Pie Palace

In 2000 the Conservatives made a deal with the Bloc Quebecois. The Bloc agreed to support the Conservatives, if they could pull together a minority government. Thanks to some deep investigative work by the tireless Pie Palace Parliamentary Bureau¹, we are able to bring you, dear reader, a copy of that very agreement.

Here’s are the highlights:

We, the leaders of the Canadian Alliance, the Bloc Quebecois and the Progressive Conservative Party, have met and agree that Canadians have delivered a clear message in the election held on November 27, 2000: [...]
Canadians also made it clear by their votes that they desired ___ Members of Parliament from the Canadian Alliance, the Bloc Quebecois, and the Progressive Conservative Party to govern. [...] we will be required to govern by consensus.

And here’s the original document, from our shadowy parking-lot dwelling informant.

Of course, this wouldn’t be such a big deal, if it weren’t for the bruhaha that the Conservatives are tossing up about the deal.

1. Yes, it was emailed to us out of the blue, but it is from a reliable source. Regardless, please take it with a grain of salt. (back)

CBC’s Canadian doctors should face regular testing: medical school head is a great example of poor journalism. The gist of the article is simple: a doctor has recommended that Canadian doctors should be periodically recertified. The journalist has found another doctor else who says “No! doctors shouldn’t be retested.” Without talking to the journalist, we can’t tell if that was to create a sense of conflict, or to make the story more “balanced.”

There are three problems here:

1. The No doctor’s statement:
   

   What we do every day is not really a book learning thing, [...] To say, in fact, that because you pass an exam makes you a good physician every 10 years is absolutely wrong.

   is exactly refuted by the CMAJ editorial:
   

   In Quebec, investigators found that family physicians’ scores on their certification examination and Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination were related to provision of quality care after 4–7 years in practice. More recently, Holmboe and colleagues found that physicians’ scores on the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Maintenance of Certification examination was associated with higher rates of performance in care for Medicare patients.

   which goes on to cite the studies in question.
2. The Yes doctor, Wendy Levinson has qualifications as a medical instructor, and appears to study how patients interact with their doctors and is a chair at department of medicine.
3. Meanwhile, the No doctor, Howard Conter does not appear to have any any relevant publications or appointments.

News stories like this are important. They get people to think about how healthcare is delivered in Canada, and how that can be reformed. It’s a pity that the story took the form of “she said, he said” instead of dipping into the empirical studies behind the editorial.

The election is over. The NDP and Conservatives gained a few seats. The Liberals lost a few. The Greens doubled their percentage of the popular vote (6%, up from 3%). The only way I can describe the the last 35 days is as a waste of time. The next time Steve-o decides to call an election, Governor General should look to the other parties to form a government.

Anyone who read this blog in the summer of 2006 will know that Elizabeth May was not my first choice to lead the Green Party of Canada. That was two years ago, and I’m not good at dropping grudges, but here’s why I think she’s doing a good job now:

She represents

The Green Party has some pretty complex ideas. Tax shifting is probably the easiest to understand. Things get more complex when someone asks what the Green Party actually stands for. Elizabeth has been able to articulate our stance on a number of positions (a UN mission in Afghanistan, devaluing the Canadian dollar, and electoral reform) in an accessible manner. No, it doesn’t subject the viewer/listener/reader to a long and fairly dry discussion on what we stand for, but it does explain what we want on those issues, and why that’s a good idea. ¹

Shes reasonable

Thursday night’s debate was a great example of Elizabeth looking good. Her arguments were succinct, direct, and researched. She presented the Green Party position with a minimum of complexity. She makes the Green Party look a little bit more respectable.

I certainly don’t think we’re going to win this election. I’m not even sure if we’re going to win a seat. But I do think that Elizabeth is making the Green Party more attractive to people who wouldn’t have considered us as an option in the past. The test will come in longevity: will Elizabeth be able to keep people interested in our party long enough to dig deep and get the goods on what makes us different?

Image by rjmoorhouse, used without permission.²

1. If someone asked me what the Greens stood for, I’d say something along the lines of “we want to change some of the basic choices that our society has made over the past hundred years, to make Canada more egalitarian, more democratic, and more sustainable.” Now, that doesn’t answer many questions, (and it isn’t supposed to) but it’s honest. (back)
2. Yes, that means I’ll take it down if requested to do so. (back)

Imagine my surprise, dear reader: standing on the bus, listening to the radio, only to hear that the Green Party will be on the televised debates. I almost dropped my skateboard.¹

I’ve been involved in four elections as a Green so far, and I have to say that I have a weirdly confident feeling about this election. The Greens are getting pretty good coverage nationally, and in our riding. We’ve (just) gotten into the national debate. People are asking, left, right, and centre for Green signs. In Ottawa-Centre, we’ve already gotten more volunteers than we had last election.

Congratulations to everyone who sent an email, made a call, and signed the online petition. You’ve shown that the electorate can take on a media consortium, and can make politicians do the right thing.

Photo Credit: ItzaFineDay.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf (back)

I really shouldn’t be surprised:

The Green Party isn’t being included in the debates because three of the four establishment parties don’t want the Greens there. I’m surprised that they cared enough to threaten to pull out.
(Update: Edited for style)

So it’s finally happened. The Green Party has a federal MP. It didn’t happen through the blood, sweat, and tears of an election, but through a sitting MP switching his affiliation. More of a whimper than a bang.

Blair Wilson was elected as a Liberal in the BC riding of West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast – Sea to Sky Country. He left the Liberal Party under allegations of election spending irregularities (of which he was cleared by Elections Canada), but tried to rejoin as recently as last month.

How does this new, high profile Green effect the Party? His status as a sitting MP removes the most recent excuse for the television stations barring the Green Party leader from the televised national debates. The significance of that can’t be overestimated – it gives us credibility, and the ability to reach a huge audience. Of course, the TV stations could simply raise another barrier, as they’ve done when we met their requirements in the past.

Sadly, Mr. Wilson probably won’t get a chance to represent the Party in the House, since Harper looks to be gunning for an election at the earliest possible date.

Welcome aboard, Brian. We’re happy to have you. Hopefully you’ll have a few more GP pals in the House come this Fall. And do try to get re-elected.

For the past few years I’ve been trying to use Intuit‘s QuickTaxWeb to do my taxes. I say trying because it hasn’t worked for the last 2/3 years. In 2005, I noticed that they weren’t calculating tax properly on research grants that I’d been awarded. This year, their crappy web interface didn’t provide me with anywhere to enter my political contributions (thereby raising my income by about $200). Their help told me I could go back to the start of their wizardy interface and put myself into “advanced mode,” but 30 minutes of searching still hadn’t revealed that shortcut to me.

When I was using their help tool, the search stopped working due to server errors. (NullPointerExceptions – the Java equivalent of not doing a NULL check before dereferencing a pointer)

Foolishly, I decided to buy their desktop edition, on the assumption that a $19.99 desktop app would have the same functionality as a $19.99 web app. Nope – it doesn’t handle RRSPs, or other “advanced” tax issues, without using the “forms view” which is basically a glorified paper and pencil view.

Can anyone recommend a decent Canadian tax package?

On the off chance you’re interested in the RSS feeds that I read, here’s a quick rundown:

Local

Blogawa.ca

Blog aggregator for Ottawa-related blogs. I wrote the aggregator, so you should read it. =)

Runesmith’s Canadian Content

The rambling of Jennifer Smith. I enjoy her ongoing outrage at the Conservative government.

Ottawa LiveJournal Community

It’s more of a “where can I get X” listing, but it’s sort of interesting to see what the kids are up to.

THE CANADIAN DESIGN RESOURCE

A near daily listing posting of random bits of Canadian design from the past hundred or so years. I have no idea why their name is in ALL CAPS, but that’s the way it’s presented in their feed.

Geekery

Lila’s Dreams Blog

Lila’s Dreams is a dev blog for an upcoming web-based MMOG. The setting is inside the psyche of an 11 year old girl. I’m not sure what the game is going to end up being, but it sounds like gardening should be a large part of game play, which sounds quite neat.

Dubroy.com/blog

I went to school with Pat, and he’s blogging as a grad student, which is a lifestyle that’s dear to my heart. He opines about usability, the evils of hierarchical filesystems, and difficulties installing stuff on Macs. I disagree with most things he says, but he’s well read and he comes at problems from the right angle.

datalibre.ca

Breathless open data zealots who think freely available data is a really good thing. They don’t trouble themselves with the hard questions of data ownership (curation, metadata, dealing with licensing/access restrictions) but approach the problem from a public interest standpoint. I’m not sure why I read this blog.

The Online Photographer (TOP) and Photoborg

I’m not sure why I read these sites. They’re kinda/sorta about photography. I’m looking for something with a few more tips, but I do enjoy the opining.

Funnies: Defective Yeti, xkcd, I Can Has Cheezburger?

I woke up this morning to a story on CBC about the (re)arrest of Mohamed Harkat. Rage is a lousy way to start the day.

For those who don’t know, Mohamad Harkat was arrested in Ottawa in December 2002. Without being charged, he was incarcerated until June 2006, when he finally won bail. Under conditions of his bail, he can’t leave his house, he must wear an electronic monitoring device, and must remain under the supervision of his wife or mother-in-law. Last February, the Supreme Court ruled that the “security certificate” that Harkat was held under was unconstitutional.

This guy has been held, in one way or another, for over five years. CSIS, the organization that destroyed evidence against the Air India bombers and lost laptops containing top secret documents at a hockey game, is being trusted to provide evidence to a judge in closed hearings that Harkat poses a danger to Canadian security.

This situation is ridiculous. I find it hard to believe that there is an ongoing plot that is so dangerous that Harkat must be imprisoned, but the evidence is so sensitive that his lawyers can’t be told what it is. CSIS either has to shit or get off the pot: charge the poor guy with a crime, or let him go.

Sadly, the JusticeForHarkat.com website doesn’t list any upcoming events that I can take part in.