Canadian Cincinnatus

The Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act the right thing for Harper to do

Last Wednesday, Public Safety Minister, Steven Blaney, introduced the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act. 

On the face of it, this is a much-needed improvement to Canada’s gun laws. Currently, there are many bureaucratic rules placing restrictions and demands on Canadian gun owners. Many of these things make absolutely no sense whatsoever and cannot be rationalized as legitimate crime prevention measures in any way. Even worse, law-abiding gun owners are threatened with criminal records and possible jail time for breaking them. We are talking about technical infractions like lapsed PAL licenses, or a failure to have all the required slips of paper with you on your way to the range (even though you have your PAL). Particularly onerous in this regard is the ATT (Authorization to Transport) system. These are required in only three provinces (Ontario and Quebec among them), but the other seven seem to do just fine without them. Among other improvements, ATTs will soon be history. 

Canadian gun owners are not the only winners with this law. In terms of political strategy, Stephen Harper also wins. The public opinion polls taken so far indicate that Justin Trudeau will be Stephen Harper’s most significant challenger to date. In order to win next year’s federal election, Harper will need all hands on deck. The first step in any campaign is locking down your base – keeping them enthused and motivated. This bill will go a long way to making sure that Canadian gun owners will be writing cheques and hammering lawn signs during the next federal election campaign.

Black boxes and streaming data

Malaysian Airlines has suffered another catastrophe. That’s two in one year. This time we know where the plane ended up, but we know nothing about the circumstances of the crash as yet. It takes months to extract data from the flight data recorders.

Why do we not stream flight data and cockpit recordings to the ground, in real time, as the flight progresses? We have the technology to flawlessly stream high definition movies and television over the internet, to millions of homes at the same time; we have boxes in our cars that show us a picture of the road ahead while a voice tells us where to turn. It should be child’s play to transmit an audio stream and a fairly limited data stream from a few hundred commercial airliners via ground stations and satellite. The advantages would be enormous. For one thing, ground controllers who have lost an aircraft on radar could immediately access the flight data to locate the missing flight and perhaps rescue survivors of a crash before they die of old age, waiting for some bloggers to find wreckage on a crowd sourced satellite image search. 

I’m not saying we should get rid of the traditional black boxes, the analog information is far superior to digital recordings, but only if you can recover them. In the case of flight MH370 it looks as though the black boxes will never be found. Could it be possible that I am the only person on Earth who thought of this idea?

Wiseguy

Vladimir Putin’s fingerprints are all over Malaysian Airlines flight MH17

A large, two-engined commercial airliner, flying at an altitude of 33,000 ft, cannot be brought down by a shoulder-fired missile, like a Russian copy of a Stinger. To do that requires serious anti-aircraft artillery. The principal Russian missile systems capable of doing the deed are the Buk (NATO codenames SA-11 Gadfly and SA-17 Grizzly), or the S-300/S-400 (NATO codenames SA-10 Grumble, SA-12 Gladiator, SA-20 Gargoyle, SA-21 Growler, and SA-23 Giant), systems. Apparently, there is credible evidence that the Boeing 777 was shot down by a Buk 

It is important to realize that missiles of this size are not fired individually but forms part of a larger unit such as a battery or a battalion. In the case of the Buk:

“A standard Buk battalion consists of a command vehicle, target acquisition radar (TAR) vehicle, six transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR) vehicles and three transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicles. A Buk missile battery consists of two TELAR and one TEL vehicle.” 

“The Buk-M1-2 TELAR uses the GM-569 chassis designed and produced by JSC MMZ (Mytishchi).[16] TELAR superstructure is a turret containing the fire control radar at the front and a launcher with four ready-to-fire missiles on top. Each TELAR is operated by a crew of four and is equipped with CBRN protection.”

Click on the link for the “GM-569 chassis”. It is not a small vehicle, and it is not simple. 

The S-300/S-400 systems are even more elaborate and complicated. 

I point all of this out to demonstrate that it is very unlikely that Malaysian MH17 was not shot down by a bunch of local yahoos out on a lark. Missiles that can bring down major airliners flying at altitude require a team of men – each trained in his specialty - to operate. There can be only two sources of such men: ‘former’ Russian army ‘veterans’ who have ‘volunteered’ to fight in the Ukraine, or similar men still on the Kremlin payroll. 

Either way, Putin sent them there.

If the United States had a real President, he would make hay of this – turning it into a major propaganda debacle for Putin. Instead, the President is Obama, and he will just fritter away the opportunity, allowing the incident to fade into obscurity.

 

Are you a Canadian gun rights activist? Then pat yourself on the back.

On Monday, the far-left (but credible) Toronto Mayoral Candidate, Olivia Chow, called for a handgun ban. Never mind that the only people targeted by such a law have nothing whatsoever to do with Chow’s tragic examples, or the people who actually killed them, or the people who will go on to create other murder victims. Never mind that and pay attention to what happened next:

The other two leading candidates, John Tory and Rob Ford, but came out against the ban.

Think about this: in Toronto, the stronghold of the Liberal Party of Canada – even there – a handgun ban is controversial. 

Who do we have to thank for that? Canada’s gun rights activists, that’s who. Think about how far they have moved this issue, and with what little resources.

In 1989 when the Progressive Conservative Justice Minister, Doug Lewis, first proposed a handgun ban, Canadian gun owners were disorganized and friendless. We had no money, no power, no media allies, no influence, and no friends in politics. Indeed, the one political party that should have been our natural ally – the Progressive Conservative Party – was our prime enemy.

Look at where we are today: we have political allies at all levels of government; we have important – and outspoken - friends in the media, and have won significant political battles. How did we accomplish this, with next to no resources? 

We did two things right: we engaged in vigorous debate, where we unapologetically conceded no ground; and we were persistent. Through thick and thin, we stood our ground. By following these two principles, we were able to move mountain towards us. As a result, we are at the point where, even in the Great Satan of Canadian politics – Toronto, our opinion is respected.

National Post columnist combats the plague of religious prudery afflicting our public schools

National Post columnist Robyn Urback concludes her article entitled, “If you want to learn abstinence, go to church. Get Christian sex-ed out of secular public schools.” thus:

“Students wanting to know about same-sex relationships, the morning after pill and other religious no-nos should also feel free to do so without judgment; that’s hard to do when someone from a faith-based organization is standing at the front of the class. This might be a human rights issue for Emily and her mom, but it’s arguably more an access to education issue for everyone else. Christian sex education should stay out of secular public schools.”

So if the situation were reversed, and there was a student who did not want to learn about “same-sex relationships, the morning-after pill, and other religious no-nos”, is that student free to walk out of her ‘secular’ sex education class? And is she free to express her opinion if it happens to be in favour of ‘religious no-nos’ and against the ‘secular’ sexual moral system?  Or will she be hauled before a troika of ‘human rights’ busy-bodies and sentenced to a re-education camp where she can be cured of her psychological problems? And face expulsion from school if she doesn’t comply?

You know what Robyn? Given that there is absolutely no consensus in the public-at-large these days about what constitutes proper sexual morality, and that the various competing moral systems are thoroughly intertwined in partisan politics, why don’t we leave all sex education – including secular sex education - out of the public schools altogether? Or at least until the public, via a process of trial and error, arrives at a consensus? Perhaps a bottom-up approach will result in a better solution than one imposed centrally by a lick-spit bureaucrat. Hmmm? 

One other thing Robyn: what about the right of the Christian minority to have their views respected by the majority? Or don’t the opinions of minorities you disagree with count? 

Jonathan Kay is wrong: don’t send the Anti-Prostitution law to the Supreme Court for pre-approval

In a National Post column, Jonathan Kay makes the following argument:

“The federal NDP has called on the Canadian government to submit its new, constitutionally dubious prostitution law directly to the Supreme Court for a reference opinion on its compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I agree: It could take more than half a decade for a new group of sex-trade litigants to take a Charter challenge up the appellate food chain. Until then, Canada will be saddled with a prostitution law that isn’t much better — and, in some important ways, is worse — than the old laws stuck down by the Supreme Court in its 2013 Bedford ruling.”

This conclusion encapsulates much that is wrong with Ottawa’s elitist culture.

I say this not because I am a friend of the Conservative’s new prostitution law, or a friend of prostitution laws in general. I am not. In this, I agree mostly with Kay. I believe it would be much better to license, regulate and tax prostitutes. I also believe that the new law is worse than what it replaces because it goes further in the direction of men-are-wrong-and-women-are-always-victims school of philosophy propagated by man-hating feminists.

Having said that, there is a higher principle at stake here than merely one corner of the criminal code: it is the separation of powers. In our government, the Prime Minister and Cabinet is the executive, while Parliament makes the laws, and the Supreme Court interprets the laws and enforces constitutional provisions. For this system to stay in balance, each branch of government must confine itself to its assigned role. This includes the Supreme Court. 

Of these three, the only unelected branch is the Supreme Court. Because the Supreme Court is required to adjudicate cases brought before it dispassionately, it has been felt that appointing rather than electing judges is necessary in order to insulate them from partisan influence and popular passion. However, there is a flip side: because they are unelected, they should only make judgements based on the particular facts of the case, or the law relevant to the case, and nothing else. Exceeding these limits means that they are no longer refereeing but legislating. At that point, we no longer live under the rule of law but rather under a legal aristocracy, little different from ancient Egypt, where a small group of priests told everybody what to do after examining the entrails of chickens. 

Another check on the Supreme Court’s power should be that they only consider cases after they have wound their way through the courts. Unfortunately, Parliament has the ability to bypass the courts and refer its laws directly to the Supreme Court. This is called referral power and is recommended by Kay to settle the prostitution law. I believe that the very idea of referral powers is wrong because it creates a cozy relationship between various branches of government when they should be pitted against one another.  This tilts the balance of power in favour of our elites by facilitating the coordination of their activities.  

In the United States, the land where judicial review was invented (through the landmark Marbury vs. Madison decision), the idea of Congress going directly before the Supreme Court is abhorrent. To reach the Supreme Court, a case must make its way through the entire federal court system. And unlike Canada, where our justices are selected by one man who doesn’t have to justify his choice, prospective Justices in the US are subject to a Senate confirmation process that is sometimes gruelling and cruel.

I think it was Justice Antonio Lamar who complained in the 1990’s about all the criticism his court was getting, contrasting it to the respect Canadians had for the Court in the 1960’s. Well, you know what Antonio? People revered the old Supreme Court because it tended not to overstep its bounds. It is only after the Constitution Act of 1982, when the Court started playing Parliament – like it did with the Bedford ruling, where the existing prostitution law was struck down, at least partially, for reasons having nothing to do with constitutional principles – did the public’s attitude change. Don’t like the heat Antonio? Don’t make laws disguised as rulings. 

Kay concludes his piece with, “Enough with the moralizing: Send this law to the Supreme Court.” You know what Jonathan? Parliament is the proper place where moral concerns, as well as fiscal limitations, economic considerations, and social consequences (such as the harm faced by prostitutes when plying their trade) should be debated – not the unelected Supreme Court. When Parliament gets it wrong (as it often does), our Parliamentarians have to answer to their voters. If the Supreme Court gets it wrong (as it also often does)… well, that’s just too bad. 

Therefore, the scope of the Supreme Court’s constitutional rulings should be strictly limited to enforcing the constitutional law, as it is written. And Parliament should not be colluding with them using their ‘referral power’.

And if you insist that we shouldn’t legislate morality, I will ask you, why murder and rape are illegal? Answer: because these acts are immoral. The left has enjoyed great success in justifying its positions with moral principles. It’s only a problem when conservatives do the same.

We should debate our moral questions openly and democratically, and not hide behind our legal priesthood.

It's time for some government regulation!

Normally I am a pretty libertarian guy, but there is one place where I wish for at least a minimalist government regulation, and that is for the size of a beer glass.

Today I was surprised to find that my restaurant waitress billed me too much for my two draft beers. When she returned with a corrected bill, she explained that she had inadvertently charged me for “large pints” rather than “regular pints”. It's a whole different issue that the menu only listed one size of “pint” but I suppose I may have been fooled if there were multiple sizes of beer listed. It is simple to remember the price of your beer when there are no confusing size choices. “Will that be a Small, Medium, or Large pint?”

What I object to in general though is the fact that there is no convenient way to know whether you are getting a pint of beer at all. How can you even blame the waitress for not knowing that a "pint" is even a measure of volume? I can't recall ever seeing a measure recorded on a beer glass in North America. This seems a bit strange, since every beer glass I have ever drank from in Europe has been equipped with a convenient line with a measure (usually .5 L).

One of the few places where government regulation is appropriate is in weights and measures. Trade of all sorts needs to have these regulations in place to discourage fraud, maintain the public trust and ensure trust in international trade. I can't understand why this particular measure is not regulated in any way. 

WiseGuy

Why don't feminists oppose the Moslem tradition of covering their women with burkas and niqabs?

I was wondering about this question for a long time. It seems logical that the same women, who tossed “a collection of symbolic feminine products, pots, false eyelashes, mops, and other items into a trash can” at the 1968 Miss America Pageant, and proclaimed “Women's Liberation”, would support the “liberation” of fully covered Moslem women. So why don't they?

The answer came to me indirectly from Rush Limbaugh, and is a proof of his famous “Undeniable truth of life #24”. 

"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of American life."

Having all women covered from head to toe might seem like an oppression of women by men, to any logical thinking person, but when you look at it from the point of view of Rush's undeniable truth of life #24, it makes perfect sense for feminists to support it. Having all women fully covered, very effectively makes attractive women indistinguishable from unattractive ones.

WiseGuy

The meaning and non-meaning of Monday’s federal by-elections

In the National Post, Kelly McParland, said this of the recent federal by-elections:

“Stephen Harper would be very foolish not to examine the results of Monday’s four contests and be concerned about the amount of protest being sent his way. The two results from Toronto, in particular, and especially the Liberal victory in the downtown riding of Trinity-Spadina, should be extremely worrying to any Tory official tasked with getting the party re-elected in 2015.” 

While McParland is wrong in some of the details, I think he on to something. 

With regard to the Toronto ridings, he is wrong. The least significant election result came from the one riding that actually switched sides: Trinity-Spadina, where the Liberal share of the vote massively increased, allowing them to retake a riding from the NDP. This sounds impressive if you are not from Toronto. In reality, the NDP only held this riding because of long-time left-wing Toronto City Councilor (and wife of Jack Layton), Olivia Chow. Her resignation (to run for Toronto’s mayor) handed the seat over to another long-time fixture of Toronto politics, Adam Vaughan. In terms of politics, both are extreme-left. The only thing was that Vaughan surprised everybody by running for the Liberals instead of the NDP, the party that would seem to be his natural home. The Liberals won mainly because of Vaughan. There is no question that he was able to pull many NDP voters with him. In contrast, I have never heard of the NDP candidate, Joe Cressy, before.

In two of the remaining three contests, Scarborough-Agincourt and Macleod (Liberal and Conservative strongholds respectively), it is true the Liberals did increase their vote share, but hardly by worrying margins. It is necessary to keep in mind that the 2011 Federal Election was the historic nadir of Liberal electoral fortune, so some regression to the mean was to be expected. This is particularly true of Scarborough-Agincourt, where the Liberal traditionally poll in the 60-70% range. In 2011, they only got 45%. On Monday, it was back up to 59%. More worrying for the Liberals was that this by-election was triggered by the resignation of long-time Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis. He quit to run municipally but it is rumoured that he was dissatisfied with Justin Trudeau. 

The only really worrying result of the night came from Fort McMurray-Athabaska, where the Conservative vote dropped from 72 to 47%, and the Liberals surged from 13 to 35%. My sense is that local dynamics were at play but, as I am not from that area, I can’t draw any definite conclusions in this regard. Perhaps the oil sands-fueled jobs-boom has brought in enough new residents from other parts of the country who don’t share the voting habits of traditional Albertans. If a reader from Fort McMurray has any insights on what happened, I would appreciate hearing about it in the comments section.

In all of these elections, it must also be noted that the voter turnout was only half the turnout in general elections, meaning that a different mix of voters than usual went to the polls.

On the other hand, as the underlying trend of the night was an increase in Liberal fortune, McParland is right to conclude that Harper’s usual tactic, to taint his main opponent with attack ads, is no longer working. I believe it worked in the past mainly because his previous opponents, Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, were fundamentally unlikable. One was an arrogant, academic dweeb with a poor command of the English language, and the other was a haughty member of foreign nobility who had lived outside of Canada for thirty years. It didn’t take too much to convince Canadians that they were unsuitable to run the country.

On the other hand, the Low Information Voter sees Justin Trudeau as a sunny, photogenic candidate. Now you and I know that Trudeau is a pretty boy of no substance, but that is not the surface impression he leaves. Unfortunately, juxtaposing his surface optimism with the nasty, cynical ads only reinforces this impression. Besides, after four elections, people are sick and tired of harsh and hectoring attack ads. They have worn out their welcome.

(As an aside, I think highlighting Trudeau’s marijuana policy is a mistake. Many libertarian-minded conservatives like me actually agree with Trudeau on this point. This is not to say that Harper should also seek to legalize pot. He would merely alienate his more traditional voters if he did. But it is just not the issue that is going to fatally wound Trudeau.)

To defeat him, Harper must change tactics. Obviously, it would be a mistake to try to out-glamorize Trudeau, say with a jet-ski photo-op. That would only play to Trudeau’s strengths. What Stephen Harper needs to do is to draw Justin Trudeau out on policy matters where people can see him for the empty suit that he really is. We have already seen glimpses of this side of Trudeau in his self-inflicted stance on abortion, alienating the traditional Catholic wing of the Liberal Party (causing people like, say, Jim Karygiannis, to leave). 

The ideal issue would be one that puts Trudeau on the horns of a dilemma. I would suggest Stephen Harper declare war on affirmative action and political correctness, while simultaneously championing free speech. Most ordinary people loath affirmative action and political correctness but they are cherished by the Liberal Party’s brain trust. My bet is that Trudeau won’t have the guts to make a definite decision either way, thus alienating both sides of the debate. In this way, Harper can expose him to be the straw man that he really is.