Australia is in a mess

For those who did not know Australia had an election a few days ago and we still don't know who won. The ruling Labour Party (somewhat lefties) and the somewhat righties the Liberals now have to woo three very independent independents to get a majority story here.

So how did Aussieland get to this point? The ruling Labs only a couple of months ago, while struggling in the polls, tossed their leader overboard in a palace-coup. The new leader - Julia Gillard - seized power and proceeded to drive the electoral bus right into the ditch. The electorate thoroughly cheesed at the shenanigans and the lack of meaningful policy and U-turns on existing policy were apathetic about all of the pols and it showed in the "anyone but those" votes at the polls.

Lessons learned for us are: that Pols need platforms not personality, the electorate are not sheeple to be pushed by polls or pols and substance beats flash everytime. But the danger is that voters get indecisive results - look at the UK and now Australia and wait for the American results in November. Locally look at Ford in Toronto beating up on the rest because the rest are bad candidates. Even in Cobourg we only have seven people on the Councillor ballot where the average for years has been twelve. Nobody but bums wants to be politicians - Why?

Council briefs

Today at 4pm the cobourg Council will listen to seven delegations, that's good for at least two hours of listening and questions. But one of the delegates is a person named Jerry Ford, perhaps he is the putative candidate for Council who may be sussing out the joint and picking a chair. He will be talking about a very valid issue - why is there no pool in the Community centre.

Also for the watchers of the Community Centre questions will be asked about the move to set up a "special contingency fund" of $500,000 to be funded from council's 'playmoney' fund - the HoldCo dividends. If the Project is on track why do they need another half million?

And the hoary chestnut of a pay raise is being punted to the next Council, a report about the wisdom of a payraise and how much it should be is to be presented as a first order of business for the new Council in January. No cajones in this motion. This Council should be ruling on this before the election to avoid the stupid gotcha questions at an all candidates meeting - "Will you be taking a raise?" and the equally stupid reply from cowardly candidates of "No", "Perhaps" and "I'll decide when I see how much it is".

Another decree from Councillor NO

Cobourg is a fine collection of signs telling us what we cannot do. Wally Keeler has chronicled this fact with a mighty fine photo essay here. Well on Monday night Councillor NO - Bob Spooner will add another notch to his "ban list" - a "No Diving from the Pier" law. Citing the fact that people who perform this practise have been cutting their feet on zebra mussels that have attached themselves to the rocks Council will now protect the bottoms of people's feet by banning them from stepping on the rocks by prohibiting them from diving off the Pier. So folks say goodbye to the happy practise of the young playing on the Pier.

In a facebook posting today somebody who will remain nameless complained about a pimply-faced rentacop searching his wife's purse before entry to the fenced area that contained Ribfest. This civil libertarian then faced howls of scorn for protesting and was told many times "If you don't want to be searched don't go in there". A very simplistic and fascist argument. Kudos to the guy who complained, now all we have to do is highlight Cobourg's many "do not do this in our Town" signs and then we can move on as lovers of freedom instead of being obedient sheeple.

Rob Ford vs. Immigration Facts

Since Critical1 was interested in having a discussion about immigration in the face of Rob Ford's recent rants on that topic, I did some poking around to come up with the following facts. They are rather different than the myths we keep hearing from Fold and his ilk.

Ford claimed last week that Toronto is planning for an additional one million immigrants in the next ten years. Actually, the city's Official Plan predicts half that many (537,000) over the next twenty years. Quite a difference. You could even call it significant. Ford is either lying to play to his base, or just doesn't know the facts.

Our own Critical1 opines that maybe we are getting the wrong kind of immigrants since most of them end up in poverty. That ignores the reality that our government rules make it almost impossible for trained professionals to qualify to work at their professions once here. Despite years of promises to change those rules, nothing much has happened and we have trained doctors driving cabs. We have rigorous screening programs that eliminate prospective immigrants who don't have money and skills. That is the truth of the matter. So we are getting the "right kind" of immigrants, we just go to extraordinary lengths to grind them down once they are here. Ask the provincial Medical Associations why they do that, my own speculation might suggest a motive like hobbling the competition and that would be totally unfounded, only the gut feeling of a tired cynical socialist.

The Conference Board of Canada, hardly a special interest group, tells us our national economy would gain five billion annually if immigrants were able to work in the professions they trained in. Sounds good to me.

The Royal Bank of Canada recommended boosting immigration in Canada from the current rate of 240-265,000 per year, up to 400,000. The report, called "Diversity Advantage" was produced in 2005. Among other things, it reminded us that we need more people in Canada to keep the engines turning, meaning working and paying taxes. As someone poised to begin collecting my government retirement pension after all those years paying into it, I certainly see the value in having younger, working people continuing to pay into Canada Pension as well as funding our vital public services like health care and education. Since people of my generation and younger just haven't produced enough offspring to do it, more people from other parts of the world are required if we want to maintain our current system and lifestyle, and most of us do.

Immigrants aren't the problem, it's how the federal and provincial governments go about their settlement that does that. For starters, we should be running aggressive programs to ensure they choose smaller centres to go to live, then providing whatever additional training they need to get to work in their chosen fields. Our new citizens will fare much better that way, and all of us will benefit from their presence here.

We can no longer pretend that Canada is some sainted haven only for those born here. Our future will be bleak if we persist in that kind of xenophobic thinking. In the 21st century it is all one world, and we will sink or swim together.

A facebook hack?

This was the entry on John Floyd's facebook page. John Floyd in an interview vehemently denies that he posted it. Strange.

The immediacy of the Internet

This just in at 09.33

"I must say Ben I did not put that there a friend posted that as a bithday joke as yesterday was my birthday ."
thank you
John Floyd

so there you are folks John is not looking for a cartoonist his friends are!

People will complain about anything

A Solar energy farm located on scrubby class 6 agrictultural land story here was the subject of a meeting in Baltimore recently. Those in opposition don't have much to complain about except the charge that their view of the countryside will be affected.  If that's the case people you go ahead and buy the land and then you can look at pristine, but agriculturally poor, land without the blight of passive solar collectors.

Meanwhile here's my whine of the day: the music in the Victoria Park bandshell in Cobourg should have a decibel limit placed on it. When you can hear the bandshell music as far away as Elgin St. don't you think that's a good indicator of "loud". This is one complaint of the Baystreeters that I agree with, oops that's wrong they only complain about ethnic music!!

If you want to win get serious

John Floyd is looking for a campaign cartoonist. apply within. This appeal appeared on Facebook yesterday.

As we all know John Floyd will be announcing his candidacy for the position of Mayor of Port Hope on the 25th at a BBQ at his house on Madison St.. This perennial candidate has tried before and lost, this time he feels it will be a better chance. But in order to do better he has to lose his image of gad-about populist angry guy and get serious. This facebook appeal may have been in jest but the last thing a serious candidate needs is a cartoonist. Try a good copywriter instead perhaps even an image-maker too.

This is bizarre

The Ontario PCs issued a press release and it was picked up by Northumberlandview.ca here. This release takes the McGuinty government to task for not making Lou Rinaldi a Cabinet member in the latest shuffle. First of all who are these faceless people in the PCs? Last time I looked the local PCs were floundering to find a candidate to run against Loo. Secondly since when does "Little Mike"  speak for constituents in NQW. Thirdly by nominating Loo to be Cabinet material is says bucket loads about the standards of a Hudak Cabinet, presumably Loo would be a key member if he was a PC!

The Ford saga continues

The old saw "There is no such thing as bad publicity" certainly holds true for the fat guy running for Mayor of Toronto. Rob Ford riding his one trick pony seems to be taking it down the road of success. The more outrageous his behaviour becomes the more his supporters howl in glee. Makes remarks about immigrants, shown to be a man with a faulty memory not being able to remember a conviction in Florida, but then he couldn't remember what he said at the maple Leaf gardens after an evening of lubrication. His record of self-abuse which leads to memory loss is working out well for him amongst the lads. White males love this guy. His one trait for electoral success appears to be one of the populist type. But we have been down this road before. Angry white males voted in grat numbers for that other person who "did what he said he was going to do". Unfortunately Mike Harris didn't do what he said he would do half of the time and still gained a reputation for doing it all. 

Frankly the BurdReport is appalled at a candidate who doesn't admit to his warts but in fact denies them. Having warts is OK but lying about them is not. Just remember the front runner of four months ago being hounded from the race when Adam Gianbrone, a single man admitted to having a bit on the side - he admitted it and was booted. What does the fat buffoon Ford have to do to get booted too?