It's Just Money

Budgets balance themselves, so I am told:

Billions spent on consultants have created a “shadow public service” unaccountable to taxpayers, a union executive yesterday told the Commons government operations committee. Federal departments and agencies spend $16.7 billion a year on consultants, by Treasury Board estimate: “This shadow public service plays by an entirely different set of rules.”

**

Employees in the Ontario government are enjoying a wage premium and receiving more generous benefits over their private sector counterparts, a new study by think tank the Fraser Institute says.

Published on Jan. 24, the study finds that the wages of government workers in Ontario are 34.4 percent higher, on average, than wages in the private sector in 2021, based on aggregated data obtained from Statistics Canada’s monthly “Labour Force Survey” from January to December of 2021.

After adjusting for differences such as age, gender, education, type of work, industry, and occupation, workers in Ontario’s government sector are still paid 10.9 percent higher wages. When unionization is taken into account, the wage premium declines to 8.8 percent.

“At a time when governments are facing serious fiscal pressures, bringing government sector compensation in line with the private sector would help reduce costs without necessarily affecting services,” said study co-author Ben Eisen, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, in a news release the same day.

**

There is no current estimate of how many billions were wasted on the costliest pandemic subsidy program, the Canada Revenue Agency yesterday told the Commons public accounts committee. “It really was a first-time thing for everybody so there’s lots of lessons to be learned,” testified Revenue Commissioner Bob Hamilton: “It’s hard to say.”

**

In the last two years alone, multiple Canadian federal governmental departments spent $39 million hiring contractors to comb through and censor documents requested by the public under the Access to Information Act. 

As per Blacklock’s Reporter, information revealed from an Inquiry of Ministry requested by Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MP Kelly McCauley last June shows the large payouts to multiple firms and individuals. 

According to the Inquiry, “Each file is different based on the complexity and the volume of pages.” 

The Inquiry also said that some of the paid consultants have other “functions,” which include “file review and providing technical advice.” 

In one instance, Canada’s National Gallery of Canada paid out over $126,000 to a private consultant, Brenda Keen Consulting Incorporated of Nepean, Ontario, which was tasked with censoring documents over two years.  

Keen is a former federal employee. 

The Inquiry, however, did not say why current government employees were able to manage Access to Information requests.  

The $39 million, according to the Inquiry, went to “contracts provided to consultants related to the processing of requests made under the Access to Information Act since January 1, 2020.”  

An example of a large payment includes a $72,844 bill for one contractor for four months of work.  

Another contractor was paid $199,078 to process Department of Justice files, which amounted to 96,971 pages. This equals about $2 per page.  

The Inquiry claimed that contractors were brought in to reduce the “current backlog of Access to Information requests.” 

**

In fiscal year 2022, long after the rest of the world had ended quarantine hotel restrictions and after the government had lifted travel restrictions, at one Calgary area hotel, the federal Liberal government spent $6,790,717.46 on lodging expenses for….

…..wait for it….

15 people.

That works out to $452,714.50 spent per person on a quarantine hotel after they ended most travel restrictions.

**

The federal government paid over $6.7 million last year for COVID-19 quarantine rooms in a Calgary-area hotel used by only 15 travellers, according to an Inquiry of Ministry document recently tabled in the House of Commons.

**

The Digital Citizen Contribution Program doled out $1.2 million to 16 projects earlier this month, to “support democracy and social cohesion.” In total, grant records show that the program has given away $15.1 million.

The program is part of the larger Digital Citizen Initiative, which is the money machine created by Canadian Heritage to “build an evidence-base to identify potential action and develop future policy-making” to regulate online information. The government has so far earmarked $31 million for the Digital Citizen Initiative between 2022 and 2026.

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The way the program works is simple: Canadian Heritage publishes a list of research topics it plans to fund, organizations fill out an application form that describes their proposed projects and wait to hear if they’ve received the funding. Unlike the funding of university research, the department has direct control over who gets the money — and it can give that money to non-academics.

**

The credit, announced last year, will allow multigenerational families to claim 15 per cent of up to $50,000 in eligible renovation and construction costs for a secondary unit, good for a maximum rebate of $7,500. The secondary unit must have a private entrance, as well as its own kitchen, bathroom, and sleeping area.

To qualify for the credit, the occupant of the secondary unit must be either a senior or disabled family member (with apologies to all the thirty-somethings living in their parents’ basements). The credit is slated to cost taxpayers $44 million over the next five years, according to a parliamentary budget officer (PBO) report this month.

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Trudeau, of course, isn’t the first prime minister to shell out taxpayer dollars for home renovations. First introduced as a temporary measure in 2009, the Harper government’s Home Renovation Tax Credit (HRTC) was snatched up by over three million Canadians, pumping an estimated $4.3 billion into a crisis-hit residential renovation sector. Harper subsequently pledged to make the popular credit permanent heading into his ill-fated 2015 re-election campaign.

While undoubtedly a hit with the HGTV crowd, Harper’s home renovation credit was less well received in progressive circles. The editorial board of the Liberal-friendly Globe and Mail wrote in 2015 that the credit was a “regressive” and “economically illogical” measure that would amount to “a permanent tax break for homeowners” bankrolled by renters. “Absent a repeat of the worst downturn since the Great Depression,” the board continued, “there’s no logic in reintroducing this crisis measure.”

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Surely, the same exact things can be said about the Trudeau government’s new tax credit. The nation’s housing market may be softening, but we’re still nowhere near Great Recession territory. And renters are, once again, the one’s getting shafted by yet another regressive housing policy. The rather meagre credit will likewise do little to make housing more affordable in Canada — $7,500 is barely enough to install a new gas stove in nana’s suite (gotta act quick before those go of the market, nana).

Nor does the credit fill a major unmet demand among Canadians. Multigenerational households may be on the rise, but this isn’t by choice. According to a study published just last month, 70 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 18 and 28 hope to own a single-family home one day. (As the youngest child of well-intentioned but overbearing South Asian immigrant parents, I couldn’t agree more). Rather than shoehorning Canadians into multigenerational living arrangements, the Trudeau government would be well-advised to take broad-based action to reverse our housing affordability crisis.

Or we should stop expecting these incompetent @$$holes to fix these problems they are clearly not qualified to fix, but, instead, stem the tides of inflation and people.

**

The most persistent trend adding to inflation is the transition to “green energy,” which “raises costs,” according to a new Bank of Canada staff discussion paper.

“The 2021–22 Surge in Inflation” says that Canada has undergone the most pronounced surge in inflation in the 2021–2022 fiscal year since the 1970s.

A dollar in 1970 was equivalent to about $7.44 in purchasing power today, according to the Canada Inflation Calculator, based on Statistics Canada consumer price index (CPI) data.

This is an increase of $6.44 over 53 years. And it means that today’s prices are on average 7.44 times as high as prices were in 1970, and that a dollar in 2023 only buys 13.44 percent of what it was able to buy in 1970.

“In late 2022, inflation in Canada and other countries remained too high,” said the BoC paper. It noted that core inflation measures for Canada in September 2022 ranged from 4.7 percent to 6 percent, with October 2022 CPI inflation at nearly 7 percent (6.9 percent).

“The slowest but perhaps the most persistent trend is associated with the ongoing transition from fossil fuels to green energy,” said the paper.

“The transition requires an immense reallocation of investments, which raises costs due to higher demand for new investments and lack of investment supply into fossil fuel production,” said the central bank.

The paper said the cost pressures are exacerbated by “the long time required to build green energy infrastructure, further boosting prices for fossil fuels,” which results in higher energy prices.

This will also “contribute to challenges for monetary policy to keep inflation on target over the long term,” said the paper.

**

McKinsey Investigation:

What justifies a contract for McKinsey till 2100.

OUTRAGEOUS! pic.twitter.com/6EIgT9xIHp

— Alexandra Lavoie (@ThevoiceAlexa) January 31, 2023

Canadian fiduciary sense is summed up thusly:

The Post-Modern West and Its Failure At Academics

 In the milieu of wokism but not academic or personal excellence:

It was understood too that pupils were meant, through the gradual progression through the grades, (usually 1 to 12, though in places like Newfoundland where kids were generally brighter than those on the mainland, 1 to 11) to advance in competence and knowledge with each year.

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A most fallible understanding.

Why, fallible? Because — and I repeat, this was in neolithic times — they were sealed off, quarantined, from all progressive thought. They were deliberately limited to learning the basics of literacy, numeracy, history and even — in the higher grades — the elements of scientific thought and the glories of literature.

They were not offered the Bethlehem gifts of social justice activism; they were denied the stories of the private lives of teachers. There were no WE days, to gather in mass rallies when two very dubious evangelists in T-shirts rallied them for the great causes of the day and why they should contribute to building concrete-block “school houses” in Kenya.

They were denied the necessary messages of “global warming” and, as I remember, never shown the always declining and still there “Amazon rainforest.” And, on sexuality “studies” — well there was the ultimate deprivation.

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Do you know, young readers, that in these far-off times, no teacher would dare enter a classroom with plastic and gigantic replicas of the human female breast under a very strained woollen sweater and bicycle shorts as matching accoutrement? And, if not mocked for doing so, would be severely frowned at?

Yes. This is true. I know. It strains credibility.

But every young nation has its flaws, and thank goodness today’s school boards are headed by such progressive minds that young children are given full lessons on the expression of gender fluidity, environmental catastrophism, the perils of “white supremacy.” And thank all the gods that be, they are not asked to stand in class and spell any of these terms.

 

Let's see where these woke snowflakes are in the job market.

 

Justin Trudeau Is An Awful Person

But don't take MY word for it:

While being confronted by pro-lifers with pictures of aborted children last night, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decided to reaffirm his stance on the issue, telling the activists, “I believe in a woman’s right to choose.”

 

No, you don't, woman-hater. 

Yazidi rape victims, Canadian rape victims, a molested female reporter, members of your cabinet, women who have lost their jobs because they refuse to get jabbed, women in communist and Islamist countries you send OUR tax dollars to AND everyone involved in this issue all beg to differ.

Strenuously.

 

Somewhat related:

The Liberal government has no excuse for taking too long to bring women who served in Afghanistan’s parliament — and are now in danger from the Taliban — to safety in Canada, say opposition MPs.

One of those women, former MP Mursal Nabizada, was murdered along with her bodyguard just over a week ago in Kabul.

 

Take another personal day to think about it, Justin.

An election is riding on this.

You hired some screech-bot for that very reason, right? You repatriated ISIS groupies for that very reason, right?

It's not like there are churches burned to the ground or anything.

But I digress ...

**

Was it something he said?:

Hamilton has become the scene of large, chaotic demonstrations in recent days as protesters convened to target a retreat by the cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

From Monday to Wednesday, the 39-member cabinet gathered in the Ontario city in advance of the resumption of parliamentary sittings next week.

The ministers were met Monday by a “slow roll” of about 100 cars honking horns and flying flags on the street in front of the Sheraton Hotel hosting the retreat. A large crowd also flanked both sides of the street outside a Royal Canadian Legion in nearby Stoney Creek, where Trudeau had been rumoured to be planning an appearance.

And on Tuesday night, a crowd of several dozen carrying flags and air horns pressed against the windows of the Earth to Table Bread Bar, a downtown restaurant where cabinet members were inside eating dinner.

After the meal, RCMP security and Hamilton police formed a tight cordon around the prime minister as he walked into the crush of protesters and back towards the Sheraton Hotel.

A video of the chaos posted to social media by reporter Harrison Faulkner has now been viewed more than 1.2 million times. Trudeau can be seen smiling and waving as he’s barraged by obscenities and cries of “traitor.”

**

A show of arrogance and power, I'm sure he won't promise anyone anything.

 Let's privatise today.

This irrational fear of privatisation as "American" or heathenish must go. Countries all over the world have some or complete privatisation and  it works fine.

Only unimaginative sheep would crave complete government control.

 

That's Not What We've Been Told

One might even call this "misinformation":

A national scientific panel yesterday blamed media misinformation in part on the “journalistic norm” of presenting two sides to every story. Publicizing alternative viewpoints on issues like carbon taxes creates a “false balance of perspectives,” said the Council of Canadian Academies: “People perceive lower levels of consensus.”

 

Who needs information, anyway?!

** 

The senior Cuthand, born on the Little Pine Indian Reserve in 1918, began teaching the Cree language and other indigenous subjects in our new department of native studies in 1975, eventually becoming its head. Before that, he was a full-time priest, a vocation he pursued on- and off-reserve in Alberta and Saskatchewan for 25 years beginning in 1944. Before all that, his primary school education was received in the band’s day school followed by high school attendance in Prince Albert where he resided in boarding houses.

Though Father Cuthand was never a student at an IRS, he was resident chaplain of Saskatchewan’s La Ronge and Gordon Residential Schools, and of St. Paul’s School on the Blood Reserve, in the 1960s.

These are some of his first-hand recollections of life in these schools.

“The schools weren’t terrible places at all,” he recalled. “They were certainly not prisons, although the principals were a little strict.”

Reverend Cuthand recalls one incident of sexual abuse of a student, at the Gordon Reserve IRS, where one of the staff members was later convicted and sent to prison for several years. “Most of the kids had no complaints about sexual abuse; if they did, they would have told me. However, they did get homesick and some tried to run away. There was also plenty of food; raisins, fish, potatoes, bread with lard, stew.“

As for mandatory IRS attendance, Father Cuthand recalled that the only children who were “forced” to attend were orphans or children from destitute families. “The idea that all children were forced into the schools is an exaggeration,” he explained. “The idea of the separation of students [from parents] came from England. Practically all the [upper class] English were brought up in residential schools. In Canada, the main idea at the time was to civilize and educate the children; and that couldn’t be done if the kids were at home on the trapline.”

Reverend Cuthand said he enjoyed his time on the Blood Reserve in southwest Alberta. “It was an exciting place to live …. The Bloods were rich and very traditional. The school was a fine place with some very good teachers.” The parents were involved in the school, with some parents living there as staff members. “[Blood] Senator Gladstone sent his kids there, and many of the students from St. Paul’s went on to university.” 

But ... the Narrative!

Live What You're Indoctrinated By

To wit:

My 7 yo son got home from school saying: we need to save the planet, we can’t used plastic anymore! Hmmm 🤔 I took away every single electronic device with plastic and not allowed him to be used . A few hours later he given up on Climate Change propaganda…🙄

— Mihaela Gordan (@GordanMihaela1) January 24, 2023

 

Yep.

Heavy Snowfall In Japan

Damn you, global warming!:

Heavy snow continued on Wednesday across much of Japan as the country grapples with the most severe cold snap of the season so far, with trains and vehicles stranded due to difficulties caused by the winter storms.

Record cold temperatures were seen in parts of Japan, with snow falling on the Sea of Japan coast stretching from the country's north to west. Amid concerns of further snowfall, including in low-lying areas on the Pacific coast, Japan's weather agency is calling for vigilance against blizzards, rough seas and icy roads.

The weather has brought widespread disruption. Thousands of people using local train services in Kyoto and Shiga prefectures were forced to stay overnight in carriages or stations, while vehicles on major roads across the country were left stranded and hundreds of flights canceled.

At least one person has died and two more deaths are being investigated in connection with the cold weather, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a news conference in Tokyo.

Among the effects on transportation, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways said more than 300 flights scheduled for Wednesday have been canceled.

On local railways, passengers were stranded on several trains on the Biwako Line and Kyoto Line overnight from Tuesday due to snow and strong winds, operator West Japan Railway said. The company reported delays and cancellations on around 20 of its lines, including express services, through Wednesday morning.

A Missed Opportunity

Justin will be damned before he lets Germany, Japan or South Korea buy our precious natural gas!:

South Korea plans to double energy vouchers and a discount of gas prices for underprivileged families to cope with spiralling heating bills amid a prolonged cold wave, officials said on Thursday.

Countries around the world have faced rising energy costs in the face of a global surge in natural gas and heating fuel prices resulting from the conflict in Ukraine.

Many South Korean households began to feel the impact in recent weeks after turning up the heat amid a cold spell, with monthly gas bills up 34% last month from a year ago, according to Statistics Korea.

Choi Sang-mok, South Korea's top presidential economic secretary, said the increase in bills was inevitable, citing a near tenfold growth in global natural gas prices since 2021, but South Korean rates were still far lower than the levels in many other advanced countries.

The measures would benefit almost 1.2 million families receiving energy vouchers and around 1.6 million homes eligible for the gas discount this winter, in a country of 21.6 million households, Choi said.

"There is an inevitable aspect of realising energy prices under these difficult external circumstances," he told a briefing. "But we will make maximum policy efforts to minimise the burden on the people."

Many South Koreans expressed concerns over additional hikes in energy bills as freezing winter weather continued.

"Our heating bills have gone up about 50% from previous years," said Lim Jong-cheol, a Seoul resident who said he and his wife have fixed incomes and are trying to cut back on expenses like eating out.

Bang Myung-soon, 76, who has been running a small hardware store in Seoul, said she was "shocked" by the hike in heating bills and government subsidies would not her enough.

"At home, I wear many clothes, a hat, gloves and anything that can keep me warm but I can't turn down the heat here because of customers," she told Reuters from her store, sitting on a heated pad. "The government might have some policy to help people like us, but I have no hope."

 

Welcome to my world, aju-nim.

 

Nothing to Boast About

Anyone who claims Justin has some sort of positive legacy for this country must contend with these truths:

Canada is no longer in the top-10 list of freest countries in the world, according to a new report.

Canada fell six rankings, and was overtaken by nations such as Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands on the annual “Human Freedom Index” released Thursday morning by Canadian think-tank the Fraser Institute. Their previous update that looked at Canada came out in 2021.

The report is based on measurements in 12 different areas, including: security and safety, rule of law, freedom of movement, association and assembly, and expression and information.

** 

Fewer than half of Canadians have a high level of trust in “authoritative sources” of information such as government health agencies, public news sources, and scientists, according to internal research by the federal Privy Council.

The Privy Council report, “Misinformation and Disinformation: An international effort using behavioural science to tackle the spread of misinformation,” studied 1,872 Canadians and their “intentions to share false COVID-related headlines online,” using “behavioural interventions.”

Of those studied, 42.9 percent of Canadians reported they had high trust in official sources—specifically institutional or authoritative sources of information such as government health agencies, health-care workers, public news sources, and scientists—and low trust in social media, family, and friends.

That number is too high.

 

Getting the Economy One Voted For

If "budgets balance themselves" and an open admission to not knowing basic math don't send you away screaming, nothing will:

The new year is “not going to feel good,” Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said yesterday. A long-forecast recession follows another increase in the bank’s prime rate: “I don’t want to minimize the risks.”

** 

A new survey from Research Co. shows that most of Canadians are not happy with the current economy and that their financial status have worsened over the past six months.

As many as 62 per cent of respondents described current economic condition in Canada as “bad” or “very bad”, up five points since Research Co. conducted a similar story in July 2022. In addition, just 35 per cent of Canadians (down five points) rate the economic conditions tight now as “very good” or “good”.

When it comes to their own personal finances, 51 per cent of respondents described their personal finances as “very good” or “good,” which is down six points, while 47 per cent (up six points) defined them as “poor” or “very poor.”

Breaking down the data by province, 27 per cent of Alberta residents said they hold a positive view of the Canadian economy, while 28 per cent of Saskatchewan and Manitoba residents and 29 per cent of Atlantic Canadians said they feel the same way.

Meanwhile, 37 per cent of Ontario residents, 35 per cent of people in British Columbia and 41 per cent of Quebec respondents said they have a positive perspective towards economic condition.

Nearly half of Canadians (44 per cent) said they are pessimistic over the national economic stability and expect the national economy to decline over the nest six months while only 13 per cent predict an improvement.

“Most Canadians aged 55 and over (51 per cent) think an economic recovery in the next six months is unattainable,” Mario Canseco, President of Research Co. said. “The proportions are lower among their counterparts aged 35-to-54 (43 per cent) and aged 18-to-34 (38 per cent).”

More than half of Canadians (52 per cent) said they are worried “frequently” or occasionally” about the value of their investments and their savings safety.

 

 

It Was Never About A Virus

As we should know by now:

Jordon Trishton Walker, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations - mRNA Scientific Planner: “One of the things we're exploring is like, why don't we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create -- preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If we're gonna do that though, there's a risk of like, as you could imagine -- no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f**king viruses.”

**

Examining the research over the past two years revealsseveral robust and clear findings:

1. Epidemiological models that do not include human behaviour changes in response to a novel virus drastically over-estimate the number of hospitalizations and deaths. All of the early models made death predictions that were off by factors of 10 or more. The infamous Imperial College of London model, led by Neil Ferguson, predicted that with full lockdowns in place there would be 132,687 COVID-19 deaths in Canada by July 30, 2020; in fact, by that date there were 9,019 actual deaths.

2. Changes in people’s behaviour in response to the arrival of the virus were immediate, and around the world and in every country infected by COVID-19 changes in behaviour meant that an endemic state was reached in the spring of 2020.

3. Behaviour effects were not limited to acting cautiously. Other behaviour changes including incomplete compliance with mandates—and compliance levels varied over the course of the pandemic. These changes in behaviour meant that deaths and hospitalizations were not substantially different in jurisdictions with different degrees of lockdown when other factors were controlled for.

 4. Ultimately, estimates of the benefit of lockdowns in terms of lives saved were made based on data. Analysts used many different procedures in an attempt to identify the causal effect of lockdowns. Over and over, findings showed only small positive effects on death rates. The most recent and thorough meta-analysis found that after combining all lockdown effects there was only an average reduction in mortality of 3.2 percent. All of the lockdown efforts amounted to almost nothing.

 5. The costs of lockdown go far beyond the lost GDP. In areas like worldwide food insecurity, international trade reductions, reduced travel, increased domestic violence, increased drug/alcohol/mental health issues, and employment disruptions, we are only aware of the costs and no estimates have yet been made of the level of these costs. Much work has been done on the effect lockdowns have had on children’s physical well-being, lost education, early development, IQ, and social abilities. Again, no widespread estimates of the actual size of these losses have been made, but it is generally acknowledged that children and youth have suffered under the lockdowns.

6. Lockdowns created collateral deaths. Behaviour changes in the face of COVID-19 and lockdowns included forms of self-protection that often ended up increasing mortality. These behaviour changes included missing regular medical checkups out of fear of contracting the disease. Estimates in the US show that there were 171,000 excess non-COVID-19 deaths through to the end of 2021. By that time the US had recorded 825,929 COVID-19 deaths. However, if lockdowns only reduce deaths by 3.2 percent, then only 27,303 lives were saved by lockdowns. Just on collateral deaths alone the cost/benefit ratio of lockdown is 171,000/27,303 = 6.26.

 

More:

A newly released essay by Douglas Allen, professor of economics at Simon Fraser University, examines why governments repeatedly used lockdowns during COVID-19 even after it became clear lockdowns were ineffective and “failed to isolate the virus and stop it from spreading.”

Lockdowns were sustained with political support, suggests Allen, and lockdowns had “many winners.”

He says for the “laptop class,” the lockdown was “the great vacation,” the “great excuse,” and the “great opportunity.” Lockdowns, said Allen, transferred wealth to this group.

Meanwhile, he says, public health campaigns repeatedly told citizens that “death was ‘at the door,'” ‘now is not the time to let our guard down,’ ‘we are all in this together,’” and ‘let’s not lose what we have gained so far.’

People came to believe in “the absurd goal of ‘zero-COVID,’” despite suffering from government lockdown policies, Allen says. As such, a fearful segment of citizens “supported the policies and actually helped enforce state regulations through social stigma and shaming of those who objected.”

Ultimately, the negative effects of lockdowns fell “disproportionately on the young, the poor, people of colour, those with health problems other than COVID-19, the least educated, blue collar workers, single parents, and many others at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.”

 ** 

Workplace vaccine mandates may have been “personally devastating” for some employees but remained lawful, a New Brunswick labour arbitrator has ruled. The decision came in the case of six utility workers suspended five months without pay after declining to show proof they were immunized: “They were faced with a difficult choice.”