Comments on The Burd Report: Back to the grindstone

Obama has "cash for clunkers" program. H...

2009-08-19T13:58:01.365-04:00

Obama has "cash for clunkers" program. Harper/McGuinty has a "cash from clunkers" program

The system isn't perfect, Manfred, but it does...

2009-08-19T11:58:17.282-04:00

The system isn't perfect, Manfred, but it doesn't stink and it is certainly better than than letting General Motors run the country directly from their boardroom.

Previous Liberal nominees in Northumberland brought both accomplishments and vision to their candidacy--I'm thinking, most recently, of Christine Stewart. So, what do the current candidates bring?

Chantal Hebert's column in today's Star...

2009-08-19T11:56:23.855-04:00
Chantal Hebert's column in today's Star opines that the just concluded NDP convention was intentionally bland, having as its purpose a determination to get the NDP into the loop of power via a coalition with with Liberals.

She concludes as follows:

"With two leading parties deadlocked in the polls, a return to power by the Liberals could rest on their capacity to come to governing terms with the NDP.

"In the wake of a convention where talk of moving tyhe NDP into power dominated the proceedings, less substance than ever stands in the way of a post-election flirt between the Liberals and the New Democrats."

The Liberals owe Canadians the reason to vote them...

2009-08-18T16:57:37.274-04:00
The Liberals owe Canadians the reason to vote them in, as opposed to Conservative small government ideology. The success of the gambit depends upon how well the liberal leadership frames it's competing vision of Canada, in the starkest of terms, against the alleged default government of the conservatives. Iggy will need the charisma of a Trudeau to pull this off. His success, or failure, to capture the public imagination will largely determine who wins in this riding. The previous anon. said Iggy has shown he doesn't want to, " challenge Harper for the role of prime minister ". Another poster has described how difficult it is to stand for all-Canadian principles outside party dogma. Well, if you're prepared to take down the government, make no mistake, Harper is in the crosshairs, and the winners do get to govern the country according to their principles. Iggy approaches high noon with a lot riding on his shoulders, and Canadians get to pick his version of Canadian principles or S. Harper's.

People who drive "old clunkers" rarely d...

2009-08-18T16:08:05.715-04:00
People who drive "old clunkers" rarely do it as an antisocial statement, they do it because they cannot afford a newer car. The US, UK and Germany all understand this and have offered cash for clunkers programs to make it easier to afford newer transportation.

Even if the province or the local police had decided to mount a vendetta against old cars it would have been much simpler to run an advertisement in the paper saying "don't drive an old car because we are going to get ya". To have surprise road block with catch conditions and escalating charges for removing the cars just serves to increase contempt for our police (police state?).

Also, since when has it been legal to have road blocks to search for for cigarettes bought legally on reserves? I agree with spot checks for drunk drivers, but I thought that this was a special legal concession. I did not realize the police chief can arrange spot checks for whether the hell he wants. If we have any lawyers reading this blog it would be useful to have their comments on the legality of all this nonsense.

William Hayes' comments express exactly why I ...

2009-08-18T15:54:29.126-04:00
William Hayes' comments express exactly why I find it hard to get excited about the race for a Liberal contender.
Iggy has shown countless times that he is unwilling to challenge Harper for the role of Prime Minister. When Stephan Dion was leader the PQ, Liberals and NDP had it all sewn up to form a coalition government, but this was based upon the Liberals being willing to make it happen. Iggy doesn't do this, so whatever the Liberal agenda is is irrelevant. In Northumberland Quinte West we cannot vote for the PQ, so our only way of voting for change and eliminating Harper rule is to vote NDP.

William, on Aug 4 I wrote "The system stinks!...

2009-08-18T15:30:54.819-04:00
William, on Aug 4 I wrote "The system stinks! It takes money to run and it takes more to win. The money tree always keeps track of how much influence it has 'funded' ..... The cards are stacked right from the get-go.
Just watch how the nomination process is about 'who' instead of 'what'. All those politicos wanting to get their bony elbows in there and be part of the jostling and bumping around - oh what a thrill - but where's the point of it all? Oh, that - that comes later, when we need yet more money - then the promises start to sprout. it stinks, all of it, to high heaven."

Seems you've just confirmed some of that observation.

So I ask, why do you frame your questions on the basis of it being a Liberal agenda and not as a Government agenda? Shouldn't such discussions be relevant regardless of which party is, or going to be, calling the shots? After all, whatever the government does affects all the citizens and not just party members and supporters. I want to see an agenda for the whole country and not just for a particular party. It would take guts to publicly stand for principles outside of the party mantra while seeking the nomination and make it exceedingly difficult to earn it but that's what is needed if government is ever going to achieve what it is meant to.

And the winner will be the one who can hold their nose the longest.

Some (many?, perhaps most?) of us participating he...

2009-08-18T12:43:43.446-04:00
Some (many?, perhaps most?) of us participating here would be happy to see the end of Rick Norlock. Even so, there is this I will say for the man: his candidacy was clearly consistent with and supportive of the Conservative agenda. He brought to that agenda not only a deep belief in, but also experience working with an approach to justice issues that was narrow, focused on law and order, and grounded in retribution.

Much discussion here about the current candidates for the federal Liberal nomination has focused on two questions:

1) Who can win the nomination?
2) Who can win the election?

Surely something more needs to be discussed: what do the candidates personally bring to the Liberal agenda? For that matter, what is the Liberal agenda to which they might be expected to bring something?

Wonderful comments, definitely a perspective that ...

2009-08-17T12:36:30.217-04:00
Wonderful comments, definitely a perspective that not many readers would have had it been for your comment.
Yes there was confusion. I was told, with two others to take a tow truck to the parking lost and bring back three cars and put them in the pound. The car that I had on tow belonged to somebody who directed it to his house in Cobourg. His first question was "I thought I had until 5pm to leave it there" I said I was told that everything had to be clear by 4pm. You said you were told 3pm - obvious miscommunication.
Yes you wonder how some of the cars were being driven, desperate people who needed transportation obviously. The man who owned the car I towed told me that Baileys (the local scrap yard) was too busy to pick it that day. He obviously knew he was driving a piece of crap.

Now, I happen to support this program. Getting uns...

2009-08-17T12:28:11.228-04:00
Now, I happen to support this program. Getting unsafe clunkers off the road helps ensure the safety of all other drivers. We have all read the horror stories of vehicles like transport trucks on the 401 etc. causing chaos with flying truck tires, brake failures, etc.

There is another aspect to this, though. You catch in the net a bunch of people heading to work at all those buildings where there are many, many $9 / hr to $12 / hr jobs. Hence the reason they are driving clunkers as long as possible in the first place. That is not an excuse but it is a reason. They are made to be late for work by the check. Then they are faced with: "do I lose a day's pay while I try to arrange a tow, get a head-start on finding a replacement vehicle, etc or should I wait until I'm finished my shift, get a buddy to tow me home to my driveway (or the wreckers or an auto repair shop)?" If you waited, it cost you $65 for the tow and $50 for the first day of impound. $115 is more than you earned working the 7 hours left of your shift (if you earn anything less than $16.40 / hr) How many $16.40 per hour jobs are there in the industrial park?

Ouch.

By the way, you cannot get a 30-day sticker that allows you to drive the vehicle while waiting for the certification to be done. You can do that with a vehicle you just bought, not with one that just got stamped unfit, even though you drove it into the check station.

Then, if you went back to find your car gone, there were these 2 Cobourg Police officers there who seemed to think their assignment was to presume people would be aggressive and angry. So, even the most simple, most politely phrased inquiry about where the missing vehicle might be found was met with all the defences already on "high."

A straightforward business-like attitude would have gone a lot better. Many of those whose cars were towed after 3 p.m. say ther simply were never informed of this deadline.

Such a program is bound to be unpopular with those whose plates are pulled. Perhaps that unpopularity could be reduced if additional cost upon additional cost was not piled on in the subsequent 6 hours of the same day.

It is hard to put a safe vehicle on the road --whether re-licensing the one that was pulled or getting another one-- for less than $2 - $3 thousand. Why pile on and pile on additional costs once that has been inflicted?

Also, the program "just happened" to be set up right beside the largest concentration of subsidized housing in the County (Elgin St / Alexander Dr / Burnet Dr). It is easy to guess there are quite a few clunkers on the road there -- if I need rent subsidy, I am unlikely to be running the latest in transportation.

And the program has a very, very quick law of diminishing returns. I heard stories of people phoning friends, co-workers, family members to say "Don't drive that car today." They saw others getting pulled over. They saw the check points out the windows of the places where they work. They overheard the inquiries about it at the vehicle licensing office. I even heard of someone's supervisor at work phoning to give that advice -- now that's building a team spirit!

And, again, I make these remarks from the perspective of someone who supports the program but also sees the other side -- not whining because my own vehicle got nabbed but feeling sympathy for those low-wage earners who did.

The check was set up on a Friday morning, beginnin...

2009-08-17T12:27:12.692-04:00
The check was set up on a Friday morning, beginning right when many people are driving to work, on one of the main access roads to the industrial park. There were 3 police cars, 5 - 6 Ministry of Transportation vehicles and some from the Ministry of Revenue.

Revenue was also checking diesel fuel samples from stopped vehicles, asking where the last fill-up was. Among other things, looking for coloured fuel that is only for farm vehicles, not on the road.

They did not allow any parking (as usually happens) in the lot near the soccer fields. They pulled in every truck going up or down D'arcy St, from pick-up size on up. They pulled in every vehicle towing any form of trailer. They also pulled in a series of 5 - 6 cars in a row every 20 minutes or so -- they were not targetting cars that looked a particular way. However, elsewhere throughout town, police cars were pulling over cars that looked old --bodies rusted through in places, etc. and sending them to the D'arcy street check or actually leading 3 - 4 of them there -- like some sort of Pied Piper.

Cars that were deemed unfit had the plates removed. If you surrendered the plates, you were levied no fine. If they removed your plates, charges / fines were issued. Ownership registration papers were then stamped "unfit vehicle" and to get new plates, unfettered ownership, the vehicle had to be put through a full safety certification. This would include correction of specificaly listed violations, e.g. replace windshield, repair parking brake, steering, etc. but not limited to solely those listed problems.

To drive the unplated vehicle would result in a HUGE fine, so a tow had to be arranged. If this was not done by 3:00 p.m. the same day, the police had the vehicle towed to the impound at Bruce and Rick's. To reclaim the vehicle after that would require paying Bruce and Rick's for the tow plus a $50 per day impound fee.

more in 2nd post: 4,096 character limit!

I recall a while back that Barbara Ameil had been ...

2009-08-17T10:47:30.582-04:00
I recall a while back that Barbara Ameil had been held in jail in an African country and the Canadian government did nothing to assist her.

She's a white woman.

Currently, Canadian/Iranian Maziar Bahari is being held in a Tehran jail since June 21, and has been denied consular access, denied a lawyer and denied visits from any family member.

This is Tehran, where Canadian/Iranian Zahra Kazemi was sexually tortured and murdered while in custody.

This is the same prison where my good friend and poet colleague was imprisoned by the Ayatollah Khomenei regime and again last year, after having visited me in Toronto, went to visit her mother and was imprisoned without charge and forced to turn over all of her life's savings as well as maxing all her credit cards to serve the government of that pedophile leader of a disgusting supremacist religion, Mohammad the Murderer.

My friend described incredible and horrific details of how women are dealt with in Tehran's prisons.

Ben, it's a dandy election issue, but it's...

2009-08-17T08:49:40.105-04:00
Ben, it's a dandy election issue, but it's hard to know what the biggest election issue is, - there are so many.
Norlock's 11000 vote margin of victory can be as ephemeral as the Liberals allow it to be. Those surprising numbers have little to do with his or his Government's spotty performance. This riding will take the measure of Michael I. in the very near future, and make the canny choice it usually does, that is , go with whom it perceives to be the winner. Expectation for the real Iggy is a little like waiting for the great Shakespearian actor to make his debut on stage in Canada. When the lights go down, we'll find out if he's the virtuoso a lot of Liberals are betting the farm on.

It is not merely that Brenda Martin happened to be...

2009-08-17T07:43:09.020-04:00
It is not merely that Brenda Martin happened to be white -she had also been convicted under the laws of a democratic country. Why wasw there such outrage, such a pressing need for diplomatic intervention? Simple, really. We all (or many of us) vacation in Mexico and all of a sudden we could imagine ourseves being convicted on just about anything related to a vacation -drugs, prostitution- and thrown in a Mexican jail. In the cases of the darker-skinned Canadians detained abroad, they were all detained in countries where 'all-inclusive' generally means torture is part of everyday life. Somehow, these places don't show up in our travel agent's brouchures.

DJC