoul Abdi deportation case

The case of the Abdoul Abdi deportation is quite unbelievable. The background is Abdi came to Canada from Somalia with his sister at about age 6 in 1999. He was taken into the care of the Province of Nova Scotia and into the foster system. Importantly during this time in childhood, neither his foster parents nor the province applied for Abdoul Abdi to become a citizen of Canada. He never gained official status as a Canadian, although he had been living in Canada since he was brought here in 1999. So officially he is a foreigner, a Somali residing in Canada.

So fast forward to 2016. Abdi is now grown up and a convicted violent criminal. He has served time as an adult for crimes including aggravated assault. Due to his crime and violence, and his status as a foreigner residing in Canada, he has been ordered deported. Now some activists are fighting in court to keep Abdi in Canada for some unknown reason, and have been able to delay his removal from Canada. 

The court argument is apparently that when Abdi was a ward of the state as a child, Nova Scotia failed in its duty to file the paperwork to make him a permanent resident or citizen of Canada. Now with such status, especially citizenship, Abdi would be considered a Canadian, protected from deportation regardless of being a violent criminal. 

This whole thing is absurd on so many levels. Suppose Nova Scotia did fail in it's fiduciary duty to Abdi regarding his status in Canada. What does that have to do with the current deportation case. He doesn't have status and thus has no protection against deportation. His supporters seem to be arguing, bizarrely, that status should be retroactively applied for and granted - though granting status is from the Federal government, not the province, and we can't know if in this hypothetical case it would have been granted. So they are asking the court to intentionally disregard the actual facts of the case, set that aside, and instead indulge some pretend fantasy world where Abdi or his youth guardians applied for and was granted status, prior to committing the violent crime and incarceration that now has him ordered deported from Canada.

I reject the claim that there is a fiduciary duty on the part of Nova Scotia Community Services to even take care of these immigration papers for these wards of the state. The Province's role for these children is to ensure, via the foster care system, things like food, shelter and basic safety. Anything above that is extra, nice to have, best effort, but not specifically required. The immigration thing, services to non-Canadians, is not an expected role of Nova Scotia Community Services. So if the province fails to meet these extras in some cases then there is no liability on the province after the fact. 

Further, it was Abdi's personal responsibility to be aware of his own immigration status. He was free to inquire or apply on his own. He was not prevented in any way from taking care of his status on his own. Also he should have considered his status or lack of status before committing crime and being incarcerated. He could have considered that deportation was a likely outcome if he committed serious crime. 

 

The deportation situation Abdi is in is the result of his own actions. He has to take responsibility for the consequences of his actions, including deportation. It was not the responsibility of the people of Nova Scotia to provide Abdi some kind of legal cover to commit serious crime in the future in Canada, as his advocates seem to be arguing.

The whole court case is just nonsensical. Does the plaintiff really expect Abdi will be awarded citizenship as damages? The courts have no such authority to make such an award. Citizenship, and humanitarian exemption, cannot be awarded at this point due to the violent crime conviction. So do the plaintiffs seriously expect we will all suspend disbelief, just pretend the last 5 years didn't happen, backdate an application and approval to before the crime spree, and then magically have this status in place, then replay the last 5 years, but now with the cover of residency status. That seems to be what they are asking.

Even if it is determined that Abdi was wronged by the Nova Scotia Community Services? Well so what. That in itself does not create status. If Abdi, like any foreigner, feels he was wronged by the people of Nova Scotia, then he is free, from his own country, to hire a Nova Scotia lawyer and seek damages in Canadian court. So fine, like any foreigner with a grievance, hire a Nova Scotia lawyer from your own country, and the lawyer will seek damages on your behalf and wire you whatever they can collect on your behalf. However being a foreigner with a grievance certainly does not imply the individual can stay in Canada to pursue this claim. Hire a lawyer from afar like any other foreigner would have to.

Abdoul Abdi is not a Canadian. He is a foreigner residing in Canada with no status to be here. He should have been deported from Canada long ago. If he wants to seek damages against Nova Scotia from his own country he is certainly free to. In order to maintain confidence in the courts and the immigration system the government should deport Abdoul Abdi immediately "in the public interest", invoking the notwithstanding clause if necessary.

The thing about checkboxes

So there's a flap in Canada recently about a federal government summer jobs funding program. Apparently now to get funded, the applicant organization has to attest to some pro-abortion statement by checking on some checkbox.

When I first heard of it I was struck by how bizarre it was, this linkage. What could abortion possibly have to do with summer jobs for students? Anyway this is a straight out attack on Christians and pro-life, demanding that they renounce their beliefs in order to get this money. It is extremely scummy and cowardly to target the children. After all it is the youth, the students, who would be affected by these summer jobs being canceled due to their parents being pro-life. The kids didn't do anything wrong. Be a man Justin Trudeau and have the courage and character to confront your ideological enemies directly; instead of indirectly victimizing their children.

Now some might say render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Tell the federal government to keep their 30 pieces of silver. I guess that's fine for some summer jobs grant. The real issue here isn't about federal funding for summer jobs. It's about establishing a precedent where receipt of government services and benefits is conditional on expressing a particular view. There is no right to remain silent or keep your opinion to yourself, let alone openly hold a contrary opinion. You either attest to a government mandated viewpoint (a record of this attestation is kept permanently) or go without the government service.

Now there is government monopoly health care in Canada. Suppose someone arrives at their hospital emergency department with chest pain and shortness of breath. Upon arrival at triage, the patient is told to either check an abortion checkbox, or be refused health care service, go home and die. Why not, now that a precedent has been established these abortion checkboxes can start popping up everywhere.

Even more corrosive would be like the summer jobs checkbox. Imagine if the checkboxes show up at the emergency of the children's hospital. That would put the parents to a very severe test, faced with having to refuse to attest on behalf of their children and accept the consequences.

If Trudeau is re-elected then it's pretty much a lock that prescription drugs will be nationalized effectively under federal government control. So after 2019 you could go to your pharmacy for your heart or diabetes medicine you need to stay alive, and be told to check this abortion checkbox or go home empty handed. Now by Phillipians 1:19-21 the correct decision is to go home and die. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

Well this is what happens when the state is allowed to take control over so much of personal life and the economy. Trudeau demonstrates the government can prove to be a cruel and capricious puppet master. The government giveth, the government taketh away.

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I will say this about abortion and Trudeau's apparent intent to pick a fight on the abortion issue. The thing about war is, the war only ends when both sides agree to stop fighting. Trudeau may have had the prerogative to start the fight, but it won't be for him to say, okay enough we're not going to talk or fight about abortion any more.

Another thing about war is, you might lose. So you might want to be circumspect and keep the peace, especially if the status quo is favourable to your side. Pick fights carefully. Don't poke a sleeping bear.

Trudeau may feel smug that the courts have been on his side for at least the last 30 years. However judges and supreme court judges can change. Elected governments can change. Laws can be changed. The constitution can be changed. The notwithstanding clause is available.

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Previous Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper pretty much had it right. They accepted the courts decisions, perhaps with disappointment, and were resistant to having a public fight on such a divisive issue. Another politician who had it right was actually Bill Clinton with the doctrine of "safe legal and rare".

What's interesting and powerful about that is the third part, the "rare". Because it is actually common ground between pro-life and pro-choice. Something both sides can commit to achieving, perhaps in different ways. I believe the best strategy for pro-life is to leave aside the safe and legal part and focus on making abortion rare. After all if it is extremely rare then it would be moot if it was safe and legal. So pro-life can win by winning on rare, that part that matters most.

It's unfortunate that safe legal and rare is hardly talked about any more. In this current abortion fight there is no mention of rare in the attestation checkbox text. Instead it is now so common and accepted in our culture that it is part of applying for some summer job.

I suspect rare can be achieved. It requires cultural change, which is hard but I think achievable. Figure out how to change the culture so that these situations are seldom conceived in the first place. That would help, head off the problem at the source. Also change the culture so that if someone is in a difficult situation, then actually having the child is a less-bad option than abortion. Culturally, some type of Anna Karenina social stigma where someone who does the wrong thing and chooses abortion is then unable to rejoin polite society afterward.

Justin Trudeau and Pipelines

I don't think Trudeau wants any pipelines to be built in Canada. He outright canceled Northern Gateway and Energy East. He was content for Obama to do the dirty work on getting the Keystone project killed. But then when Trump was unexpectedly elected on the US side his hand was forced and he had to approve it.

So then Trans Mountain. I suspect this was a "fake" approval, with a nod to the activists to just go ahead and block the actual construction either with lawsuits, and direct illegal obstruction on the construction sites. He is using the B.C. premier, and US-funded activists as his proxies to carry out his wish to have Trans Mountain be abandoned.

Even with the press conference last Sunday there was announcement of a new act around jurisdiction. That doesn't make sense. The Federal government already has jurisdiction under the constitution. The purpose of this act is to just delay and draw things out in years of legislation and court cases. It also legitimizes the cases of those currently using lawfare to block Trans Mountain in the courts. But that is Trudeau's intent, that the project be blocked, Kinder Morgan gives up and goes away (like TransCanada did with effectively canceled Energy East).

The one man running for Premier of Ontario

So the Ontario PC party has a new leader. Doug Ford won. I don't pay much attention to Ontario politics but this story has been blanket coverage, and the Ford name is recognizable and entertaining. I hope Ford wins a majority and becomes Premier of Ontario.

So Doug Ford won the PC leadership vote over 3 women. There were no other men on the ballot. Did anyone beside me notice that? I wonder if some of Ford's votes were just because they voted for the man. If so then how many? We don't know and it seems some effort was made not to enquire.

So onto the general election. and hmmm what do we have? PC party led by Ford, once again the lone man. His opponents are another all-female cast of Liberal and NDP led by women. So for those who want to vote for the man, Doug Ford is again the choice.

Justin Trudeau, Liberals, Jaspal Atwal

So the trip to India did not go so well. The lowlight seems to be the invitation of one Jaspal Atwal to an official state dinner. Mr. Atwal was convicted in 1986 of attempted murder of an India cabinet minister visiting British Columbia Canada. Also charged but not convicted of an 1985 attack on Ujjal Dosanjh, more political violence. In Atwal's story there is also a 2010 automobile fraud conviction.

While it seems poor judgment to be hosting Atwal over in India, was it really?  Here in Canada, from the NP story "Atwal had a position on a federal Liberal riding association executive in Surrey" as recently as 2012. So the Liberals are comfortable in Canada with Atwal, his views, his background in political violence, and general criminality.

The thing about the crime is, ordinary crime one can recover and rehabilitate from, and then the reformed individual, former criminal, can become political. However political violence is a crime against democracy, it's a different thing. I can't see how any respectable mainstream political party could associate itself with an individual twice accused, once convicted, of extreme political violence.

So if the Liberals are fine with Atwal in Canada - I guess as long as he can deliver votes and seats from certain target communities. Then it is consistent for the Liberals to be fine with Atwal in India. You can hardly renounce and non grata Atwal over in India, then come back in Canada and somehow flip and be friendly and comfortable with the individual.

To be clear it was correct for the Trudeau and the Liberals to distance themselves from Atwal overseas. Proper and long, long overdue. It was also correct to stay clear and disassociate from Atwal long ago in Canada as well.

Dalhousie University affirmative action

So there's a recent job posting at Dalhousie. The details are apparently "'racially visible' or Indigenous candidates" only.

The leading figures on the Dal side of this job post from the NP article are apparently Carolyn Watters and Jasmine Walsh. Feel free to click the image search links on those names.

hmmm. I read this originally in the comments on a YouTube video. But I will repost and apply it here as a comment.

If Carolyn Watters and Jasmine Walsh are so motivated to bring in minorities to Dalhousie, if the composition of Dal staff is perhaps too white for Carolyn and Jasmine. Then perhaps they should resign their own positions at Dalhousie as a gesture to make room for more minority hiring there as their own replacements.

Gerald Stanley verdict

Some interesting themes emerging from the recent Gerald Stanley verdict. I'll say this about the Stanley case. The shooting took place on Stanley's farm. What were they doing on his farm? A gang shows up drunk and uninvited on your land themselves armed ... The evidence is that the adult individuals were illegally on his farm and themselves armed with a shotgun. Anyway there was a public trial, Stanley exercised his right to both a defense and a lawyer, and the jury found Stanley not guilty. So that's that.

Anyway in this link as just one example we have a member of the Senate of Canada demanding "concrete changes to the criminal code." That and an inflammatory tweet from the Prime Minister of Canada, disrespecting the fair trial and the jury verdict.

So what of these "concrete changes" we are hearing of that the activists demand? The end of jury trials? Perhaps doing away with trials entirely? Who knows. It would make sense to demand the end of jury trials, it is consistent with recent developments in criminal justice in Canada. After all juries are more truly independent and fair. They are harder to pressure from outside forces than in trial by judge alone.

Juries, unlike judges, aren't influenced by having to receive their paycheques and future pension from the same employer that provides the Crown prosecutors paycheques and pensions. Jury duty is also temporary, they aren't long term entrenched members of the system like judges are.

Oh but what about judicial independence? Well perhaps that's part of the agenda of these "changes" to the justice system. As I've written before, in the Judge Camp case and Judge Lenehan case, a precedent has been established where a judge can now be subject to "Judicial council review" for delivering the wrong verdict - i.e. the not guilty verdict. Juries (for now at least), unlike judges, are not subject to this post-trial "review" and are possibly better able to deliver an unbiased verdict based strictly upon facts and evidence proven at trial.

We really need more data from this senator, the activists, the Prime Minister, and the federal minister of justice. What exactly is on the table here for these concrete changes

• the right to a jury trial
• the right to a trial
• the right to face your accuser in court
• the right to an attorney
• attorney-client privilege
• the right to cross examine prosecution witnesses and evidence
• the right to testify in your own defense
• the right to not testify at your trial

The Delilah Saunders liver transplant case

The story of Delilah Saunders has been in the news lately. Ms. Saunders is seeking a liver transplant, but cannot get on the waiting list due to a "six-month clean" policy which Ms. Saunders is apparently not compliant with from the news reports.

Saunders supporters are expressing frustration with the policy. Some might think the six-month clean policy is unfair. The liver transplant policy is based on objective criteria, and it applies equally to all. Thus the policy is certainly fair.

Some supporters believe that the six-month clean rule is wrong. Well health care is the provinces responsibility under the constitution. It's for the Minister of Health to establish a liver transplant waiting list policy, and review or revise the policy as he sees fit. Thus the policy as it exists is right per the authority of the Minister of Health.

It would be unethical for the policy to be changed at this point in order to favour one individual, Ms. Saunders, and necessarily bump someone else further down, or effectively off the list (if they die before getting a live transplant). The thing is, erasing the six-month clean rule wouldn't particularly help Saunders. After all everyone else currently shut out of the liver transplant program under six-month clean, however many dozens or hundreds or whatever, would then immediately have precedence over Saunders. These other excludeds have been "waiting" outside the program earlier, perhaps attempting to comply with six-months clean, to become eligible to be on the transplant list.

So the only way waiving six-month clean would help Saunders would be if it was waived for Saunders only, telling the others currently on the outside to go home and get sober for six months while Saunders gets on the list now without having to meet the sobriety requirement. Is that fair or ethical?

One point made in the media by Saunders supporters is the "multiple traumas she has suffered in her life". So yes Saunders has a sympathetic hard-luck story. I will confidently believe that everyone on the liver transplant list, or around the list in six-months clean limbo, can tell a hard-luck story in addition to facing liver failure. So we don't know who, like Saunders, has the most hard-luck story to tell. There seems no obvious way to objectively measure it or use it to prioritize the waiting list.

Basically what Saunders supporters are seeking is for the policy to be set aside in this one case in order to favour a specific individual. Let's follow that through to its logical conclusion. Suppose the policy as it exists is struck entirely and there is no specific policy to get on the liver transplant list, or to move up or down in priority once on the list. What would happen is the list would become based on

• political connections
• money
• bribes and corruption
• access to mass media (Delilah Saunders)
• ability to present a hard-luck story in the press, while ignoring other hard-luck stories (Saunders)
• supporters being able to mobilize campaigns in social media, and public demonstrations (Saunders)

Prime Minister substitute drama teacher

So what to make of Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada. At this point it's nearly two years in. Somehow it seems to have gone by quickly. Lots has changed during that time.

Trudeau is the affirmative action Prime Minister. He was elevated to the leadership of the Liberal party due to his ethnicity as the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Luckily he actually has his father's recognizable last name, which is a bit of a feat for where he comes from. To be fair to Justin he did win a federal election so he does get credit for accomplishing that.

Justin's background as a substitute drama teacher suggests he aspired to and came into this role of Prime Minister perhaps somewhat by accident, a bit later in his adult life after bouncing around some. Now during the election campaign the Liberal ads assured us that Justin was "ready" to be the leader of Canada. That old substitute teacher, ski bum, bouncing from school to school stuff, that's the past.

Based on the advertising, I think a lot of people expected Justin to "molt" from his early adult form into the form of a Prime Minister. The reality is that has not happened. Justin hasn't molted. He is still the sub drama teacher, always was and always will be.

His agenda since being elected seems at times like the musings of a sub teacher speculating what he would do as PM. Mandate an equal male-female balanced cabinet regardless of qualification. Thumb his nose at the Americans with cheeky Tweets about anyone in the world who can get here is welcome to come and stay in Canada. Renegotiate NAFTA with the emphasis being on social justice instead of trade.

Trudeau comes across as not especially interested in the job of Prime Minister. As far as I can tell his top priority, the only thing he's really motivated about, is criss crossing the country from Halifax to Vancouver to Toronto attending gay pride parades. And that's about it, Prime Minister gay pride. Is there anything else Justin seems really engaged with? Well establishing himself as the alpha male feminist too.

There's so much that he could and should care about and focus on. Each month thousands of primarily Haitian "refugees" from the USA flooding into Canada across an open border. Millions of jobs in Canada on the line in the NAFTA negotiations. Rising interest rates for better or for worse. Possibility of Canada being hit by an errant or intentional nuclear missile strike from North Korea. But he just doesn't seem to overly care about any of that stuff. Maybe it was unrealistic for Canadians to expect him to.

Canada NAFTA negotiations

So there's another round of NAFTA negotiations ongoing. The original trade deal was the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and USA back in 1987, about a generation ago.

Much has changed in Canada in only a generation. I remember trade agreements used to be about increasing trade, creating jobs in Canada, preserving key industries like dairy farms and auto manufacturing. In 1987 Canada's negotiator was Simon Reisman, a well-known, respected, successful Jewish businessman. He got it. He understood we were negotiating a trade agreement and his job was to get the best trade agreement for Canada.


And then there's today.
Look at Canada's so called priorities of this "trade" negotiation. The environment, Indians, gender, outlaw right to work in USA, etc. No mention anywhere of trade, industry or jobs. We can assume none of those things matter to the Prime Minister Trudeau.

The whole thing seems to be about advancing the social justice warrior agenda. Reads like some tripe written by the Dalhousie student union.

Who is the negotiator? On the USA side the leader and face is unquestionably President Trump.

And on Canada's side we have Chrystia Freeland. What a comparison from Mr. Reisman in only a generation. Freeland comes to cabinet from a career in big media, and appears to have no experience in business or industry.

Freeland seems to be a feminist sjw, writer of books with titles like "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else". The wiki page states "She is a proponent of personal asset seizures..."  No doubt. It's not clear how Mr. Trudeau saw her as the best Canada could find as the lead NAFTA trade negotiator, but the Prime Minister seems to have little interest in this matter.


Given that, best outcomes to Canada from this NAFTA negotiation are no change, or cancel the NAFTA agreement. No gain can come to Canada from an agreement negotiated between Trump with his priorities and Freeland with her priorities.

Tim Horton's 100 challenge

Recently a few people have put the Tim Horton's roll up the rim challenge to the test. Apparently they are buying 100 cups of Tims coffee in an experiment.

I wonder what they were trying to discover. lol Tims is rigged? maybe they thought with 100 tries things would converge and they would have exactly 20 winners. In Tim Horton's roll up the rim they state that 1 in 5 cups wins something. The something is typically an inexpensive food prize such as a free coffee or doughnut.

I thought offhand 100 isn't a real large sample size and there would be some variance and probably surprises from people actually doing a sample of 100 times and recording the results. First I thought to write a script to use a random number generator to build a large set of samples of 100 trials (taking Tims at their word that indeed 1 in 5 cups randomly is a winner), then see what kind of data emerged.

Then thinking about it some more, I realized the chance of each of the outcomes, from 0 wins to 100 wins, can be computed exactly. This is the equation, where x is the number of times to win.

The probability of winning x times over a sample of 100 where each attempt has a 1 in 5 chance of winning is

This formula can be readily entered into Excel and we can determine the chance of each outcome. I entered it into a spreadsheet and these are some observations of the results.

The chance of losing all 100 times is about 1 in 4.9 billion. So any regular who tells you they never win is probably selectively forgetting a few stray wins here and there.

The chance of winning all 100 times is about 1 in 10⁷⁰, or 1 in 7,888,609,052,210,030,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

There is about a 1.26% chance of winning fewer than 12 times.

There is about a 1.12% chance of winning more than 29 times. So regulars who think they win about half the time are likely overestimating how often they win.

With a 1 in 5 chance each time, the expected would be of course 20 wins. There is actually a 9.93% chance of winning exactly 20 times, or more than 90% to get something other than 20. Most of the action is around 20, there is an 83.2% chance of coming in between 15 and 25 wins over the random sample of 100 cups.