Canadian Cincinnatus

Jonathan Kay’s apologia of Paul Martin is bunk

As a rule, I don’t normally debunk articles. It’s not what I like to do, but there is so much nonsense in Kay’s recent column that I just can’t let it stand. For instance:

The 2008 financial crisis created a massive rift in America’s conservative politics. Throughout the boom years of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, voters had ignored the massive profits that were being siphoned off by the financial industry: What was good for Wall Street was good for everybody. But the backlash against Bush’s TARP program brought out the country’s anti-plutocratic populist spirit — which is why Mitt Romney, a former buyout king, seems like exactly the wrong presidential pick to many Republicans.

There are two errors here, one about free market policy and the other about the actual state of the US conservative moment.

With regard to free markets, who sez that the TARP bailout was a free-market policy? Not free market supporters. They called it crony capitalism and were its principal opponents because they thought it was a corrupt bargain between business and government. TARP’s supporters included the Democratic Congress that passed it (including Senator Obama) and President Bush, who said at the time that he had to temporarily break capitalism in order to save it.

And while it is true that the backlash against TARP split the Republican party, the “anti-plutocratic  populists” were explicitly pro-small government. The Tea Parties were a spontaneous grass-roots uprising by people who were disgusted with George W Bush’s lapses and were frightened by where President Obama and nancy Pelosi were taking America. Currently, tea partiers fear that Mitt Romney is insufficiently pro-free market. Their opponents are establishment Republicans who don’t want to rock the boat.

Here in Canada, the 2008 financial crisis, and its piggyback recession and foreclosure epidemic, also has created a massive upheaval in conservative politics. Before that, the real dynamo behind right-wing ideology in this country was always, at heart, wealth-envy of the United States, which we saw as a bastion of prosperous laissez-faire capitalism.

As a conservative activist, I have somehow missed this ‘massive upheaval’. But Kay does have a legitimate point. While the US is usually more laissez-faire on average than Canada, it is a mistake to assume that everything that happens in the US is more laissez-faire than Canada. Of course, Kay makes the same mistake, this mistake being central to his thesis.

“Currently, the average Canadian household is more than $40,000 richer than the average American household,” reports the Globe & Mail, citing recent Environics Analytics WealthScapes data. ...

These numbers should be a source of pride for Canadians. Yet they highlight awkward questions for the country’s small-c conservatives: If Canada was, relatively speaking, on the right track policy-wise all along, what exactly were we doing jumping up and down, demanding that our leaders look to the United States for their policy solutions? Does the idea of being a Canadian “fiscal conservative” even make sense anymore?

Really? NAME ONE. Name a small-c conservative Canadian who feels ‘awkward’ that Canada is doing well. I travel in conservative circles and all I experience is pride that Canada is finally on the right track. When I attended the National Review cruise last fall (NR is the flagship journal of American conservatism), I and all the other Canadians in attendance felt proud of Canada, especially when our American counterparts were gushing with praise for our country. 

And considering that an important reason for this turnaround is Canada’s better fiscal situation (10 years string of balanced budgets vs. trillion dollar deficits under Obama), in what way exactly does it no longer make sense to be a fiscal conservative?

David Frum — who has, without intending it, become a voice of conscience in America’s conservative movement...

Huh? Earth to Jonathan Kay: American conservatives considered him an apostate, a heretic and a RINO. South of the border, Frum is an isolated pariah with zero influence.

Yes, a lot of our wealth comes from oil and other natural resources. But unlike the United States (which has its own natural gas boom going on, let us not forget), we’ve plowed much of the proceeds back into public spending, while avoiding Bush-style budget-busting tax breaks for the rich. Nor did we let free-market euphoria permit the creation of a sub-prime NINJA mortgage market.

There are so many falsehoods in this short paragraph that one scarcely knows where to begin.

First of all, “we’ve plowed much of the proceeds back into public spending”? While general tax revenues to the federal government have increased, in what way has the federal government increased the welfare state? Stephen Harper cut the GST, raised the retirement age and is trying to restrict EI eligibility. 

And since when did the Bush tax cuts for the rich break the budget? Did Bush not increase federal spending? And not just military spending. Ever heard of the prescription drug plan? the No Child Left Behind Act? or the budget-busting Farm Bill of 2002? Doesn’t this count as public spending? And was not his worst deficit (passed by the Nancy Pelosi Congress and supported by then-senator Barack Obama) less than half of Obama’s best deficit? And what about the 14,000 pages of new federal regulations issued under Bush? Where exactly was there “free market euphoria” in the US in the past decade? Not in the District of Columbia.

And with regard to the Bush tax cuts, it was his middle class tax cuts that (marginally) reduced revenues. His tax cuts on the rich increased government tax revenue (as they always do). That’s how the Laffer curve works.

And “free market euphoria” created the “sub-prime NINJA mortgage market”? Has Kay ever heard of the Community Reinvestment Act - the law that penalizes banks if they don’t hand out mortgages to minorities in sufficient quantity? The only people euphorically pushing the housing bubble were the bloviating politicians (of both parties) who crusaded for increased minority home ownership rates by forcing banks to meet quota requirements on loans. When the banks complained that this would blow out their loan-loss and reserve requirements, the government made them a corrupt bargain: if they met their quotas, then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (semi-government entities) would buy all their dodgy mortgages (which they resold as asset-backed securities). It was a deal between politically connected operators (like Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial) and juiced-in politicians (like Senator Chris Dodd - Democrat). At that point, the banks no longer had any free-market constraints on loaning out money. To meet their quotas, they issued NINJA (No income, no job applications) loans, a large proportion of which fell on Hispanic people. Ever wonder why the housing bubble was concentrated in California, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida? Whatever else this unholy mess was, it was not free enterprise. And yes, while Canada does have banking rules, the US has a lot more crazy, destructive, politically inspired regulations that have nothing to do with keeping the banking system secure.

Norway and Sweden both have roaring economies, despite being socialist welfare states with high rates of government spending.

The mirror image of the error of assuming that everything in the US is capitalist, is the error of assuming that everything in Sweden is socialist. In reality, Sweden elected its version of the Reform Party in the early 1990’s when socialism was driving it to bankruptcy. Sweden began implementing free-market reforms, which have continued under different governments to this day. As a result, Sweden today has a much lower corporate tax rate than the US (whose corporate tax rate is the highest in the developed world) and has an extremely deregulated labour market. The reason their economies are roaring is, at least in part, because they are still  recovering from socialism.

Rather, the lesson is that nations must spend within their means — something Canada has done for the most part, but the United States hasn’t.

When Preston Manning and the Reform Party stated this principle in the 1993 campaign, they were called extremists by the Chretien/Martin Liberals. The Liberals only adopted the Reform policy of balanced budgets after Canada went broke under their watch. Afterwards, they claimed it was their idea all along. 

The stability of Canadian banks and the concomitant stability in the housing market provide the clearest explanation for why Canadians are richer than Americans today.

True, which is why government meddling in the housing market to benefit politically favoured constituencies is a really bad idea. This is the entire reason why the net wealth per household is higher today in Canada than the US (that plus the collapsing US dollar, another subject).

Martin also slashed funding to social programs.

More intellectual property theft by the Chretien Liberals from those crazy free-market fundamentalist from Alberta. 

The “third way” that Kay balyhoos is a bunch of incoherent tripe. Capitalism is a coherent system, socialism is a coherent system, a mishmash of the two is just that: mishmash. While it may be argued that our current system is a mixture of free enterprise and government, how many “free market fundamentalists” are there who believe in no government at all. Other than a few Randians and Barack Obama’s straw men, the vast majority of small government conservatives believe in some government. They believe that modest government is not only consistent with but enables free markets to exist (by ensuring the rule of law, among other things). So if this is the case, where is the third way?

It is a bogus slogan for a bogus argument.

 

The way to prevent spree killings: shall-issue concealed carry

The left will no doubt agitate for more gun control in wake of the horrific spree killing in Denver. This will, of course, do no good. Jamaica is an island nation with some of the toughest gun laws in the world and yet, the gun violence there is sky high.

The problem with spree killings is that the killer’s goals aren’t personal or monetary – he just wants to kill as many people as he can. Without personal motivations, he can’t be bargained or reasoned with. And since he picks the time and place of the atrocity, you can bet no police will be around. Other than attacking the root causes that create spree killers in the first place (see Monday’s post), the only solution is to encourage law-abiding citizens to be armed so they can put a stop to these situations when they do happen.

The obvious question is that, with shall-issue concealed carry laws in effect in most states, including Colorado, why didn’t they prevent the Batman massacre in Denver? Don’t let the media narrative fool you. Preemption by concealed carry holders occurs all the time. The media just doesn’t report it when it does happen. They report it when it doesn’t, and then they blame the gun owners.

And from the perspective of defeating gun control, propagation of shall-issue concealed carry laws has been the one issue that has turned the tide of popular sentiment against gun control in the States. In the 1990’s, gun control was popular. Every Democrat wanted to ban handguns. These days, nobody admits this. Even President Obama will only further the gun control agenda surreptitiously. What happened to change the mood of America? What happened was that when concealed carry went mainstream, people saw guns as practical tools not just playthings for hobbyists. As a result, support for firearms ownership spread from hobbyists to everyday people.

From the perspective of Canadian gun rights, there is a truly remarkable essay by John Orth (that I wrote about here), describing the dilemma Canadian gun owners face and its solution. It has not garnered nearly enough attention by Canadian gun owners. A few excerpts:

Canadian gun owners are slowly digging our own graves with our timid, apologetic approach to gun rights. Most Canadian gun owners, and most Canadian pro-gun organizations, have utilized a sporting purposes only argument in support of civilian gun ownership. Self defence has become a taboo topic. This reticence is a huge blunder. By failing to actively promote handgun ownership for self defence, we leave ourselves tongue-tied at the most critical juncture in the gun control debate: the aftermath of a mass murder.

The march towards civilian disarmament has followed the same pattern in nearly every English speaking nation. Pro-gun and anti-gun forces generally battle to a draw until there is a mass murder involving firearms. After a massacre has taken place, outraged citizens will grasp at any solution, regardless of how limited its chance of success. It is at these times the gun grabbers have scored their greatest victories. 

As Orth correctly points out, when we use the sporting purposes justification to justify our gun ownership, society is faced with the following binary choice with regard to guns in the aftermath of a mass killing: hobby vs. safety. Unsurprisingly, safety wins. But when guns are presented as a solution to the problem, the trade-offs change. But read the whole article. It’s worth it.

 

 

 

Three heroes who weren’t feminists

One of the conspicuous facets of the Titanic tragedy was the universality of the women and children first ethos. At the drop of a hat, the men on the ship were ready to lay down their lives so that the women and children could go on. A revealing fact that you won’t learn from the James Cameron flick is that the survival rate for a woman in third class was greater than for a man in first class.

When feminists rail against male privilege in the old patriarchy, they conveniently forget that being a gentleman meant obligations as well as perks. As a result, the rise of feminism has tended to corrode the duties expected of a man as well as the rights he expected to enjoy.

It is therefore heartening to hear that in the Batman massacre, three men voluntarily laid down their lives to protect their girlfriends. From the New York Daily News:

“Three survivors of the Colorado movie-theater massacre escaped with minor wounds, but were left with broken hearts because their heroic boyfriends died saving them.

In final acts of valor, Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and Alex Teves used their bodies to shield their girlfriends as accused madman James Holmes turned the Aurora cineplex into a shooting gallery.”

Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and Alex Teves: these names deserve to be remembered for ever more.

 

The Batman shootout in Denver and its root causes

The shooting in Denver, coming so close after the Danzig St shootout in Toronto, provides us with an interesting if horrific contrast. As I wrote last Thursday, the key to understanding what happened on Danzig St. is one detail: that it occurred at a Monday night block party. In other words, it was exclusively a welfare phenomenon. Working people can’t tie one on on a Monday night. The solution is therefore obvious: put welfare people to work. 

Nevertheless, a small percentage of our murders are like the Batman massacre in Denver, premeditated spree killings done for no reason. While numerically small, these atrocities are the most horrific, not just because of the body count but also their randomness. You can avoid a Danzig St scenario simply by avoiding ‘blockos’, but spree killings can happen anywhere, especially where middle class people congregate, like movie theaters and schools.

It is important to understand that, unlike the Danzig St. shootout, spree killing is almost universally a middle-class phenomenon. I rarely find myself in agreement with that Marxist race-hustler Van Jones, but there was a lot of truth when he said:

You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, ‘We can’t believe it happened here. We can’t believe it’s these suburban white kids.’ It’s only them.

To be fair, Jones is wrong to say that spree killers are all white. The Virginia Tech killer was Korean. But he was right in that spree killing is a mostly middle class phenomenon. It is not something driven by need or profit or a primitive honour code. It is driven by alienation, which I define here as the feeling that there is no greater purpose in your life beyond yourself. Paradoxically, the disadvantaged poor boys who commit Danzig St-style shootouts do not suffer from this affliction. This is because they belong to a gang. Their higher purpose is gang loyalty. And since street gangs are a modern reincarnation of that most basic form of social organization, the hunter-gather tribe, the loyalty they find is deeply satisfying. The police, the military, the fire department and the night shift at the coal mine all employ the same all-male honour group loyalty mechanism. This is a powerful force: military history is replete with examples of perfectly ordinary men sacrificing their lives for their team. These men were not alienated.

I remember the moment in my life where I felt this tribal loyalty tugging at me the most intensely. It was several years ago at the funeral of a prominent member of the Toronto Estonian community who had died suddenly in his prime. The pews were filled with the who’s-who of the Toronto Estonian community, people I knew my whole life. As I looked around, I became consciously aware of the solidarity I felt in my heart. At that moment, I was content to sacrifice my life for them, with a song in my heart. I had a higher purpose (and still do). I was completely unalienated.

And yet, many suburban kids grow up never experiencing such a sense of purpose, without which true contentment in life is impossible. The fault lies with the parents. They tell their kids, “do whatever you feel is right,” which is about the worst piece of advice you could give your child. Paul Bernardo did what felt right to him, as did James Holmes, the Batman killer.

So the question now becomes, why do parents say these things? Why don’t they inculcate a set of values in their children that is greater than themselves? The root cause, in my opinion, goes all the way back to World War I and the crisis of confidence it spawned. European people went to war in 1914 believing in God and country right down to their bones, but the slaughter that ensued was so massive and so seemingly pointless that these concepts were fundamentally discredited. Religion and patriotism have made a comeback, but never completely. The residual void has been filled at various times by Bolshevism, National Socialism and much more quietly by existentialism (the belief that only personal feelings matter) and nihilism (the belief that the universe is meaningless). The Holocaust of World War II only punctuated this feeling. 

Like many bad trends in the 20^th century, existentialism and nihilism have its roots in the late German romantic philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche not only influenced Hitler, but the entire existentialist movement – philosophers such as Sartre and Heidegger, and artists such as Ingmar Bergmann, Samuel Becket (especially Waiting for Godot, which is probably the most succinct summary of nihilism yet produced) and most recently Lars von Trier. 

It is significant that James Holmes told the police that he is the Joker, as the Joker in the immediately preceding Batman film, The Dark Knight, is one of the most eloquent spokesmen for nihilism that can be found in popular culture. Which is not to say that The Dark Knight was not a moral film. It was, surprisingly so for a comic book flick. After all, the Joker was clearly portrayed as a villain. But for suburban kids who are taught to do what feels right and lack a higher code or a higher cause, the Joker can be a profoundly attractive character. From our hunter-gatherer days, we have been programmed to be attracted to charismatic, fearless leaders who work effectively and passionately towards their goals. And the Joker was all that. The real problem is the moral vacuum that many suburban kids grow up in which allows them to identify with the Joker’s primitive but attractive qualities rather than be repulsed by his evilness. 

I have long believed that conservatives are ham-fistedly incompetent in prosecuting the culture war. In this line, I expect somebody like Brent Bozell to demand violence in films to be toned down. Wrong. Won’t do a thing because that isn’t the problem. Banning portrayals of seductive villains like the Joker won’t work either, even if you could figure out a workable legal definition of what you mean. The problem lies deeper. Think of Lars von Trier and the pessimistic, head-in-the-oven films of Ingmar Bergmann. The Joker’s philosophy is just culturally downstream of films like The Seventh Seal, where a returning Crusader plays chess with the devil. And of course, The Seventh Seal is downstream from Waiting for Godot, which is downstream from Heidegger and Nietzsche.

If you want to really fix our society and make it truly healthy as opposed to merely create an outwardly conformist but ultimately shallow Stepford Wives world that the left imagines the 1950’s were, mere bans and prohibitions won’t do. You have to attack the problem at its roots. This means that we have to roll up our sleeves and demonstrate that the philosophical core of nihilism and existentialism is rotten and inferior to a belief in God and country, which is a prerequisite for a functioning society. Then, you have to inspire a whole new generation of artists with these ideas, who will in turn create art that glorifies and promotes Western civilization.

If this sounds like a lot of work, it is. But the first step is to point out the negative consequences of the left’s core philosophical principles when they manifest themselves, events like, say, the Batman massacre.

 

The Danzig Street shootout in Toronto and its root cause

Details about the shooting in East Scarborough on Monday evening that left 2 people dead and 25 wounded trickled in bit by bit. On my Tuesday commute, I heard the radio reports. The first thing I thought was, Monday night? Who throws a party Monday night? The second thing was, 25 people injured, including one who was trampled. So this party must have been huge: at least a couple of hundred people, maybe more. I concluded that in these two facts – that the party was on Monday night, and that it was huge – lies the root cause of the problem.

Later, my hunch was confirmed by the Toronto Star:

“The block party - or "blocko," as many referred to it - is an annual event organized by the community…. This year, the party featured Caribbean barbecue, jerk chicken, DJs and, according to partygoers, the promise of free Hennessey cognac, which drew people from as far away as London.”

Free Hennessey… on a Monday night? … OK.

So who attends a Monday night street party? The answer: on average, people who don’t work, that’s who. Adults who work for a living don’t usually have the time to organize or attend parties on a weeknight. They hold their parties on Friday or Saturday night, by which time they are too tired from the week’s toil for foolishness. Yes, yes, I know that one of the people murdered was a university graduate holding a job. But I said, “on average.” And for the record, even though I grew up in the middle class neighbourhood of Guildwood just south of Danzig St, I have never heard the term “blocko” until today.

My suspicion - that most of the partygoers were unemployed - was confirmed when I read the National Post’s account, which pointed out some details that the Toronto Star gingerly tippy-toed around:

“In Scarborough Tuesday, as in Toronto generally, one got the sense of two distinct solitudes: stretches of suburbia here with ample backyards, verdant ravines and streets lined with mature trees, cheek by jowl with pockets like the Danzig townhouses, where there are a lot of young men on a Tuesday morning hanging around. Each of the social housing pockets has its own gang controlling crime, and keeps out people from other social housing units.

‘This is D Block,’ said Neka MacKenzie, 23, who said she has saved up money working at Pearson airport and will study hospitality at Seneca College in September (she is trying to get out of the neighbourhood). ‘If you are from another area, you are not welcome.’”

“’We are just here canvassing the neighbourhood,’ Const. Steele told Ms. Crook. ‘Is this your home?’

‘I don’t own it,’ she replied. ‘It’s Metro housing,’ a term from the mid-1980s for this public housing. ‘But I live here. Now I want to move.’

Around her, men and women sat in faded plastic chairs drinking white rum mixed with Oasis fruit and vegetable juice from plastic cups, smoking marijuana and tobacco, and talking about the events of Monday night.” 

Sitting around on Tuesday morning drinking rum, smoking drugs and ruminating about life? in a public housing project; with a gang problem. Looks like I was right: working people, they ain’t.

There is an old saying that isn’t very popular these days because of its religious connotations but which is nevertheless true: ‘idle hands are the devils plaything’. In that saying lies the solution to this problem. While the police should go after gangs, as Mayor Ford suggested, it is foolish to think that this, by itself, will solve the problem. Once you get the perps, others will take their place (though they might be a little more circumspect if the police reaction is sufficiently harsh). Metro Council’s left-wing will no doubt agitate for a handgun ban, which is even more pointless, as legally owned guns and their owners do not attend ‘blockos’. 

The real solution is that society should stop tolerating idleness among adults. This means society should expect every able-bodied adult to work. Can’t find a job? The government will give you workfare: picking up litter, cleaning graffiti or planting trees in Northern Ontario. If you are hanging around on the street in the middle of the weekday, you had better be able to prove that you have a means of support or you will be busted for vagrancy. We should stop handing out welfare, except to the physically disabled. Do all that and shootings like this will simply go away, as will the gangs behind them.

What about the fact that, as the Star reported, “the victims range in age from infancy to mid-20s.” Weren’t a lot of them too young to work? True. But where were their parents? Or more specifically, where were their fathers?

It is a curious fact that when people don’t work, and should theoretically have more time for their children, they tend to spend less time raising their kids than people with jobs. This is largely because when mothers are on welfare, they don’t expect their men to be breadwinners. They don’t need a husband because they have got Dalton McGuinty (Premier Dad). As a result, their men don’t work, or stick around to discipline the children. As a result, the kids end up at Monday night block parties where free cognac is served. 

Another relevant detail from the Post that was omitted by the Star:

One man, who said he has 12 children, flashed a smile that showed teeth capped in gold diamonds, before taking a call from his mother in Jamaica on his smart phone.

Hmm... I wonder how much time he dedicates to his kids?

Director Milos Forman is wrong, Obama is a socialist

In the New York Times, famed film director Milos Forman took some of President Obama’s critics to task for calling him a socialist:

Now, years later, I hear the word “socialist” being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, “Obamacare is socialism!” They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.

I like Milos Foreman. I believe Amadeus was one of the best films from the 1980’s and is one of my all-time favourites. As a refugee from communist who remembers his roots (“I lived in Czechoslovakia from my birth in 1932 until 1968. The Communist Party was my Nurse Ratched, telling me what I could and could not do,” he explained in the same article), I am automatically sympathetic: my parents both experienced the Stalinist Soviet Union in World War II and most of my relatives lived under communism until the Wall came down. Nevertheless, he is wrong about Obama.

Where Forman goes wrong, I think, is that he conflates President Obama’s record with Barack Obama’s internal beliefs. While Forman is right that President Obama’s administration is a far cry from communism, he is nevertheless wrong to think that this is because Barack Obama only wants to go as far as Western European socialism. He does not. He would like to go a lot further. Read Stanley Kurtz’s book, Radical-In-Chief. It is an authoritative guide to Barack Obama’s intellectual past and it makes clear that he is a hard leftist - probably a communist, but certainly an undiluted socialist. In the New Left, his role is that of the respectable face who quietly implements the Cloward-Piven strategy while his more honest colleagues agitate on the sidelines.

What  stopped President Obama from going further down the path towards the worker’s paradise are the inherent checks and balances built into the US constitution (checks and balances that, I might add, he is on record as opposing) and the good sense of the American public (which manifested itself in the tea parties and the rout of November, 2010). But it can’t be said that he didn’t push against those boundaries as hard as he could.

If the history of the 20^th century teaches us anything it is that campus radicals are the shock troops of totalitarianism. And as Kurtz demonstrates, Barack Obama was one of their generals.

That is what a community organizer does.

 

 

City of Toronto to vote on ammo ban today

This is a story that has attracted surprisingly little attention from gun owners. A CBC story from a couple of days ago summarizes things:

Coun. Adam Vaughan will introduce a motion that will be debated in a council meeting on July 11 that calls on city staff to draft a zoning by-law amendment that will forbid the sale, storage or use of ammunition for firearms anywhere in the city.

Council would then decide whether to go through with the ban in a meeting in the new year.

Only the Canadian Forces, police and those who have been given legal approval are exempt under the motion.

In addition, Vaughan's motion calls for an opinion from the city solicitor outlining all options for legislating and using licensing powers to restrict ammunition in the city.

I am not sure how the extreme-left Councilor Adam Vaughan thinks this bylaw is going to work. What about the ammo people keep in their homes? As gun laws are a federal matter, there is no way he can regulate what a law abiding gun owner keeps in his own home.

While I am sure this law can browbeat Canadian Tire from pulling ammo out of its stores (as it provides such a low proportion of its Toronto revenue), what about the businesses in Toronto whose principal purpose is importing and selling ammo and guns? And there indeed are a number. Do they get grandfathered? Because if they are forced to move or close down, I am sure there will be a few nasty lawsuits in the future for our fair city.

Has Vaughan thought about any of this? Or does he even care, being content merely to showboat with symbolic moves?

A larger issue that I have already alluded to is that municipalities cannot regulate things that are in federal jurisdiction. For instances, there was at least one case of a municipality that tried to regulate airport noise but got its bylaw tossed because aviation is a federally regulated activity.

For another instance, consider the Canadian Shootings Sports Association’s (CSSA) challenge of David Miller’s shooting range ban at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). They recently withdrew their challenge, but according to a widely spread rumour, they were heading for victory on precisely such grounds.

Considering the useful precedent that this would have given the good guys (particularly to counter instances of extremist mischief-making like Vaughan’s), why did the CSSA pull the plug on a near-sure victory?

I dunno. Ask them. Profiles in courage, they ain’t.