I commented on Twitter that for Canadians, the US is the best team to beat, and conversely the worst ones to lose to. Take that for flattery because I think it is. Anyway, the Canada/US rivalry is good for the sport. The "miracle on ice" stuff was dumb though. If America's team of above average NHL players had defeated Canada's team of star NHL players, that is not 1980 redux.
The closing ceremonies were unexpectedly hilarious and generally engaging. Inflatable moose and beavers. William Shatner. Mounties and lumberjacks enough to make Monty Python blush. Good stuff.
In honour of that, here is something I've wanted to post here, but never had a good excuse. I proudly present the only piece of Canadiana missing from the Closing Ceremonies, the Log Driver's Waltz:
I just got back from a country where everybody seems pretty happy with their health care system, Canada. It was a little weird to hear people talking about dealing with health care without anyone bitching about insurance companies, or being warned about what would happen to their health care if they switched jobs or had a pre-existing condition.
I was in Vancouver to give a speech and sign some books at a meeting of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW). I have a great fondness for the Machinists because their President when I was coming of age in the early 1980s was a fire-breathing, hell-raising trade unionist named Bill Wipinsinger, who gave some of the best speeches I have ever seen in my life, and who never backed down from challenging authority; and also because my greatest political mentor was an Iowa Machinist named Bill Fenton, who was the hardest drinker, best organizer, and most fearless political rabble-rouser I ever knew. When I was a young community organizer, I organized a union for my organization, and it was an easy pick to affiliate with the Machinists.
At the Machinists meeting, we of course spent a lot of time talking about health care and the fight for a public option, but the other big topic of the meeting was the fight for mere jobs, especially manufacturing jobs. I firmly believe that without a more aggressive focus on creating good jobs in manufacturing and infrastructure, which have a bigger multiplier effect than any other kind of jobs, that our economy will continue to sputter, and that Democratic politics will be in a world of hurt.
The big industrial unions with the most at stake in terms of the issue of manufacturing jobs - the IAMAW, UAW, Steelworkers, Teamsters - do not by themselves have the political power right now to force the Democrats to go down this path, to do more investments in creating these jobs, to stop being pansies with other countries so often on trade issues, to invest in the manufacturing sectors with the most promise. Hopefully, they can get the broader progressive movement to join in this cause. But Democrats would be very foolish not to see the economic and political wisdom of doing this ASAP.
We are seeing glimmers of this with Obama. The investments made by the stimulus bill and his first budget proposal made were decent starts, and finally standing up to the Chinese on the tire issue was very welcome. But we are going to need to see a lot more in the way of serious job initiatives if this badly wounded economy is going to start producing jobs.
I was watching Dr. Robert Ouellet, the President of the Canadian Medical Association, on C-Span's Morning Edition as he took calls and questions on Canada's single-payer system. The most important thing he did was blow holes in the myths which are being actively promoted by the Right-wing health opponents. I wish everyone could be watching or listening to this and, if as is the case on Sundays, C-Span reruns this morning's program on C-Span 3 in the afternoon, then it would be worth catching it and listening.
See the dirty secret here is that Canada has historically been notably less wealthy than the US (Nationmaster lists the US at $6K higher in GDP per capita for 2006) and there was always an element of apples to oranges in comparing our systems. We have fewer MRIs? Well, duh. Of course America should have had the better system, and at the upper end of the income spectrum, they probably do. The fact that we're ahead at all is itself an indication of how broken the US model is.
So let's transmogrify those oranges into apples, and get some idea what it would mean to implement US level health spending within other systems. US health care reform opponents have recently moved from bashing Canada to the UK's NHS, but the same sort of disparity applies. In 2006, the UK spent about US$192B (8.2% of GDP) on health care, based on an economy that generated $39K per capita. America spent $2 trillion (15.3%) based on an economy that generated $44K per capita. The Brits too, spent less of their national income on health care, but that income is proportionally smaller too. Let's adjust both dials and see what we get.
Digby writes about this McClatchy article, highlighting an online poll of Canadians about their (our) health care system.
While the results are generally positive for the Canadian system in comparison to the American one (though McClatchy characterizes it as a "split verdict"), my inner social scientist is always nervous about trusting opt-in online polls too much, and I know this topic actually comes up fairly regularly in Canada so here's a broader overview on the subject of comparative polling. It turns out we do have polling firms here that do real phone polling so there's no need to worry about the possibly libertarian bent of online poll respondents.
First up, this Harris-Decima scientific poll from July 5th gives an even brighter picture than McClatchy's effort, which as it relates to comparisons gives us this:
By an overwhelming margin, Canadians prefer the Canadian health care system to the American one. Overall, 82% said they preferred the Canadian system, fully ten times the number who said the American system is superior (8%).
The CBC's premier investigative program, The Fifth Estate was allowed to film a documentary at Insite, the safe injection site in Vancouver's poverty-ridden lower east side.
It is a compassionate examination of the facility, its staff and the lives of three regular patrons. They made an interesting (and commendable) choice not to interview any experts, pundits or politicians for this program (other than 2 employees of the site). I highly recommend watching, including the extra interviews of the five main subjects.
It isn't a rosy picture, as the three patrons are each shown injecting drugs. One of the three, Shelly Tomic, had been off heroin for three years (but on methadone) and falls off the wagon when she has difficulty obtaining methadone, despite having a prescription. Shelly's case is particularly tragic as she is actually a named plaintiff in the lawsuit which resulted in a court ruling allowing the site to remain open.
More hopefully, Taz Prouting is admitted to the facility's detox program "Onsite" and on her third attempt, makes it through the very painful 11 day period it takes to get through withdrawal. Will she succeed in staying clean? What comes through is the value of the site in at least providing a way out for the most destitute and abandoned members of society. It easily cuts through any nonsense idea that sites like this would encourage drug abuse, as no one who wasn't already an addict could possibly walk into that facility and say "I think I'd like to try this!" An opium den this is not. For some background on the facility from my post last year about it, go here. Also, I'd recommend today's Greenwald who is discussing Portugal's experiment with decriminalization.
A lot of the hairbrained editorializing on the Buy America provisions in the stimulus package suggests that Obama will get cross-ways with the Europeans and Canadians if he were to implement the measures, and that a trade war would be provoked.
This is ridiculous. As we pointed out last year during the Ohio primaries, the rightwing Canadian government tried to sabotage the Obama candidacy with the NAFTA-gate leaks. Now they're trying to do the same to his administration. Think of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a little Karl Rove of the North.
As we've been pointing out, there has been a massive corporate lying campaign about the iron and steel provisions for U.S. transit projects. Now, corporations have teamed up with Canada and some of the knuckle-dragging EU governments to throw just enough fake spin to try to fool U.S. policymakers into thinking these measures are WTO-illegal. They're not.
And, as it turns out, Canadians actually want the right to invest in themselves as well. Read this from the Toronto Star:
By using "trade war" rhetoric, [Canadian International Trade Minister Stockwell] Day appears to have positioned the Conservative government with big American corporations already gunning for new President Barack Obama by attacking the package now being worked out by Congress in response to Obama's election pledges. News emerged yesterday that Canada's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Wilson, has fired off a letter to U.S. legislators warning the rules would be a disaster for business and workers in both countries.
"Unfortunately, rather than working co-operatively and practically for an exemption, Canadians politicians ... have been publicly lecturing Americans about their `international obligations' and the theoretical virtues of global free trade," wrote Erin Weir, economist with the United Steelworkers' Canadian arm, in The Progressive Economics Forum.
"This argument is not correct in the current economic context and certainly will not be very persuasive south of the border."
Scott Sinclair, senior trade analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, agrees. "As far as I can tell," he says, "the provision included in the stimulus package will not violate U.S. international treaty obligations." He cautions that Day "should know better," adding: "I think there is a back story here.",,,
"I think they want to knock Obama off balance and gain influence over his trade policy from the outset," said Sinclair. "They are enlisting the support of foreign governments, and so you have (British Prime Minister) Gordon Brown and Stockwell Day talking about it."...
NDP Leader Jack Layton agrees Ottawa is "failing to do what other countries are doing to ensure some of the work in government procurement has a big Canadian component." Says Layton: "Instead of doing his homework, Day is huffing and puffing – and this isn't a house that can be blown down."
We should work together "to ensure both of our stimulus packages work" he says, and concentrate on the dumping of cheap steel on the Canadian market from offshore.
Ah, the Anglo-American alliance that won two world wars and crushed communism in Europe, thus protecting freedom around the world! Now, that same alliance is on the brink of allowing telecommunication companies to restrict, or privilege, any content they see fit within the greatest cultural achievement in the history of humanity: the network neutral Internet. Yey for Anglo-American freedom!
Network neutrality prevents Internet service providers from blocking, speeding up, or slowing down Internet content based on its source. Recent developments in Canada (two months ago), the United Kingdom (two days ago) and the United States (yesterday in the Senate) have all put network neutrality in serious danger. The three allies who stormed the beaches at Normandy are once again on the march, this time making the world safe for telecommunication companies.
I am not exaggerating the danger to net neutrality in most of the Anglophone world. Gory details on each case are provided in the extended entry:
The Canadian governmental crisis is heightening. Tonight, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will address the nation, followed by Liberal opposition leader Stephane Dion. Tomorrow, widespread protests on both sides are expected as Harper will probably meet with the Governor-General, the Queen's representative in Canada, in order to ask for parliament to be shut down for the rest of the year. The goal is to avoid a no confidence vote next Monday that, right now, would pass and make Dion Prime Minister. Given that the opposition had earlier asked the Governor-General to remove Harper as prime minister, this marks, I'm pretty sure, the only time since World War Two when the representative of a monarch will have real deciding power over the fate of a G-7 nation. Crazy stuff, and absolutely fascinating. For more information on the recent developments, read Daniel De Groot's excellent primer.
Lisa Jackson seems to be the frontrunner for the EPA. I think this is a very solid pick, both because she currently heads up an auction-based effort to reduce greenhouse gases, and because she is currently slated to be New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine's Chief of Staff. Auctioning is the way to go, and I implicitly trust Corzine. Absent any outcry of environmental activists, she seems like a very good person to head the EPA.
Michael Moore proposes having the federal government just buy the big three, which would actually cost less than the bailout. Additionally, he suggests firing all the executives, and hiring a bunch of new, green-oriented people to run the companies. Works for me. Not only is it cheaper, not only does the government get a real ownership stake for its investment, but we can avoid rewarding those who have failed at those companies. I know it won't happen, because we are not quite at that point in the Overton window yet. However, we are actually getting kind of close to the point where that idea would become widespread and popular.
Syracuse is ranked third in the RPI. Maybe we The 'Cuse is finally back in the House this year. If only Dante Green had stayed around, we Syracuse could have won the whole thing.
This is an open thread. Tell the world what is on your mind.
Canada's three Opposition parties have united to replace the governing Conservative Party with a Liberal/NDP formal coalition just six weeks after voters returned the CPC to power with a near parliamentary majority. This is a stunning turn of events.
You should be able to watch live at Canada's C-Span, CPAC or just see static results at Elections Canada. You might also try watching CBC online (link on lower right).
I will update here, and the chart above as results come in after 10pm EST (for some reason the networks are saying polls close at 9:30EST - 7PM in BC is 10PM in Ontario, no?). Legally no results can be released until voting stops in BC and the Yukon, under the theory that voters out west should not have the advantage of knowing how the rest of the country voted before making up their minds. This is an open thread for the election, but inside some analysis of the last few days and what might happen here.
11:35PM Ok, it looks like the biggish events of the night are done. The NDP are hoping to keep their 1 Quebec seat, and the Conservatives would really like to win a seat in one of Canada's biggest 3 cities - they have a shot in Vancouver due to the 3-way split thing there. Locked out of Toronto and Montreal proper again.
Don't let the seat totals say more than they should, the Conservatives so far are only getting about 37% of the popular vote, and turn out is supposed to be quite low. 63% of Canadians did not want the Conservatives in charge. Yay British electoral system.
By popular demand from my quick hit about the Canadian election, inside is my run down on our situation here in the land of colourful money and slaves to the tyrannical crown of England.
It has long been an oddity that Vancouver, Canada's temperate coastal paradise (and perhaps answer to San Fransisco), which usually ranks in the top 5 of various "World's Best City to live in" lists is also home to arguably Canada's worst pocket of abject poverty and endemic drug abuse.
Vancouver's lower east side is a little pocket of the third world 2 blocks from affluent downtown Vancouver (I was shocked at how quick the transition is when I drove through last year). The area has become synonymous for heroin use, and has been the locus of much drug policy discussion in Canada for many years now.
In 2003, Vancouver became home to a North American first, "Insite", a medically staffed, clean, secure and legal safe injection site for needle drug users. These things are not new in Europe, but such ideas are always delicate in Canada because there is a widespread belief that the US will punish us somehow for deviating too far from its War on Drugs orthodoxy. Insite was made legal under a special permit allowed in Canada's federal drug laws issued by the then ruling Liberal government. Surprise, surprise the Conservatives hate it and have wanted to close it ever since they've taken power in 2006. They've backed away before, and even lost a legal battle over it but they're taking another run at it as Canada gears up toward a likely election in the fall (with luck, Obama will have Prime Minister Dion among his congratulatory phone calls in November).
The tide is turning against Wal-Mart in its quest to hold off unions while treating employees like dirt:
GATINEAU, QC - August 15,2008 - UFCW Canada members at a Wal-Mart location in Gatineau, Quebec have made history by becoming the only Wal-Mart workers in North America to have a union contract, after a Quebec arbitrator imposed a collective agreement on Friday.
The contract raises average wages of the Gatineau Wal-Mart members by more than 30%. Improved vacation provisions are also part of the three-year agreement. The terms of the collective agreement are effective immediately.
Yes, eight workers at a Wal-Mart auto service shop have won a 3 year battle with the company, and a Quebec arbitrator has imposed a binding contract on the company.
"One of our greatest assets we have in Afghanistan today, frankly, are our Canadian friends," he said. "It's very controversial in Canada, their commitment and the suffering and the losses they have faced. And we need, we need our Canadian friends and we need their continued support in Afghanistan.
"So what do we do? The two Democrat candidates for president say that they're going to unilaterally, they're going to unilaterally abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Our biggest trading partner, they're going -- who we made a solemn agreement with -- they're gonna unilaterally abrogate that. Now, how do you think the Canadian people are going to react to that -- who we are having now their enormous and invaluable assistance in Afghanistan and we're going to abrogate a free trade agreement?"
I mocked McCain for making such a bizarre statement, but I am starting to think that, like with Bush's seemingly strange Dred Scott comment, there is a hidden meaning to it. Consider McCain's statement in the context of conservative Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper responding to allegations from New Democratic leader Jack Layton that Harper is interfering the Democratic primary against Barack Obama:
Here is Harper's response to the allegations (transcript mine):
The Canadian embassy in Washington has issued a statement indicating its regret at the fact that information has come out that would imply that Mr.--Senator Obama has been saying different things in public than in private.
So, the Canadian conservative prime minister is calling Barack Obama two-faced on NAFTA at the exact same moment that John McCain is indicating that Canada might pull out its troops on Afghanistan if we make too much a stink about NAFTA? That strikes me as more than a little suspicious. In fact, it strikes me as a directly coordinated attack by McCain and Harper to neutralize McCain on trade during the general election. It wouldn't be the first time Harper and Republican leaders have coordinated, given that Harper uses Republican pollsters and the conservative movements in both countries are deeply intertwined. Further, in addition to making Obama look like a two-face panderer who will anger key international allies, this attack serves a triple purpose of weakening Obama by extending the Democratic primary, which might (I emphasize might) further weaken Obama in the general election. Other conservatives, such as Rush Limbaugh, are already pushing supporters to vote for Clinton for exactly this same reason.
I generally agree with Josh Marshall on this one: the whole thing stinks of cross-border conservative coordination on the presidential campaign. The plus side is that not only is what Harper doing probably unpopular in Canada, but that in the general election Obama can probably appear with opposition leaders like Layton or Stephanie Dion to reinforce his position on the issue. That way, not only does Obama's position gain credibility, but his victory might even bring down the Canadian conservative government.
"One of our greatest assets we have in Afghanistan today, frankly, are our Canadian friends," he said. "It's very controversial in Canada, their commitment and the suffering and the losses they have faced. And we need, we need our Canadian friends and we need their continued support in Afghanistan.
"So what do we do? The two Democrat candidates for president say that they're going to unilaterally, they're going to unilaterally abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Our biggest trading partner, they're going -- who we made a solemn agreement with -- they're gonna unilaterally abrogate that. Now, how do you think the Canadian people are going to react to that -- who we are having now their enormous and invaluable assistance in Afghanistan and we're going to abrogate a free trade agreement?"
"I want to tell you right now I believe in free trade," McCain added.
This is hilariously bad attack from McCain. It is the sort of thing that makes me eager for the general election.
First, he ties every single issue into foreign policy, demonstrating a complete lack of concern for domestic affairs. It reminds me of a Saturday Night Live joke from late 1991. On Weekend Update, Kevin Neelin said something like 'Today, Pat Buchanan unveiled his 'America First' Campaign for the Republican nomination. In response, President Bush unveiled his 'America: When I Have The Time' campaign." NAFTA is somehow about maintaining troops levels in Afghanistan? McCain's one track mind and distaste for domestic affairs strikes me as a huge opening to exploit.
Second, talk about a tin ear on trade. Even talking about reforming NAFTA is somehow bad? While a plurality of Americans think NAFTA has been, on the whole, a good thing, less than a quarter think that it should not be reformed. But hey, if McCain wants to pin himself in an unpopular corner on trade, by all means, go for it.
Third, is McCain seriously raising the threat of pissing off Canada? I'm pretty sure that Canadians have pretty much the exactly same opinion of NAFTA as do Americans, and thus talking about reforming NAFTA won't anger them at all. Also, I know it isn't very progressive to say this, but even if this talk did anger Canada, most Americans probably don't care. The threat of Canada picking up its ball and going home because they don't like the tone of our voice is not going to resonate with many people here.
Fourth, McCain is just wrong on the face of it. He even had to sort of retract, and when he did he gave this garbled response:
"Maybe they're not saying they'd, quote, abrogate. They are saying radically restructure," he said. "The point is not whether I want to renegotiate any terms. The point is whether you want to renegotiate or unilaterally announce that you are going to take certain action whether the Canadians happen to agree with it or not."
Huh? I'd say that this was inaccurate, but I'm not even entirely sure what distinction McCain is drawing here. Democrats are bad for unilaterally announcing that they want to radically restructure the deal, when the right approach is to say that you want to renegotiate? What does that even mean? And how does a group of people unilaterally announce anything?
Wow--it is moments like these that make me pretty happy McCain is the nominee. There are a ton of holes to drive through here, and I guess it is simply a matter of Democrats choosing which hole at which they should aim the truck.
Needlenose: It can be hard to remember in an abundant modern city, far from the extraction or production of the resources consumed in it, that supplies are finite. It might strike home a bit more to know that we're even using up the supplies that make our electronic things work, let alone our agricultural resources. I have a whole new level of belief in the need to recycle old computers:
... For example, if we continue to consume the following minerals at current rates, we'll exhaust:
* iridium (LCDs) - 13 years
* hafnium (computer chips) - 20 years
* silver (catalytic converters) - 29 years
* tin (cans, solder) - 40 years
* uranium (power) - 59 years ...
The Farm Bill contains Enron levels of corruption and rural Americans know it. It'd be a huge political coup for the candidate willing to try and get it into the conversation. Subsidies, as the diarist notes, are a symptom of the problems and not the cause.
