Hargrove vs. Layton – Round 3?
The Hill Times is reporting that all is not well with Canada’s New Democrats.
Hargrove says: “Jack as a leader has developed a hell of a profile for himself, but I don’t believe he’s developed a profile for the party on the issues that are critical to Canadian families.”
Now, I don’t always agree with Buzz. But this time, I have to agree (with the statement above). In fact, I more or less said the exact same thing 10 days ago.
Seriously. The NDP website is the best party website out there (and it pains me to say that). (I was just with a bunch of web designers yesterday who agreed that “orange” is the new “green”, and had to snicker a bit when I thought of the political implications.)
Unfortunately (or, fortunately for some), they really don’t have anything useful to say. It’s completely, 100% irrelevant. The kids like the website design, but the message sounds stupid.
Is this entirely Jack’s fault? Not so much. But the NDP could’ve turned a corner if they picked a leader who could reform the party and policy a bit (like Bill Blaikie or Lorne Nystrom), rather than trying so hard to reform the image of the old message to make it more hip for the kids.
As a libertarian Conservative, it doesn’t matter too much to me. But for democracy and the greater Canadian political debate, Jack Layton’s leadership has contributed very little.
CBC Cuts: A Good Start?
The CBC has cut 800 jobs. I know what it’s like to lose a job, and empathize with anyone who loses theirs.
This post is not to celebrate the job loss aspect of the news. But it does reflect the continued diminishment of the CBC. The reality is that the CBC has been diminishing for years.
While this stop-gap measure comes at an unfortunate time (job losses are rarely “welcome”, mind you), it is directly a result of inaction on the part of government in dealing with the CBC sooner.
Better late than never … now is prime time for the government to come up with an ACTUAL PLAN on what to do with the CBC.
There are lots of good ideas out there. Macleans.ca had some great ideas. You could split up the TV and Radio into a Canadian PBS and NPR, then lower public funding over the course of a decade. You could just shut down the unprofitable TV operations all together, and continue to fund radio only. I even had a few ideas submitted on my Privatize.ca site a few years back. In better times, you could’ve privatized parts of it (sadly, that option is off the table for now).
Fact is, there are dozens of possible solutions, but successive governments have chosen the lamest option of all: do nothing and hope for the best.
Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights
Picking up my copy of Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights by Ezra Levant tomorrow.
I suspect it will be a great read; I will post my thoughts once I have had a chance to read it.
I hope the Conservative Party follows through on the almost unanimous resolution to overhaul these horrible Human Rights Commissions, and their mockery of democracy!
See Ezra discuss his book on his blog.
The Reactionary Left
It’s time to for the NDP to try contributing something constructive to Canadian political discourse, instead of the typical reactionary drivel they’ve been dishing up for the last few years.
I know many of their supporters are reasonable, intelligent people, with constructive ideas, but the leadership continues to dish out nonsense.
Here’s a few examples:
The Problem: Somebody gets shot during gang violence crossfire in Surrey or Toronto.
The Left’s Solution: Take hunter’s rifles away.
The Problem: Canadian soldiers die serving their country, defending Afghan people from the Taliban. The same Taliban that would sooner burn a school-aged girl than see her go to school.
The Left’s Solution: Peace talks with the Taliban.
The Problem: A recession takes hold after the longest bull market in a generation.
The Left’s Solution: Protectionism, higher taxes, and a new national holiday in February. Honestly.
These are serious problems that deserve serious solutions.
Does anybody take Jack Layton and the NDP seriously anymore?
Tax cannabis, save the economy!
I was in the bank the other day when I ran into a nice fellow who ran for mayor of Victoria a few years back on a “legalize marijuana” platform. Not exactly sure what that has to do with municipal politics, but that’s neither here nor there.
I joked with him that it must bother him that he is so mainstream now. Like any true believer, he wasn’t phased by it. His harm reduction club was thriving, and he was delighted to be helping so many people. And he was standing in the business line-up at the bank with a smile on his face, so I suspect he’s doing OK, too.
The cover story of The Economist this week is called “How to stop the drug wars“.
In my opinion, this article is bang on. It is high time for the world to deal with drug use as a health issue, not a criminal issue.
Marijuana should be regulated, sold in liquor stores and taxed like hell.
But hard drugs should also be legalized. A reasonably-priced, non-contaminated supply prescribed to patients will be far healthier not only for the drug user, but for society as a whole (no reason to steal, no junkies dying in your driveway, no innocent bystanders being shot up by gangs, and a drug user in this scenario would be far more employable than now).
I was told my opinion on this would change when I had children; on the contrary, I am more confident than ever that this is the best solution for our society, and we are on the cusp of an important international meeting where this change is possible.
And forget about those half-hearted Liberal-style decriminalization policies. I have argued in the past, and continue to believe, that decriminalization is a recipe for disaster – it only encourages youth (and others) to consort with criminals – and criminals do not limit themselves to marijuana – they push harder drugs, they trade in guns, prostitution, murder and so forth.
With the economy in the dumps, thousands dying and imprisoned, and billions spent trying to rid the world of drugs, perhaps it is time to try something else.
Mainstream Media Crisis – One U.S. Reflection
This very long New York Observer article is worth a read for anyone interested in the current crisis in the MSM.
It outlines many of the causes, like the backwards business models, the changing nature of media consumers, and the pros and cons of some of the proposed solutions to the “crisis”.
It’s long, but well worth a read.
It also mentions “comment spam”, which is funny because 3 of the comments on the articles are clearly spam. I half wonder if that was intentionally let through – tongue-in-cheek – or if it was (il)legitimately spammed.
In case you were asleep last week.
This is a must hear state of the union for media in Canada from Andrew Coyne and that other guy.
Network
