Oh The Irony: Mark Steyn

So, in the wake of Donald Sterling being unceremoniously dumped from any association with the NBA, we have Mark Steyn running to his defence.

Even so, it is disturbing to see (as Bill Quick put it) “the use of a man’s property be taken from him because of the way he expressed himself.” And not just any property but a billion-dollar property the man has owned for a third of a century. Solely over views expressed in the course of a two-minute rant at his mistress about the other guys she pals around with.

Oh, right.  So we're supposed to turn a blind eye to it because "it was in private"?  Wrong, Mr. Steyn. Mr. Sterling is free to be as much of an asshole as he wishes - in public or private.  What he overlooked is the consequences of his words being made public.

The NBA administration and the team's players clearly were less than impressed with Mr. Sterling's utterances, private or otherwise.  It's one thing to be a bigot, quite another for it to become so clearly public.  Apparently, there are consequences to that.

If he feels that the NBA's actions are too harsh, Mr. Sterling does have the right to resort to the courts.

The NBA, in this case, is similarly free to express their distaste for Mr. Sterling's beliefs.  Ironically, because an NBA team is a franchise and the NBA is a corporation (a nameless, faceless entity that US law grants people-like rights to in matters such as "freedom of speech"), the NBA is in fact quite within its rights to revoke Mr. Sterling's ownership of the franchise.  (I have no doubt that the franchise agreement has words in it to the effect of "not impugning the good name of the NBA" or something of a sort intended to remind franchisees that their public utterances may well have an impact on their investments.

I’m not so sure being an asshole is still legal in America. Mr. Silver has also fined Sterling $2.5 million – for something he said in his own home recorded without his knowledge. Kareem Abdul Jabar: 

“Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way..? The making and release of this tape is so sleazy that just listening to it makes me feel like an accomplice to the crime.”

Perhaps the grand irony is that Mr. Steyn doesn't seem to be ready to acknowledge that perhaps what has happened to Mr. Sterling is really not so different from what used to happen to Black people in the segregation era, or LGBT people in the 1950s.  Buy a house in the wrong part of town, and you'd find yourself run out of the area by the locals.  Heck, sitting on the wrong bus bench could get you arrested.  

What has emerged here is that society has evolved, and now being found to be rather publicly a bigot is no longer acceptable.  Instead, it turns out that there's a price for that.  You see, it's rather interesting the way that works.

As long as there is a degree of decency in how one behaves, freedoms such as Free Speech can go a very long ways to improving things.  When someone like Mr. Sterling goes too far - and I don't really care if it's in public or not - there is a price that society will demand.  Mr. Steyn seems to think that because Sterling's comments were made in "private", that we should give him a pass.

As most politicians have already learned, Mr. Sterling and Mr. Steyn need to learn that in today's world, one needs to exercise discretion at all times, not just when a live microphone is in front of you.  Things have a way of making themselves public.

Is the NBA's response to Mr. Sterling excessive?  Perhaps it is.  On the other hand, the in that same realm of free speech and expression, is the NBA not entitled to take whatever steps are reasonable to protect the image that they wish to project to the world?

As I have said before, "Freedom of Speech" is not the same thing as "Freedom of Speech Without Consequences".  Mr. Steyn continues to overlook the consequences part of the equation.

Mr. Harper: Can You Even Read?

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Harper doesn't know how to read a legal decision.  Yesterday, in Question Period, Harper said the following:

“The Supreme Court has ruled in its wisdom that the federal government can neither abolish the Senate nor, in fact, can the federal government actually propose reforms -- significant reforms -- to the Senate,” Harper said in the House.

This is complete nonsense.  The Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Government cannot unilaterally alter the Senate.  In other words, the Supreme Court ruled that changes to the Senate require the government to work in the framework of the Amending Formula embedded in the Constitution of Canada.

“That is all now, according to the Supreme Court of Canada, within the purview of the provinces. So my position has not changed. If the provinces believe as I do that there should be reform, they should bring forward those reforms forthwith. If they don’t believe that, they should bring forward amendments to abolish the Senate.”
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/provinces-should-propose-senate-reforms-forthwith-harper-says-1.1798071#ixzz30NXb5Yo6

Apparently, this is as close to negotiating consensus as Harper can get.  Acting like a petulant little child who has just been told "no, you can't have all the cookies", he tries to shift responsibility to somebody else.  In this case the provinces.

Frankly, if Harper wants to change the Senate, he is responsible for putting forth a vision for what a revised Senate should look like, and then work with his peers - the provincial premiers - to come to a consensus.  If he cannot build consensus among the provinces, that is his failing.

The amending formula for Canada's Constitution is a neatly crafted package which ensures that you can't make arbitrary changes to it without actually engaging with the rest of the country.  It requires that someone be able to foster consensus among the provinces to make amendments.  This is a good thing - it stays the hand of an autocrat, and requires actual leadership to achieve meaningful change.

Brian Mulroney was at least willing to try.  Both the Charlottetown Accord and Meech Lake Accord ultimately failed, but not because Mulroney was unwilling to negotiate with the provinces.  Instead, Harper sits there and acts like a petulant little child because the Supreme Court essentially told him to go do his job as Prime Minister.

Stephen Harper's legacy will be the redemption of Brian Mulroney.

Matt Barber Distorts Reality

Over in the far right echo chambers, we find Matt Barber trying once again to associate homosexuality with pedophilia.  

Consider, for instance, a study published in the left-leaning Archives of Sexual Behavior of over 200 convicted pedophiles and pederasts. It found that “86 percent of offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual.” This demonstrates, as notes Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, that “homosexual or bisexual men are approximately 10 times more likely to molest children than heterosexual men.”

We see this bunch of fiction trotted out on a fairly regular basis in the religious right-wing's attacks on homosexuality (and frankly all sexual minorities).  It took me a little bit of digging to figure out precisely which study Barber was quoting from, but it turns out to be W. D. Erikson et. al.'s study "Behaviour Patterns of Child Molesters".

As the University of Toronto's Dr. Cantor points out, this study has been widely critiqued, and the way in which it is often quoted  distorts reality by using imprecise language.

Published estimates of the proportion of pedophiles who offend against male children and are homosexual span a staggering range from a low of 2% (Jenny, Roesler, & Poyer, 1994) to a high of 86% (Erickson, Walbek, & Seely, 1988). The methods of the authors at each extreme have been criticized, and indeed, both sides are guilty of poor methods. ... At the other end, Erickson and colleagues (Erickson et al., 1988) reported that 86% of their sample of offenders against male children were homosexual. This estimate, however, is based on the self-report of the offenders, and offenders are highly motivated to claim any self-descriptor other than pedophile. In fact, methodologically sophisticated studies of pedophiles rely solely on non-admitting pedophiles (e.g., Blanchard, Klassen, Dickey, Kuban, & Blak, 2001). 

 ...

It is here that the political right takes advantage of imprecise usage. Although non-specialists correctly use the word pedophile, that is, to be without regard for whether male or female children are targeted, the colloquial use of the word homosexual refers to homosexual teleiophiles and not homosexual pedophiles. Thus, statements such as “6–8 million boys were abused by age 18 by 1–2 million adult homosexuals” (Walker, 2001) are half truths. Although it might be reasonably said that these perpetrators were homosexual pedophiles, there is no basis on which to believe they were homosexual teleiophiles (i.e., gay men). To refer to the sex in which the offenders’ were erotically interested and not the age is mere sophistry.

The point here is that Barber is using much the same rhetorical device in his argument.  It's a falsehood in a very subtle way.  First of all, it uses the terminology in a subtly imprecise way that blurs lines, second he draws a connection that the evidence being used does not actually support.

This makes perfect sense when coupled with another 2001 study in the same peer-reviewed publication. It found that nearly half of all “gay”-identified men who participated in research were molested by a homosexual pedophile as boys: “46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender.” 

Really?  I love the fact that Barber (and others) are citing a study without specifying which study they are in fact drawing from.  At best, I could make an educated guess or two based on the bibliography at the end of Dr. Cantor's piece, but that would be just a guess.

But, let's look somewhat more closely Cantor's comments, because he draws out an important distinction between molestation by a pedophile and molestation by a non-pedophile:

Although having a genuine erotic interest in children is the strongest predictor of sex offender recidivism (Hanson & Bussiere, 1998), some offenders engage in their behaviors for other reasons (Barbaree & Seto, 1997). Little is known about these other offenders. It is possible that at least some are pedophilic, but lie beyond the ability of psychophysiological tests to identify them. Other factors have been suggested as causing their sexual assaults on children, including alcoholism and anti-social personality (e.g., Marshall, 1997). It is well-established, however, that sex offenses committed by non-pedophiles are largely associated with incest, while the extra-familial offenders are more likely to be genuinely pedophilic (e.g., Blanchard et al., 2001). Furthermore, very few incest victims are male. Estimates are typically 6–8% (e.g., Carlstedt,Forsman, & Soderstrom, 2001; Langevin, Wortzman, Dickey, Wright, & Handy, 1988), substantially lower than the overall proportion of males among all victims (i.e., 20–30%). The most logical conclusion is that sex offenses comprise two phenomena: genuine pedophilia producing offenses against either male or female, extra-familial children and an incest pattern producing offenses against primarily female children. This conclusion is also consistent with the data suggesting that offenders against male children have more victims than offenders against female children. The offenders against male children are more likely to be genuinely pedophilic, while a sizeable group of the offenders against female children are incest offenders and have only a finite number of potential victims. (Additionally, incest offenders are usually removed from contact with their underage relatives after discovery of the offenses.) Nonetheless, the data provide little indication that homosexual teleiophilia plays any greater role in sexual offenses by non-pedophiles than those by pedophiles.

It is perhaps the last sentence of a rather dense paragraph that stands in stark contrast with the conclusions that Barber and others draw:

The connection between homosexual abuse and “gay identity” is undeniable. Although clearly not all “gay”-identified men and women abuse children, or were abused as children, the verifiable reality is that an alarmingly high percentage of them do and were. As with most forms of abuse, the cycle is both circular and vicious. “Born that way?” Not so much. “Made that way?” Sadly, it appears so.   

Of course, they love to try tying it all back to cases like this:

Egan has filed suit against Singer and several other high-profile Hollywood figures for homosexually assaulting him and other boys repeatedly at several “‘infamous‘ coke and twink pool parties” back when Egan was 15 and Singer was 32. (In the “LGBT” vernacular “twinks,” also called “chicken,” are highly sought-after underage boys used for sex by adult “gay” men.) 

Let's be clear about something here.  At 15, we are not talking about a child any more.  Sexually speaking, the individual is pretty well developed at that point, whether male or female, and is likely as not actively exploring their own sexual identity.  (and yes, experimenting with homosexuality is not unusual or abnormal).  Age of consent laws in this part of the world are a mixed bag, but most recognize that there can be consensual sex happening somewhere between the ages of 14 and 16.

Further, the technical definition of a pedophile refers to an attraction to children who have not undergone puberty.

Pedophilia is used for individuals with a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children aged 13 or younger.^[1][2] Nepiophilia (Infantophilia) is pedophilia,^[13] but is used to refer to a sexual preference for infants and toddlers (ages 0–3 or those under age 5).^[13][28] Hebephilia is defined as individuals with a primary or exclusive sexual interest in 11-14 year old pubescents.^[29] The DSM-5 does not list hebephilia among the diagnoses; while evidence suggests that hebephilia is separate from pedophilia, the ICD-10 includes early pubertal age (an aspect of hebephilia) in its pedophilia definition, covering the physical development overlap between the two philias.^[30] In addition to hebephilia, some clinicians have proposed other categories that are somewhat or completely distinguished from pedophilia; these include pedohebephilia (a combination of pedophilia and hebephilia) and ephebophilia (though ephebophilia is not considered pathological).^[31][32]  

These distinctions are far too subtle for the likes of Barber, whose stock-in-trade is political activism, and reality isn't a big issue to him.  Distorting science doesn't exactly bother him as long as it enables him to put forward more fear-based tactics.  

Decision Making and Pregnancy

Think that the Harper Government doesn't have an anti-woman agenda?  Think again.

From LifeSite:

Conservative MP Kyle Seeback openly admits that he was once “fairly comfortable” with the viewpoint that a pregnant woman should have the option to abort in the case of rape. He also says that even though he saw abortion as okay for rape and incest, he still thought of himself as “pro-life.” 

But all that changed one day when Seeback was invited by Campaign Life Coalition in 2006 to attend a talk by Rebecca Kiessling, a woman who was conceived in rape and adamantly defends the right to life for everyone conceived in rape. 

“It just resonated with me right away. I kept thinking: ‘Why would someone get to choose that she would not have a life.’ It didn’t make sense to me,” the MP from Brampton West told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview during Campaign Life Coalition’s National Pro-Life Conference in Toronto earlier this month.

What gets me about this position is that it presumes that once pregnant, a woman is incapable of reasonable, intelligent agency with respect to being pregnant.  More or less, the moment that you are pregnant, the so-called "Pro-Life" crowd seems to think that you have no further ability to be an intelligent agent and act in your own best interests, or to consider the best interests of the fetus developing in your body.

The Corporate Tax Regime In Canada Is Corporate Welfare

... and it is being done at the expense of Canadians.

Corporate Canada Pays Low Taxes But Contributes In Lots Of Other Ways

Consider the following:

PricewaterhouseCoopers did its own analysis — a survey of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives' roughly 150 members. It was voluntary and only 63 replied. But of those who did, the survey found their businesses paid a total of $19 billion in corporate taxes, plus another $5 billion in various other charges and fees to various levels of government.

Okay, that's a voluntary survey, and doesn't give us the entirety of the picture.

The left-leaning advocacy group Canadians for Tax Fairness said they did an analysis of the top 60 companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and found only four companies paid the full corporate rate. More than half paid less than 10 per cent, and 13 firms paid less than five per cent.

But, let's take a look at how much was transferred out of Canada, shall we?

For example, in 2011, Canadian businesses invested $53.3 billion in Barbados, third only to the United States and the United Kingdom. By some estimates, the Canadian government is losing $80 billion a year in tax revenue due to this kind of profit-shifting.

Do you see anything wrong with this?  I certainly do.  What it boils down to is that the Corporate tax system in Canada has been gutted from the inside not just with a series of rate cuts, but also with a series of bookkeeping games that make it easier for corporations to shuffle money offshore before it appears on the bottom line ledger.  (at least of the "official" set of books that CRA would see if they did an audit.

In response to this blatant tax dodging, we get the following patronizing response:

"Corporate Canada pays governments in lots of other ways. They pay different levels of governments, they pay property taxes and they pay a variety of fees and charges that in many cases actually exceeds what they pay in corporate income tax," said John Manley, head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives

Oh gosh, they pay property taxes.  You don't say.  So do I ... your point is what?  Oh, and those "fees" you mention - yeah, well, I get hit with those every time I contact the government too.  I pay fees to register my car, my driver's license, on my utility bills for garbage pickup and water/sewer every time I make a transaction with the government in fact.  Don't feed me a sob story about how hard done by you are with "fees" to the government.

"It's not right," Mr. Manley said. "But figuring out how to fix it without unintended consequences requires really smart people, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has been working at this for a very long time." 

Mr. Manley said the Canadian Council for Chief Executives supports the OECD's efforts, but until the Canadian tax code changes, businesses have every right to take advantage of what the code allows. 

"There is no one in Canada who wouldn't avoid paying a tax if there is a legal way to do it," he said. "It doesn't mean it's wrong to minimize your tax. It just means that governments have to get rules in place and make sure everyone is playing by them."

The issue is that governments have spent the last twenty years downloading the bulk of the tax burden onto middle income earners and telling us that they are "cutting taxes", when all they have been doing is playing to the sociopaths in charge of the large corporations.  It's not small, privately held, corporations that are the problem here - it's the big entities who have the time and resources to invest in figuring out the next way to game the system or lobby the government into opening new loopholes for them to exploit.

Under the Harper Government, we have seen them consistently reduce the tax rates, downloading everything they can from the Federal level to lower levels of government, at the expense of individual Canadians.  Just as we found in Alberta under Ralph Klein, yes the budget appears to be balanced, or even in a surplus position.  Except that there is a growing deficit in other areas - infrastructure, social programs and the like - things which affect individual Canadians far more dramatically.

Lower taxes is a false economy - it does not result in more efficient government, nor does it "encourage investment".  For the last couple of decades, the corporate world has used the "if you tax us too much we'll stop investing here" as a threat.  It's time to call their bluff.  Companies that want Canadian talent will stay here.  Those that leave will open opportunities for Canadian companies to move into.  It's time that we stopped acting afraid of the multinational corporations and told them pay their fair share.

What The Senate Ruling Says About Harper

The Supreme Court of Canada's ruling on the Senate Reform questions that Harper put to them last year came out today.  The ruling itself is not terribly surprising, but what is more interesting is Harper's reaction.

Harper said he had no option left after the high court concluded that no major change can be made to the much-maligned Senate without a constitutional amendment supported by most or all the provinces. 

That's a politically risky and potentially divisive route that Harper has no intention of taking. 

"We know that there is no consensus among the provinces on reform, no consensus on abolition and no desire of anyone to reopen the Constitution and have a bunch of constitutional negotiations," a defeated-sounding Harper told a business audience at an event in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.

So, Harper isn't a big enough leader to even attempt to bring the provinces together and try to guide them to a consensus on this matter?

There is only one kind of person who will not attempt to foster consensus among their peers at a moment like this:  an authoritarian bully who is afraid to face any kind of dissent.

Harper has never brought all of the premiers together for a conference since coming to power in 2006.  He doesn't think he has to ... and more to the point, he obviously doesn't have it in him to even consider the prospect of having to negotiate with the provinces to move things forward.

I don't think the provinces are going to agree with Harper on Senate Reform anyhow for one simple reason - what Harper wants to do to the Senate would create a situation that is even worse for Canada than the current mess.

Even more horrifying to Harper's authoritarian sensibilities is the idea that he might have to negotiate with Quebec - a province which he has snubbed at every turn since 2006 and whose voters have shown exactly zero inclination to even grant him the time of day.

Strike 4: Harper Cannot Unilaterally Reform The Senate

The Supreme Court issued their ruling on the Senate Reform Consultation questions that Harper put before them last year.  

In a unanimous decision released Friday, eight judges of the top court concluded that implementing fixed terms for senators or provincial elections for Senate candidates would require the consent of seven provinces representing half the population. The government had asked whether it could legislate these changes on its own.

On the key question of how the Senate could be abolished, the court said the consent of all the provinces would be necessary. 

The only reform the government can make unilaterally, according to the court, is to eliminate the archaic requirement that senators must own at least $4,000 worth of property in the province they represent. 

There are few other interesting highlights from the ruling:

But the court said the Constitution requires a lower elected and upper appointed legislative chamber, and that the contract between the two is "not an accident of history." Executive appointment of senators, rather than election, was deliberately chosen by the framers of the Constitution Act to allow the Senate "to play a specific role of a complementary legislative body."

An elected Senate, the court said, would be a rival to the House of Commons and would give "democratic legitimacy to systemically block the House of Commons." 

On  abolition:

The court found that the Senate plays a crucial role in any constitutional amendment by its ability to delay a change proposed by the House of Commons. 

The very functioning of the constitutional amending formula would be at stake if the Senate were to disappear, said the Court, concluding that all the provinces — not just seven of them — would have to agree with the federal government on a decision to eliminate the Senate.

I will download the full ruling and review it later.  Such documents are usually fairly complex reading, and will take me a while to fully appreciate.  I agree with the SCoC in principle on this, but I find myself wondering if they have overlooked the "window dressing" aspects of how Harper has proposed to do things in the past.

At the end of the day, it boils down to Harper will have to negotiate with, and create a consensus among the provinces in order to reform the Senate.  Harper hasn't met collectively with the Provincial Premiers since he came to power in 2006 ... he's not a man interested in or capable of generating consensus.