BMD not A-Ok

Pierre Pettigrew, Minister of Foreign Affairs, sez:

The Government has been studying the question of ballistic missile defence for some time. We have been in close contact with our counterparts in the United States. The U.S. has weighed the anticipated danger to its citizens and territory against available resources, and has decided to proceed with deployment of a missile defence system. This is their right, and we understand and respect their decision.

Canada, however, must act in its own interests, and must determine where its own priorities lie. We must determine where investments will bring the greatest tangible results. After careful consideration of the issue of missile defence, we will not participate in the U.S. ballistic missile defence system... [read more]

I'm so glad it took two years for the government to make up their minds on the missile defence file (presuming, that is, that it has). Hopefully this is not just a crafty attempt to take the wind out of the Bloc and NDP's sails, undermine one of the chief distinctions between the campaign-left, govern-right Chretien/Martin two-step, only to evaporate if the Liberals secure a workable majority after the next election.

Flickr is neat, vol. MCMLX

Another kickass Flickr-related find, this time via Lifehacker: using your phone's camera to keep track of business hours for the shops you hit up most often. Nice.

Blogging the federal budget

Points that either raised either my spirits or my ire, in order of approximate monetary magnitude:

• 10% overall corporate income tax cut - corporate surtax to be eliminated(!), and the corporate income tax rate will drop from 21% to 19% by 2010.


• Personal income tax exemption rise - from $8,100 (or so) in 2005 to $10,000 in 2009; this should take some 860,000 low-income earners off the income tax rolls entirely, but amounts to a decent tax cut for all taxpayers.


• $12.8 billion for Canadian Forces - to be spent on hardware, 5,000 personnel and, apparently, pay increases.


• $5 billion for national childcare - that's $5 billion spread over 5 years ($700 million this year) but precisely what kind of national childcare 'strategy' this will fund remains unclear; much of this will be frittered away on federal-provincial bickering talks to decide on what to include in a framework for developing a preliminary, pre-strategy plan.


• $3.4 billion foreign aid - spread over 5 years in an attempt to (finally) live up to the aid-doubling pledge from a decade ago. No doubt this will include the recent flip-flop on military training aid to Iraq.


• $1 billion for 'climate change' - 'Clean Fund' established, but Kyoto not actually mentioned in the budget speech itself.


• Gas tax points for municipalities - 1.5 cents per litre in 2005 rising to 5 cents per litre by 2010.


• RRSP policy changes - including elimination of the 30% foreign content limit on investments, maximum annual contribution hiked to $22,000 by 2010.

Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's speech also included awkward props to 'faith-based' charities (viz. Tsunami relief) and 'grassroots' business associations, de riguer sops to old people across, hollow mentions of unspecified housing programs, and jack all for post-secondary education. The CBC, which will be getting an additional $60 million in funding, has good coverage of all the details. Alternatively, there's the Department of Finance's Budget 2005 site.

The Results are (long since) in

Results from the WLUSU election have been floating around for a couple of weeks, so, with only a little bit of further ado, here's how my election predictions turned out:

WLUSU President

• Prediction: Dan Robert
• Result: Dan Robert
• My accuracy: 1 for 1 (100%)

WLUSU VP:UA

• Prediction: Jen Mitchell
• Result: Jen Mitchell
• My accuracy: 1 for 1 (100%)

WLUSU BOD

• Predictions: Alexander, McCracken, Piscitelli, Hocking, Gottfried, Ciesluk, Gray, Lynch, Duitz, plus 6 others.
• Results: Alexander, McCracken, Piscitelli, Hocking, Gottfried, Gray, Lynch, Duitz plus 7 others
• My accuracy: 8 for 9 (89%)

U-Pass

• Prediction: pass in principle 60/40, just barely pass 55/45, or just barely not pass, 45/55 at $40/term
• Result: pass in principle 70/30, pass at $40 55/45
• My accuracy: 2 for 2 (100%)

Dental Plan

• Preduction: fail 25/75 or worse
• Result: pass 67/33
• My accuracy: 0 for 1 (0%)

My overall accuracy, then, is 12 for 14 (86%).

Percentage of persons other than me who care: 0%, +/- 0% 19 times out of 20.

• Wal-Mart announces closure of freshly UFCW unionized Quebec store, fate of other union-certified outlets remains uncertain. If I wasn't boycotting 'em already...
  
• North Korea acknowledges nukes, bails on multilateral negotiations [MSNBC]

Cooest / buttons / ever

From Flickr, via bOINGbOING : Spacing.ca, a site devoted to urban space issues in Toronto, offers a set of nifty buttons with the names and distinctive tile patterns of each TTC subway station. This feller got 'em and arranged them in the shape of the routes (well, except for the 'new' Sheppard line, but I digress).

Meta much? I can't wait 'till all the hipsters on by block are rockin' Pape or Spadina or whatever... what would a Wellsley and Queen button pairing denote? The possibilities are more than mildly amusing.

To the table with you!

From The Globe and Mail :

"The price of milk is going up. The price of gas will go up ... And yes, the price of tuition will go up," Mr. McGuinty said. "The only issue is the pace at which it goes up." [read more]

We really did elect ourselves a genius, didn't we? In any case, it gets worse...

At $4,960, Ontario's undergraduate tuition fees are already Canada's second-highest, just behind Nova Scotia, according to Statistics Canada.

Mr. McGuinty, a father of four children in university, said tuition increases will be moderate as long as the province, the federal government and the private sector all do more.

"If all . . . partners come to the table then we can do what needs to be done in order to ensure that we have a stronger and more competitive economy and a postsecondary system that's more open, more accessible and more affordable to our students."

Um, it the provincial and federal governments all "do more" then tuition increases could be nil, forget moderate. This is a variation on the common Liberal theme when it comes to funding. They used it with women's shelters in 2004, too: government funding is unstable and scarce, so "all partners" need to "come to the table."

What this means, of course, is that they'd be very happy if companies like RIM would donate a few hundred million dollars to their local universities. What, you mean most huge companies already do give money to universities now and then? I guess Dalton's problem is that they don't give enough, or that they give too irregularly. Wow, it's almost like we need to set up some sort kind of plan where companies (hell, even individuals!) give a portion of their profit to the government every year, to help support social programs... naaah, that'd never work.

Election & referenda predictions

• WLUSU President - Dan Robert
  
• WLUSU VP:UA - Jen Mitchell
  
• WLUSU Board of Directors - Dave Alexander, Fraser McCracken, Anthony Piscitelli, Dan Hocking, Keren Gottfried, Mark Ciesluk, Laura Gray, David Lynch, Jamie Duitz, but I'm not sure about the other 6 spots.
  
• U-Pass - the referendum question supporting the negotiation of a bus pass in principle will pass 60/40, but the question that asks for approval of a $40/term manadtory fee will either just barely pass, 55/45, or just barely not pass, 45/55.
  
• Dental Plan - this will fail by a substantial margin, 25/75 or worse. Undergraduate students are too young to appreciate the need for dental insurance, the relatively 'good deal' that a $120/year plan represents, and most of them have coverage through their parents and couldn't care less about those without coverage.
  
• Other Qs - the financial statements questions will all pass, but 'By-law 23' is anyone's guess since no one actually knows what the hell it means.

Super, thanks for asking

So, the same-sex marriage Bill (aka: "C-38, An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes") is in the House, literally and figurativly. Y'know, like, it's in the house, like, the hiz-ouse, but also the House, as in Parliament. Damn I'm good.

In any case, the Minister of Justice seems to have left out the paragraph about the demise of morality and civilization as we know it. Surely that bit will be cleared up in an ammendment after first reading...

Chuckle on, bra

In the past, O'Reilly has called the CBC radically to the left, the Globe and Mail a "far-left newspaper," and Canadian health care "socialist."