KENNEY HAS A STUPIDER IDEA EVAN THAN A SALES TAX

Alberta risks ‘double jeopardy’ if it exits Canada Pension Plan, leading expert warns
Provincial plan could burden future generations with falling contributions and declining assets

A supporter attends a rally for Wexit Alberta rally in Calgary.

 The province is exploring withdrawing from the Canadian 

Pension Plan.Reuters/Todd Korol/File Photo

Victor Ferreira
January 8, 2020


One of Canada’s leading pension experts is warning Albertans to consider the “double jeopardy” of falling contributions and investment asset values they might be subjecting future generations to if they replace the Canada Pension Plan with a provincial alternative.

In a report published on Wednesday, Keith Ambachtsheer, president of KPA Advisory Services and director emeritus at the International Center for Pension Management, said that a potential switch to a provincially run pension plan could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to establish and would also put its contributors in danger of facing serious underwriting and investment risks.

Primarily, Ambachtsheer is concerned an Alberta Pension Plan could be used to double down on the oil and gas industry.

“It’s a simple diversification argument: If your underlying economy is to a significant degree dependent on the health of a particular industry that if you also put your retirement savings into that industry, it’s double jeopardy,” said Ambachtsheer. He added that Norway avoided making the same error with its fossil fuel industry by ensuring its pension plan’s investments are all international and beginning the process to divest from oil and gas.

Why AIMCo taking over Alberta’s pension scheme could be a high-risk, high-reward gambit
Alberta to study ‘compelling case’ of withdrawing from Canada Pension Plan, Jason Kenney says

An Alberta exit from Canada’s pension plan would cost the rest of the country big time

In November, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney floated the idea of pulling the $40 billion Alberta has in the CPP and putting it under the management of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation amid frustrations that the province’s economic interests were being neglected by Ottawa. A “fair deal” panel made up of former politicians and business leaders has since been created and has been consulting with Albertans through town halls about withdrawing from the pension, among other issues. The panel will present its report to the government by March 31.
An Alberta Treasury Board and Finance spokesperson said it welcomes all submissions about the potential creation of an Alberta Pension Plan to the panel, including Ambachtsheer’s.

“It is worth noting that there have been a variety of views expressed by experts on this topic, including those from the Fraser Institute, the CD Howe Institute and the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, all of which highlighted potential benefits of an Alberta Pension Plan,” the spokesperson said.

Some of the appeal surrounding a withdrawal is centered around the potential for Albertans to make lower contributions than the current 9.9 per cent of pay. Studies from the Fraser Institute and C.D. Howe suggested that an Alberta Pension Plan could cut contributions to the six-to-eight-per-cent range while providing the same benefits. This is mostly due to the fact that the majority of Alberta’s contributors are much younger and higher-paid than the rest of Canada’s.

That younger population — the median age, according to Statistics Canada, is 37.1 years old and the youngest in the country — has led to Albertans contributing more than they otherwise would to the plan, Kenney argued in November.

Ambachtsheer questioned the legitimacy of a lower contribution rate due to the potential of Alberta’s younger citizens leaving the province for greener pastures should the oil and gas industry continue to decline.

Should the industry continue to struggle, Ambachtsheer said he worries there could be fewer jobs available in the province, especially those that pay well. That could impact the total contributions made to the APP and the only way to make up for the lost capital would be to raise the rate.

Building out and administering the plan could also lead to a exorbitant bill for taxpayers to front. Ambachtsheer points to the $70 million Ontario spent developing a potential pension plan of its own between 2014 and 2016, before joining the CPP expansion instead.

As for the costs to operate it, Ambachtsheer uses the example of the Alberta Pension Services Corporation, which provides pension administration services to 375,000 public sector employees in the province. It pays $175 per person, per year to do so. Using that math, it would cost $525 million to administer the plan to the three million Albertans currently making CPP contributions.

The process has yet to be tested, but no province has ever withdrawn from the CPP.

• Email: vferreira@nationalpost.com 

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Everything you need to know about the enhanced CPP — from how much you'll pay to how much you'll get

FEARMONGERING 

Could Alberta actually fall into have-not status? 

New report shows it is a possibility

FROM CATO INSTITUTE NORTH

© Dave Carels, Global News

 The provincial flag atop the Alberta legislature on Friday, February 26, 2016.

A new report from Canadian think-tank the Fraser Institute shows the oil price shock has driven Alberta's fiscal capacity to nearly the national average, and suggests if the economy doesn't turn around, the province could slip into have-not status.

"It's actually conceivable within three to five years that Alberta could be an equalization recipient province," said Ben Eisen, a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute, and one of the report's co-authors.

"This is not a good news story at all. The major driver of this has been falling fiscal capacity in the particularly oil-rich provinces in the country."

Fiscal capacity is a measurement of a province's ability to generate tax wealth, using the average tax rates across the country. Alberta has led the nation in capacity since the measurement was first devised in 1967, but the recession in 2016 saw the gap begin to shrink, and the oil shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated the decline.

"The gap between the lowest income province and Alberta in 2007, per person, was about $11,000 worth of fiscal capacity. That's gone all the way down to about $4,000," Eisen said.

Whether that gap continues to shrink will depend on whether world oil markets rebound, and how Alberta comes out of the COVID-19-caused recession.

"It really might change how we view the pros and cons of that program," said Trevor Tombe, associate professor of economics at the University of Calgary. He believes the narrowing of the fiscal gap in the country could lead to some interesting conversations.

"It will spark questions like, 'How should we design a program when the gap between the have and have-not provinces is smaller than at any time in history?'"

READ MORE: Alberta premier promises referendum on equalization reform

BULLSHIT, ALBERTA WAS PULLED OUT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION BY TRANSFER PAYMENTS
Albertans have long had suspicions about equalization, and the UCP government has used it as a wedge issue with Ottawa. Premier Jason Kenney has promised to hold a referendum on the program. While it wouldn't have any impact on the formula, he has said it would put Alberta's concerns on the national agenda.

Despite the dramatic shift, Finance Minister Travis Toews believes it's a conversation that still needs to be had because the government still has fundamental concerns about how the program is structured. He's also not convinced Alberta will be seeing any payments any time soon.

"I'm confident that this province will continue to be the wealth creation engine in the future for the nation," he said.

If it moves forward, a provincial referendum would be held in conjunction with municipal elections in the fall of 2021.

Regressive Tory Tax Plan

In order to pay for the oh so generous 1% GST cut the Tory's plan to renege on the current personal tax cuts that were introduced by the Liberals. So what do economists have to say about this?

Tory plan to roll back low-income tax cuts worries some business

The price tags Costing Liberal, Tory and NDP promises

What do economists have to say about the veracity of Harper's financial plan

The Conservative Party's fiscal plan, a key part of its formal election platform released yesterday, counts heavily on the rollback of a tax break implemented by the Liberals to finance its spending promises.

The Tories confirmed that, if elected, they will reverse a cut of one percentage point in the tax rate for the lowest income tax bracket, and roll back an increase in the basic personal exemption to make the books balance under their spending plan.

But nowhere in the Conservative's 46-page election platform is that crucial policy spelled out, said Dale Orr, chief economist at consulting firm Global Insight (Canada).

"One would have thought they'd be a little more forthcoming," he said. "They certainly are not giving a high profile to something that is very important to a lot of Canadians."

Reversing the two tax changes -- which were part of the Liberals' November economic update -- would generate about $4.5-billion in 2006.

That money would be crucial to implement the plans in the Tory platform, Mr. Orr said. "It finances a lot of things."

In their platform, the Tories say their policies would generate about $45-billion in tax relief over five years, the biggest chunk of which would stem from reducing the goods and services tax.

Finn Poschmann, associate director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, said restoring the higher income tax rates would carry "some political cost with it."

He noted, however, that the income tax cuts put in place through the pre-election economic update, some of which were retroactive to the start of 2005, are not actually law yet. Still, he said, it would be unpalatable for the Conservatives to roll back the retroactive portion, and it would be tough enough to kill them going forward.

And what does the Business Press have to say about the Harper Budget Platform? Horray more corporate tax cuts. Notice that the Conservatives will keep some of the Liberal promises.

Canada's Harper Pledges Tax Cuts in C$90 Bln Platform (Update1)

The party will honor the current Liberal Party government plan to cut the corporate income tax rate by 2 percentage points to 19 percent by 2010, according to the party's platform released today. Individuals won't pay capital gains taxes if proceeds from the sale of assets are reinvested within six months, Harper said at an event in Oakville, Ontario.

And the Conservatives seem to be, as usual, getting their economic marching orders from the Fraser Institute. Cut corporate taxes to boost productivity, says Fraser Institute

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Federal Election
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Food quality matters for southern resident killer whales, UBC study states

For southern resident killer whales, the fattier the prey the better.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

 

IMAGE: LOW LIPID CHINOOK ARE A PROBLEM FOR SRKW view more 

CREDIT: INFOGRAPHIC © AYODELE OLOKO AND BENIA NOWAK

Not all Chinook salmon are created equal, and this has a major impact on the energetics for southern resident killer whales. A recent study quantified the lipid content in Fraser River Chinook salmon – the southern resident’s preferred meal – and found that spring-run Chinook salmon, the earliest to arrive to the Salish Sea are lipid-rich and energy dense; a critical factor for the killer whales who prey on them. Fraser River Chinook salmon that come later in the season have lower energy density.

“This research helps us quantify the energetic requirements of the southern residents,” said Jacob Lerner, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in the Pelagic Ecosystems Lab at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “For example, if the southern residents ate just low-lipid salmon, they would have to eat around 80,000 more Chinook salmon every year than if they just ate high-lipid salmon.”

Southern resident killer whales are an iconic species in British Columbia’s Salish Sea and down the northeastern Pacific coast. With black and white markings, these marine mammals can weigh up to 12,000 pounds and be up to 26 feet long. They are fierce, social creatures that live and hunt in family group pods. And, sadly, there are only 73 left in the world.

Critically endangered by a number of anthropogenic factors, including noise pollution and high levels of water contaminants, their decline is mostly based on the limited availability of their preferred prey – Chinook salmon. However, there are many distinct populations of Chinook salmon available throughout the year, some with stock-specific differences in energy density, and not all in decline.

“We began with an initial hypothesis that these salmon were all created equal, that they all have the same value to resident killer whales. And we quickly realized that this is not true at all,” said Lerner. “They all have different levels of lipid content.”

Quantifying that lipid content is important as it directly relates to the caloric value of a salmon, assigning its value as prey. Specific estimates of lipid content for Chinook populations with different distributions, or run-timings, could be used to inform trends in killer whale populations, properly time fisheries closures, or even decide which hatcheries to augment to increase high quality food availability for southern residents, Lerner said.

This is particularly important as southern resident killer whales are a migratory species and often spend their winter months elsewhere. When they return to the Salish Sea for the spring and summer, their arrival often coincides with the arrival of the spring-run Fraser River Chinook salmon.

“Southern resident killer whales used to come here earlier in the spring season when they could eat early migrating Chinook salmon,” said Brian Hunt, associate professor in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “Those early Chinook were very energy dense as they need to fuel their long freshwater migration back to their spawning grounds, but those stocks have been declining. With the whales coming later, they mainly have access to Chinook from the lower Fraser. These fish don’t migrate very far, and have lower energy density.”

As a major source of prey for southern residents, estimates of lipid content from Fraser bound Chinook salmon may be one of the keys to helping both threatened species. “We identified a spectrum of high, medium and low-lipid Chinook populations from the Fraser that can be used to better inform energetics models and manage both species,” Lerner stated, “We also identified life history parameters for the salmon to predict where on this spectrum they may fall.”

Though the study has quantified lipid content in Fraser River Chinook, and shown new light on its life history drivers, there is still little information on how ocean conditions influence this energy accumulation.

“We plan to keep monitoring Fraser Chinook salmon fat content,” said Hunt. “And one of questions we want to answer is how changing ocean conditions might be affecting their energy accumulation. Our concern is that ocean warming and food web shifts in the North Pacific Ocean are leading to lower energy accumulation in Chinook salmon. This will have implications for both the Chinook themselves – will they have enough energy for return migration and spawning? – and the killers whales that depend on them.”

‘Seasonal variation in the lipid content of Fraser River Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and its implications for Southern Resident Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) prey quality‘ was published in Scientific Reports.

---

JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-023-28321-9 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Seasonal variation in the lipid content of Fraser River Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and its implications for Southern Resident Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) prey quality

Just Sign Here

Accidental Deliberations asks a pertinent question about a new Contiental Energy Plan to be done for the Fraser Institute by former premiers Ralph Klein and Brian Tobin;

"whether the report has been completed and ready for the authors' signatures from the moment they agreed to lend their names to the Fraser cause."

After all Klein already got a university degree through plagarism, so we know he will sign his name to anything. And he is the Fraser Institutes Golden Boy.




Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Brian Tobin, Energy, gas, oil, Fraser Institute, right wing think tank, Ralph Klein, contientalism, contiental energy policy, petrochemicals,

Damn Commie Canadians

Quick someone tell the flat earth society and the climate change deniers at the Blogging Tories.

Canadians prove humans are causing climate change

Like Medicare this will prove once again to the Republican and conservative American rightwhing whiners that their northern neighbours are truly evil and a socialist menace.



See:

Strange Bedfellows

Saving Capitalism From Itself

Echo Chamber

Fraser Institutes Flat Earth Report

Fraser Institute Meets Bill O'Riley

Flat Earth Society Meets In London

Capitalism Creates Global Warming

ind blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Fraser Institute, climate change, environment, global warming,
Kyoto, UN, IPCC,
John Birch Society, Creationism, nuclear power, flat earth, Lyndon LaRouche, right wing, conspiracy, conspiracy theory, climage change denial,

climate-change, Conservatives, Liberals, government, environment, oil, electricity, capitalism, sustainablity

Right To Work Redux

I have long stated that Alberta has the most restrictive labour laws against unions and in favour of the bosses. Now our pals at the Fraser Institute have released their study that proves it.

Of course being the right wing think tank they are, they approve of Albertas regressive anti-union laws. And of course seeing that the Harpocrites are in power in Ottawa they are hoping to appeal to them to change the Federal labour laws to bring in Right To Work. These guys never give up.

And why should they, with the likes of MP Rob Anders in the back benches,who was their patsy for their last effort in Alberta to promote Right To Work, watch for a private members bill. Luckily for us the Opposition is stronger than the Minority government.

The empirical results indicate four distinct groups. The first is a group
of 22 US States, often called Right-to-Work states. They scored 9.2 out of a
possible 10.0 indicating that they have the most balanced and least
prescriptive labour relations laws in Canada and the United States. The next
group is the remaining 28 US states (non-RTW states); they scored 7.5 out of
10.0.
Right-to-Work states differ from other US states in that they allow
workers in unionized firms to completely opt-out of paying any union dues.
Workers in other states are only permitted to opt-out of certain types of
union dues that are not related to worker representation.
The third group is a single Canadian province: Alberta. It scored 6.0 on
the index and led all Canadian jurisdictions, but fell short of competing with
any of the US states.
The final group is the remaining nine Canadian provinces and the Canadian
federal government. These jurisdictions have the most biased labour relations
laws; all received scores below 5.0.

Of course "biased labour relations laws" is Fraserspeak for actually having labour laws that recognize workers rights. And Right To Work does not mean full employment it means the right of bosses to exploit workers without fear of unionization.

Never say never is the Fraser motto, as they whined about biased labour laws only last August. But then the Harpocrites were only in opposition, now they are in power.

RIGHT TO WORK?

NO THANKS.

ABOLISH WORK!

WORKERS AGAINST FORCED LABOUR

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
unions, Canada, USA, labour, laws, labor, right-to-work, Fraser-Institute, government, federal, provincial, politics, trade-unions, right-wing,

Vote Out Anders

Is notorious right wing anti-union, pro aparthied hack Rob Anders in trouble in Calgary West?

We can only hope so.

Like his pals Jason Kenney and Ezra LeRant, Anders is a graduate of the Fraser Insititute intern program.

He went on to become the point man for the joint Fraser Institute/ National Citizens Coalition campaign against unions in the ninties.

And like Kenney he cut his teeth in politics south of the border working for the Republicans. And he still keeps his Republican ties.

He was the spokesman for Canadians Against Forced Unionisation, a Fraser Institute/NCC front group to push for Right To Work laws in Alberta,in 1995, thinking the Klein government would be open to these 'reforms'.

In his bio on the Conservative.ca election page they coyly refer to his union busting attempts;

"Prior to entering Parliament, Mr. Anders directed a labour market project (sic) for the National Citizens Coalition."

Labour market project, yeah right, he was pushing for Right to Work laws, and ending 'compulsory unionization' in Alberta.


In 2000 Anders got into hot water for denying, whether by commission or ommission, student employment projects for his riding.

Rob Anders, Canadian Alliance MP for Calgary West, refused to approve 83 out of about 200 grants recommended for his riding by Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), which has been the subject of an ongoing financial scandal. The funding provides summer jobs and work experience for students by helping organizations and businesses cover the cost of hiring them.

And then he really made the news with his denouncing Nelson Mandela;

In 2001, the Federal Government decided to give Mandela honorary Canadian citizenship, making him only the second foreigner to receive such an honour. Rob Anders disagreed, calling Mandela, "a communist and a terrorist," decrying Mandela as "the politically correct Left-lib poster boy of today", and predicting that he would be forgotten in 30 years.

For this Warren Kinsella placed Rob Anders in both the second and third place catagories for top ten political outrages of the Parlimentary session of 2000-2001

As a poster boy for the extreme right in the Reform/Alliance and now Conservative party, he has used his position as an MP to do little for his constiuents and much to advance his own personal right wing agenda.

As a result in the 2004 election residents in his Calgary West riding launched the Vote Out Anders Campaign, complete with website. And apparently they are back as of this week.

His problems don't end there. On the CBC forum on Calgary West where folks can leave their comments they are overwhelming against Anders.

One of his personal political campaigns is against China. Now being the complete opportunist he is, he has latched onto the Galun Fong and Tibetans in order to persue his personal anti-communist agenda.

Just as the old right wing would admonish about the communist reds in Russia and Cuba, Anders is opposed to Red China. And he has the support of friends who are even slimier, like the notorious racist and fascist, Paul Fromm who is associated with White Power and Nazi groups in Canada and internationally.

It is typical of proto-fascists to disguise their poitics as anti-communism. It was traditional in the the 1960's for folks involved in the KKK and White Power and Nazi movements to claim that they weren't racist but saving America from communism. When it came to Martin Luther King these same creeps claimed he was a communist. Anders is no different, his attack on Mandela was racist and fascist, using red baiting as a cover.

Today he does the same around China.

Reform MP Rob Anders was asked to leave a Chinese New Year celebration
on Parliament Hill because he was wearing a T-shirt calling for China to
get out of Tibet. The 27-year-old MP for Calgary West appeared at the Wednesday night event wearing the T-shirt, which a1so bore the slogans Stop Tiananmen
tanks, forced abortions, burning books, and independent Indo-China,
Korea and Taiwan.

As a flack for the NCC he is Stephen Harpers loyal syncophant. Harper defended Anders outrageous comments about Mandeala and offered no criticism around his Anti-China provocations.

Certainly we all remember Tianamen square, and I have blogged here critically of the state captialist regime in China but Anders is an opportunist. He is not genuinely concered with Tibet or even the Falun Gong. He is doing this because he is a fascist and red baiting anti-communist propaganda is a sure sign of it.

At a Conservative fundraiser in Calgary this past spring it is reported that he raised the old right wing bugaboo about bilingualism being forced on all us good White English Canadians.

"Bilingualism is a problem today" Rob said. He complained that plaques that had been unilingual are now English and French and that it "didn't help" that people spoke "Chinese and Arab and other languages too" in Canada.

Yep he really feels for the oppressed Chinese peoples.

During the second week of the election campaign Anders used his parlimentary franking privleges to send out a torrid pamphlet denouncing crack addicts, homosexual sex marriage, and calling for law and order, in Richmond B.C.!

But take a look at the front of this pamphlet, typical scare tactics and fearmongering so commonly used in Nazi like propaganda campaigns.
Does this look like an election pamphlet to you?

Wow I didn't know Richmond B.C. was New York. But considering the crime rate and the increasing gun violence in the Lower mainland which has people worried this was a provocation. And you paid for it with your tax dollars.

The term homosexual sex marriage, used in this pamphlet is another provocation. He deliberately called it that. He did not call it Same Sex Marriage. He attempted to conjure up lewd sexual imagery with his misanthropic malapropism. Again from last spring Anders said this;

Then we got to Rob's favourite topic - "moral decay". "The problem with homosexuality and gay marriage" was that it led to a declining birth rate

Huh? The man defintely has sex on the brain, but the decline in the birth rate is not the fault of gays or lesbians.

Rob is a Roman scholar as well. He like many reactionaries before him uses the decline of the Roman empire to explain what he sees as moral decay in modern society. During the Same Sex Marriage debate in the House of Commons he said this;

Edward Gibbon goes on in his work, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to cite several things that made for the decline of the Roman Empire. One of those, the first that he cites, was the immorality that destroyed the integrity of family life.The second thing that Gibbon talks about is gender confusion and the problems that had in the Roman Empire. The third is disregard for religion. I think we can see some parallels today.

Once again, Augustus Caesar, to elongate the Roman Empire, restored the sanctity of marriage.

Those guilty of initiating divorce lost three-quarters of their property to their spouse. They did not get 50%. A woman would be stripped of her wealth and ornaments, and if the man introduced a new bride into his bed, his fortune would be lawfully seized by the vengeance of the exiled wife. We should think about that in terms of divorce rates. Offenders were even disabled from the repetition of nuptials. In other words, if people had a divorce they could not get remarried.

He stimulated the birth rate. He rewarded the parents of large families. As a matter of fact, if parents had as many as five children under the Emperor Augustus, they no longer paid any tax. One can imagine what not having to pay tax would do for a Canadian family with five children.

Yep you read that right Rob opposes divorce, and supports tax breaks for families with five children or more.

Another politician that was impressed by Augustus Ceaser and applied these same policies to his Reich was Adolph Hitler.

Augustus himself was not innocent of plotting executions to eliminate personal enemies. He favored loyalists like Herod who controlled their subjects, whatever the method. In fact, when he found that Herod was more effective in suppressing revolts than Roman governors In running the empire as a centralized corporation, he was more concerned to suppress public dissent than to promote social justice. Thus, he was also the father of the totalitarian state.

Both Hitler and Mussolin were fascinated with ancient Rome and attempted to ressurect it in the modern age.

For a self professed Christian, Rob sure does like them authoritarian pagan Roman Emperors who were slave owners and drenched in the blood of conquered peoples.

And despite his admonions about how great Augustus was, how moral, Rob did overlook Augustus Ceasars incestous affair with his sister. But then they hadn't run the HBO mini series Rome on cable yet.

Augustus' personal life, on the other hand, was a series of disappointments & disasters. He had no son & his only daughter's sons all died before him. So, he was forced to adopt his wife's son, Tiberius, whom he disliked. In public Augustus posed as champion of traditional family values; but the intrigues & scandalous behavior of his own family, including his wife, daughter & their children produced one of history's most lurid soap operas, complete with the murder of kin, public debauchery & incest.

In a commentary article in the right wing National Review Online Rob had an article on humour, a Canadian export south, where he said;

the Liberal party supports what is increasingly becoming a dogmatic, one-party-state (secular) theocracy.

Huh? A what? How can you be a secular theocracy, is Paul Martin the Pope or Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire? Is this another Roman refernce by Rob? After all Canada is a Catholic country.

And Rob wrote this last January the Liberals were a Minority government. Minority as in there were more opposition members than Liberals. I think Rob has gotten Ottawa confused with Alberta.

Besides voting against Same Sex Marriage, during the past sitting of the House,
Anders voted against:

C-2, Child Pornography
C-278, Employment Insurance

C-263, Prohibition of replacement workers in labour disputes

C-272, Sponsorship of a relative for immigration purposes
C-283, Immigration and refugee protection and sponsorships
C-206, Alcohol warning labels

C-14, Tlicho Land Claims and Self-Government Agreement

C-21, Not-for-profit corporations
C-13, DNA data bank
C-11, Whistleblower protection and procedure
C-17, Marijuana
C-65, Street racing
C-64, Prohibit removal of Vehicle Identification Number
C-63 An Act to amend An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act
C-260 An Act respecting the negotiation, approval, tabling and publication of treaties (Treaties Act)
C-48, Budget Amendments

But he did vote in favour of
C-30, Parliamentarian salaries to increase in accordance with private sector salaries

Rob has a real thingee about drugs, in an article in the conservatice weekly Human Events he attempted to link the bust of B.C. provincial Liberal party staffers, members of Gordon Campells government, with Paul Martin and the booming B.C. marijuana trade.

So the citizens of Calgary West are once again being asked to vote, but unlike last election they have an alternative to Mr. Anders.

Jennifer Pollack the former chair of the Calgary Board of Education is running against Mr. Anders. Ms. Pollack is a high profile canadidate.

And one who has faced the wrath of Ralph Klein. She and members of her democratically elected board were ousted after the Klein government, in an unprecidented move, because they refused to be his scapegoat for deficits that were a direct result of his governments failure to fully fund public education.
It appeared this coup de dat was organized with the conivance of Conservatives on the the board. Fights began right after the election between the minority of Conservatives and the majority Liberals on the board. After being deposed by the Klein government, Pollack ran again and was relected to the school board.

Last election Anders got over 55% of the vote, with a lower voter turn out. than the 2000 election. The Liberals got just over 29% with a low impact campaign with a no name candidate. With an active Vote Out Anders campaign, pragmatic politicks calls for a united front vote for Pollack.

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Federal Election
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Calgary West
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Rob Anders
Nelson Mandela

Canada’s Billion Dollar P3 Boondoggle

What the Liberals and Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know

The real story behind the cost overruns at the Canadian Firearms Centre

"Just read your piece on the firearms P3 – quite a revelation. I am amazed we have never heard this before – congratulations for bringing it to light." Murray Dobbin, author of Paul Martin Canada's CEO

The controversy around the Canadian Firearms Centre (CFC) is a key element in the Conservative Party election campaign. It has been their cause celebre for years as the Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance, and now as the ‘new’ Conservative party. It has been their rallying cry for speaking for Western alienation from Central Canada, especially Ottawa and the Federal Government. As a pseudo-republican party, the Reform-Alliance-Conservatives have decried the Canadian Firearms Centre, as an attack on the ‘right’ of Canadians to own guns, in this case hunting rifles and shotguns.

Canada has long had gun control legislation, originally brought in by the Trudeau Liberal Government. This legislation at the time was denounced by some as an attack on the right of Canadians to ‘bear arms’. Though such rights have never been enshrined in law. The attacks on the Trudeau legislation came from rump right wing conspiracy groups like the Gosticks, Canadian League of Rights and by Alberta Separatists like the Western Canada Concept, the predecessors of the Reform Party.

Declaring their purpose was Law and Order and Good Government the Liberals introduced the first Gun Control legislation in response in part to the October Crisis in Quebec. This legislation was limited to hand guns and automatic weapons, and was not without controversy at the time. Gun Collectors, hunters, farmers, those from rural Canada and of course the right wing of the conservative movement were opposed to any form of gun control, it was seen as the State interfering in the rights of the individual. This American republican notion is at the core of the current Conservative opposition to the Canadian Firearms Centre.

The new legislation was introduced in response to pressure on the government from women’s groups and largely centered around mobilization of public opinion in Canada’s largest cities; Toronto and Montreal, after the Lepine Massacre at Ecole Polytechnic. Again the Reform Party, representing a grass roots right wing populist movement, cherished the ‘right to bear arms’ and belittles feminism and women’s rights, as can be attested to by their political alliance with right wing women’s groups such as Alberta Women United for Families. Their opposition to day care and abortion, and any state interference in the so called free market that might impose a tax based social program for the good of all, is key to their political discourse. As the Alliance and now Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, this is still their underlying ideology.

So the issue of the CFC is wrapped up in their political ideology of being the Republican Party of Canada. Even if there had not been cost overruns at the CFC the Reform-Alliance-Conservatives saw the gun legislation and the centre as a backroom conspiracy to take guns away from Canadians. As the saying goes; "just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t to get you", and in the case of the CFC and in particular functionaries in the Department of the Justice, opponents of the Gun registry had a reason to be concerned.

In the Auditor Generals report on the cost overruns at the CFC, one of the issues that arose was the fact that deputy ministers in Justice overseeing the creation of the centre were of the opinion that the CFC was to be a ‘gun registry’. Its purpose was not only to register the owners of rifles and shotguns, but also act as a criminal registry, their underlying hope was that it would reduce gun ownership in Canada. This was the self-justification for creating an overly complex gun registration process, which by its very nature should have been fairly simple and straightforward.

It wasn’t like Canada did not have gun control, while handguns and automatic weapons were ‘restricted’ in Canada, any Canadian owning a rifle or shotgun had to possess a FAC, a firearms registration license. You just didn’t need it to purchase rifles or shotguns. This licensing procedure was introduced under the Trudeau Liberals initially as part of the national gun control legislation.

The local police issued a FAC, after you showed a birth certificate, a driver’s license and were fingerprinted. It allowed you to purchase and collect non-restricted weapons. A special collectors license was issued in the same way, to gun collectors. A special license and registration was required to purchase, transport and own a handgun. It wasn’t that the legislation banned handguns per se, it severely restricted their access. In the case of automatic weapons, again these were restricted to registered collectors, and any use of them had to be authorized by the local police or RCMP.

So the infrastructure was already in place that should have made it relatively simple to centralize in the CFC. While gun registration was not mandatory, a vast majority of responsible gun owners had FAC’s. Transferring that registration information should have been the basis of data gathering for the CFC. But within the Justice Department, this was not good enough, they also wanted a criminal registry. So the Justice Department’s Canadian Firearms Program (CFP) decided to start from scratch, to create a Canadian Firearms Centre, where all Canadian gun owners had to register their guns regardless whether they already had an FAC.

This program was overly complicated, the questionnaires were not user friendly, and unlike the old FAC this was all being done using a brand new computer program and database. This was further confirmed by the independent audit done of the CFP in January 2003 by Raymond V. Hession with the aid of KPMG and HLB Decision Economics Inc.

Hession found that "the CFP operates as a sub-activity within the Department of Justice. As such, the intermingling of a highly operational service delivery function (the CFP) with a policy-rich department whose culture is expected to be circumspect and prudent can be problematic. The department has a very demanding policy agenda, involving itself in virtually every legislative, regulatory and program activity of the government. The CFP has, with its continuing controversies and extraordinary logistical demands, layered unprecedented burdens on the department’s management. And, correspondingly, the CFP is continuously contending for the resources and management attention it has needed to sustain its performance against its legislated milestones. The aggregate effect of these organizational dynamics includes a cumbersome leadership model, less intense focus on the mission of the CFP and corresponding inefficiencies in operational execution. Leadership, focus and execution are further sub-optimized currently because of the multiple headquarters deployments (Edmonton and Ottawa) and processing sites (Montreal and Miramichi)."

But before those in the Conservative party say; I told you so, Hennison condemns them as well as provinces like Alberta which have opted out from the federal program; "Uncertainty is the enemy of the CFP. No end-to-end integrated plan to achieve "steady state" operations, no legislative or financial authority to enable administrative improvements, an ASD contract still requiring certification, differential costs and service levels between opting-in and opting-out provinces, provincial and territorial politicians promoting delay, etc., are all contributing to the uncertainty. Fuelled by the aggressive actions of the anti-firearms control lobby whose cause is aided by the uncertainty, these vested interests are frustrating the alignment of all parties to the achievement of the expected outcomes."

In other words the very opponents of the Canadian Firearms Program and the Canadian Firearms Centre must also shoulder their responsibility for increasing the cost overruns, this is particularly true of provinces that have opted out. The Centre expected and calculated its original costs based on all owners registering their guns and the provinces opting in, at no time did they calculate the costs of provincial government abdicating their responsibilities by opting out. This caused some of the cost overrun. Nor did they calculate the economic impact of a boycott by gun-owners, supported and encouraged by the Reform-Alliance-Conservative party and by provincial Conservatives like the Klein and Harris governments, Ministers and MLA’s.

But the real reason for the cost overruns was the simple fact that the entire CFP was a public private partnership, a P3. This is the key finding of the internal Justice Department audits done in 2000 and 2001, the Auditor Generals Report in 2002 and the Hennison audit in 2003.

The billion-dollar boondoggle is the result of privatization. You will never hear this from Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Because the Reform-Alliance-Conservatives and their allies such as the Fraser Institute, the National Citizens Coalition, the Atlantic Market Institute, and the CD Howe Institute are all proponents of the privatization of government services.

The Gun registry cost overruns are the direct result of the move to privatize, outsource and contract out government services begun under the Mulroney Conservative Government, and continued by the Liberal Government under PM Chretien and his finance minister Paul Martin.

The push to privatize government services was the result of the tax cutting, free trade neo-conservative political agenda adopted by governments in the 1980’s under the leadership of Ronald Reagan in the US, Margart Thatcher in the UK, Brian Mulroney in Canada and Sir Roger Douglas in New Zealand. It impacted on all levels of government, federal, provincial/state, and municipal. Business lobbyists such as the BCNI and the NCC and their think tanks such as the Cato Institute and Fraser Institute promoted privatization as the answer to debt and deficit crisis governments faced. The fact that the tax cuts introduced by the neo-cons caused this crisis was ignored. Regardless of the impact of tax cuts their answer was always the same; reduce the size of government, and contract out/privatize government services.

One of the influential texts produced in response to the neo-conservative agenda was Reinventing Government, How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector, by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler published in 1993. It became the bible for the reduction in government services in order to reduce deficits by using contracting out, outsourcing and public private partnerships. It was the bible of the ‘new ‘ way for governments to do ‘business’. It was a liberal version of the harsher conservative view that all government services could and should be privatized.

It became the rallying cry of governments under siege from business and the right wing. In the United States it was embraced enthusiastically by the Democrats and Vice President Gore. In Canada it became the Chretien Liberals alternative to the Klein Revolution in Alberta. And it is the reason that Canadian Firearms Program ended up being a billion-dollar boondoggle.

Facing a massive deficit and debt crisis that was world wide, governments began to end their Keynesian approaches to social spending and embrace the new neo-conservative agenda. Reduce spending, outsource government contracts and increase tax cuts to business. The Liberals were no different, and Reinventing Government became an internal bible within the various departments. It was read by Cabinet Ministers, deputy ministers, and most importantly its ideas of contracting out and outsourcing was embraced in every department as a way of supposedly saving money.

The Liberals began the promotion of private-public partnerships (P3’s) and contracting out not based on any real economic analysis but based on popular business ideology. One of the areas the government saw, as perfect for outsourcing was its IT needs. The computer and information technology boom meant that the government could easily contract out these services rather than developing them in-house. Various departments began wholesale contracting out of IT services, including hardware purchasing and installation, computer programming and data base construction, as well as data inputting.

Unfortunately in their rush to privatize and outsource, they failed to develop a business plan that would allow for project oversight, and worse they failed to tender specific contracts for services. The government became a slush fund for private sector IT companies which were not the small computer companies of struggling entrepreneurs of the Wired generation, but large-scale corporate monopolies.

Such was the case with the Canadian Firearms Program, as is clearly shown by all the audit reports. In the case of the creation of the CFC, not only was the IT contracted out but also so was all the staff who did data intake, customer service and data input. The entire Centre is one large venture in private delivery of government services. Cost overruns occurred because of having " multiple headquarters deployments (Edmonton and Ottawa) and processing sites (Montreal and Miramichi)." These were staffed not by public sector workers, but by contracted out workers.

Management was the only area that was not contracted out, but in this case the management also did not have the knowledge or experience to oversee the IT component of creating a brand new data base for registering Canada’s gun owners.

The Auditor General reported that: "The Department had major difficulties in distinguishing between expenditures for project implementation and ongoing operations. This problem particularly affected two of the largest categories of costs: communications activities and the development and implementation of computer systems supporting the Canadian Firearms Registration System. The amounts allocated to these areas in various official documents differ significantly from one another. For example, one document provided to us stated that for 1997-98 the cost of the Canadian Firearms Registration System was about $13.5 million. However, the document provided to us for audit purposes stated that this amount was about $20 million."

And why were there cost overruns? "From the start of the business process and technological development of the CFP, EDS and SHL Systemhouse (subsequently acquired by EDS), responding to requirements defined by the CFP project management, performed a large number of changes (1997-319 changes; 1998-310; 1999-474; 2000-415; 2001-260; and, 2002-112) leading to a CFP technical solution that had rapidly evolved from seemingly straightforward to very complex."

In other words from the beginning the IT companies controlled the whole process, they provided the hardware, developed the software and data processing, and maintained control over it leasing it back to the government. Every time a change was made a charge was issued, driving up the operational costs of the CFC and the CFP. The costs were in the millions, and the government still did not own the hardware, software or data, this was still the property of the IT company.

And the reason these costly changes were required? "The Canadian Firearms Registration System information technology was modified several times before and after licensing and registration began in December 1998. The technology was developed in parallel with repeated changes to Program forms, rules, and processes and before legislation and regulations were finalized. The Department stated that the complexity of the system increased unnecessarily because many of the design assumptions were invalid; the system was intended to capture detailed information about firearms for criminal investigations and process licence and registration applications; however, the information needed for criminal investigations was well beyond the administrative needs of the Program; and small changes, such as modifications in data entry on a form, required major changes in the whole system because of its size and complexity, and these changes typically took three to six months to implement at a cost of millions of dollars."

So the Justice Department created a system that was not just simply about Canadian registering their guns but also an attempt to track gun ownership for police purposes. This was the underlying problem with the IT program. And they left the creation of this overly complex database to EDS and SHL Systemhouse. That system instead of being adaptable became a very expensive white elephant.

"In 2001, the Department told the Government that the three-year-old Canadian Firearms Registration System was not working well; its technology was expensive, inflexible, out-of-date, and could not be modified at a reasonable costs to support future operations. Construction and maintenance costs of the existing system were exceptionally high and without radical change, these would represent over 60 percent of future operating costs. This would be significantly higher than the industry norm of 10 percent to 20 percent."

EDS made their money and left the CFP and consequently Canadian Taxpayers on the hook for their outdated system. And anyone who works with computers, even a home computer, knows that there is something wrong when a database program and computer hardware is "expensive, inflexible, out of date (sic) and cannot be modified to support future operations". Somebody sold the government a pig in the poke, and left laughing all the way to the bank. That somebody was EDS.

Who is EDS? Well does the name Ross Perot ring a bell? EDS is originally his company for outsourcing computer programming and database processing it is one of the largest US based IT providers in the world. On their web site they state "EDS' core business is outsourcing services. Our innovative portfolio is built around our unique offerings in mainframe, data center, help-desk and desktop services, application maintenance and development, business process outsourcing, and transformation services." In this case they provided CFP with outdated and costly mainframe computers, lets not even ask who uses mainframes anymore, and proprietary application development and maintenance. In other words at the end of 2001 the CFP did not even own their own equipment and applications.

EDS informs us that "Outsourcing is about more than simply cutting costs. It's about increasing business value for your company." And what business value did we get from EDS? "Its technology was expensive, inflexible, out-of-date, and could not be modified at a reasonable costs to support future operations " Proudly EDS reports their "Canadian revenues of Cdn $1.25 billion in 2002," much of that revenue was paid by Canadian taxpayers thanks to their screw up at CFP.

And so what was the solution that the Government came up with to resolve this problem? To further outsource the computer operations of the CFP! That’s right, in a bill passed in the House of Commons, voted on by the Liberals and Conservatives the boondoggle that was caused by outsourcing in the first place was going to be fixed by…. (wait for it) outsourcing to a different company!

According to the Auditor General; "In 2002, following a competitive procurement, an Alternative Services Delivery (ASD) contract was awarded to Team Centra (a consortium of CGI and BDP). This outsourcing contract will, upon certification, replace the existing services. In the interests of cost containment and technology evolution, the strategic focus of the ASD solution is dependent on Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software replacing the custom-built solution. Current indications are that the complexities of the CFP continue to put the potential economic advantages of the COTS solution in jeopardy."

So were costs more controlled under the current contracted out services with Team Centra than with EDS? Not so according to the Hennison audit. "Nevertheless, the program administration remains unnecessarily complex and costly. KPMG reports that program expenditures were $200,364,000 in fiscal year 2000-2001 and $136,629,000 in fiscal year 2001-2002. The Minister of Justice recently stated that the expenditures for the current fiscal year will be somewhat less than the $113,500,000 previously expected."

So the problem originally was that the government was sold an out of date mainframe computer and overly complex customized data base program and the solution is now to hire another IT company to come in and sell us "off the shelf" computers.

The logic of this befuddles the mind, except to those proponents of contracting out and privatization as the answer to everything. This begs the question, if the original CFP cost overruns were caused by outsourcing the IT why not bring it back in-house, and purchase off the shelf computers and software directly? The ideology of Public Private Partnerships is so imbedded in federal government departments, and provincial governments Canada wide that they cannot admit that P3’s are a failure, even when it is so obvious, as it is in this case.

The result of all this outsourcing of computer technology for the CFP is the recommendation from Hennison that "to bring development costs under control, with the exception of normal application maintenance, no additional software functions should be added to the existing technical infrastructure." So when outsourcing fails once we try it again and when it fails again and cost overruns occur we now freeze the program.

Like EDS, Team Centra benefited from outsourcing. "By joining forces with AMS, CGI has doubled its critical mass in both the United States and Europe. With 25,000 professionals and US$3 billion in revenue, CGI is one of the largest independent IT and BPO companies in the world," says their web page. And again they profited from cost overruns at CFP, just like EDS.

The CFP is an example of who exactly benefits from P3’s, as the companies providing outsourcing services. There are clearly no cost savings in outsourcing government services, there is less direct control and less accountability. And yet these same companies that outsource are the ones that not only claim they are more efficient than in-house services, they also are companies that support tax cuts for business. No wonder the Conservatives don’t want to talk about this being a P3 boondoggle. It damns their ideology that privatization and contracting out save money and are more efficient than public sector services provided by public sector workers.

None of these companies has been sued or have had their contracts cancelled. There will be no attempt to recoup the losses from companies that swindled the taxpayers of Canada, by providing "technology was expensive, inflexible, out-of-date, and could not be modified at a reasonable costs to support future operations."

Where else could this be happening? EDS and CGI still have contracts with the Federal Government and its departments, they provide IT outsourcing to provincial governments in Canada, municipalities, hospital boards, and universities. If this is Reinventing Government then we should expect more billion-dollar boondoggles, not less, thanks to outsourcing, privatization and P3’s.