Repost: First past the post and last at the trough

For Northern Ontario proportional representation becomes an unmitigated political disaster. There is no benefit to any Northerner regardless of political loyalty.

Over the years Queen's Park drained every spare resource revenue from Northern Ontario. Never reinvesting unless the applicant is a major political supporter, the south only will accelerate its economic pillage unfettered by political audit.

All senior levels of government compose legislation satiating the inward desires of the urban voter in southern Ontario. The Gun Registry, the tax on diamonds, passports at the border, the banning of hunting contribute to the declines in northern commerce, in northern industry and northern populations.

There is no serious reinvestment in the North despite electoral campaign promises. Only a trifling percentage of those taxes revisit the North.

Depending on whether one defines Northern Ontario along the French I believe the North is left with eleven seats in the federal and provincial parliaments. Recently the federal government dangled twenty two new seats from Ottawa to Toronto.

No new seats for Northern Ontario though. In the last distribution the gnomes of democracy proposed one riding from Current River to the Western Border of Sudbury. Try being a representative of that.

Do the math. Even if Northern Ontario held onto its few ridings the proportional representation and the 22 new seats would add about 61 seats to the south. The North presently holds a bare ten percent voice which would fall instantly to four percent. A power reduction of more than 50%. Does anyone actually believe that ten percent of those proportional MPPs would come from the North.

Do you believe that any provincial party all of which are headquartered in Southern Ontario will pick northerners over thirty nine good old boys from 905? Numerically the growing Asian community in the Greater Toronto Area is a more important demographic than the few Northerners scattered over the vast land mass of Northern Ontario. Few no likely none of those 39 seats will be posted by northerners and I state none will.

This is a very critical point of time. If Northerners actually got together in a Bloc like party it would get no legislature funding because all of the seats must switch to be a party recognized by the speaker of the Ontario Legislature. In 2011 the party would have to win more than 16 seats for house debates and house funding. Consider that there is only a rump of 11 maybe 14 seats depending on where you define Northern Ontario. No Northern faction will receiver adequate funding.

Even then approximately 140,000 votes would be needed to qualify for any proportional representation. According to the new legislation a new party must get three percent of the popular vote to be recognized as entitled to add a proportional representative. And that would be only one representative.

If Northern Ontario was a separate province then proportional representation works politically. But when there is a vast discrepancy of population densities between the two parts of this province, then proportional representation works against the lesser population.

In 2011 it is very likely that Northern Ontario will possess no voice over its own affairs. Only 4% of the seats doesn't carry much weight in any caucus no matter what the present incumbents say.

Before that happens Northern Ontario must form its own political movement, its own political party for political separation to regain some form of self governance.

Its been proposed before and handled poorly. There was always time. Now that time has run out. Every single voter in Northern Ontario must vote against proportional representation. Let this referendum be the poll that asserts your rights. Deny southern Ontario its habitual oligarchy over your affairs, over your education system, over your power plants, over your resources, over your mines, over your roads, over your houses, and over your existence

This week. Another two word Joke

Toronto Argonauts

Canada's other War against Povery

Blame for any financial crisis in this country usually falls on the shoulders of the poorest. They are a convenient target. They have no representation. Equal rights do not exist for Canadian poor legally. They are weak. And all other classes in Canadian society literally hate the poor.

You know why? They are one stroke, one heart attack, one arthritis condition, one mental health episode, one industrial accident away from being there. Canadian poor lose everything. The great Canadian social system is a wreck.

Yes the welfare system works for all immigrants. It works if you are Quebecois. It works better if you are female. It works if you are gay. It works if you are a visible minority. But if you are male, middle aged or older (female, or male), aged or even slightly overweight, the discrimination appears naked and unabashed.

The business executives in the city core complain about panhandlers all the time. And to them panhandlers equate with all poor. The solution is to disenfranchise and deepen the poor condition and contrive to remove the social safety net.

Billions can be spent on protecting the Canadian sovereignty over an Imperial Oil resource prospect and this is good. One dollar spent on Canadian poor is considered a waste of money. Yesterday I saw a guy who is dying slowly in agony because of stomach cancer. He has been deliberately shoved around from doctor to doctor because he is poor and has no power.

More on this guy. To the majority of the medical establishment money spent on him is wasted, indeed for the longest time they didn't even provide him with any comfort for pain. They didn't make sure he was put into a proper medical facility forcing him to return nightly to a Salvation Army shelter. A service club has since made sure he gets proper pain medication morphine when he needs it while he waits for a surgery to reduce his pain. His story is not the only one, it is only the most current.

I don't wish to single out the medical establishment alone. This sort of institutional bias swims in other areas like housing, or even a poor guy standing in a downtown mall under the great towers of power. I've seen avid security officers expel people who are poorly dressed out of the complex even if they only sit on a bench. The poor are a convenient target for a society that is becoming a mean, shallow and greedy nation.

People are blaming the panhandlers for a situation they did not create. A point here. Most poor people do not panhandle in Toronto. Quite the contrary.

The embarrassment of most people to be impoverished tops most emotions. In Toronto, at this moment most panhandlers are either alcoholic or crack addicts. When a mark places that spare change in their palms

The solutions are wrong. All this panhandling began with the Harris government 's arbitrary 25% reduction in welfare rates a decade ago. This was the neo-conservative stance discriminating against impoverished individuals.

Since the Thatcher Reagan economic policies were handed to political ethics the gap between rich and poor has been growing. The poor in Canada have been denied voice not only in the city but voice in politics.

Every single social, economic and political problem stems from the poor. The poor in Canada are the first to suffer and the last to benefit from any political turn. If the city finds its budget is in the minus, will they sacrifice road improvements in the richer neighborhoods? Will they increase the residential rates on the high end mansions of the wealthy, their campaign funders?

Answer no. The very first thing the city council does is to increase the transit fares which is a direct tax on the very poorest of the city. They reduce services in libraries and community centres all of which serve only the poorer members of the municipality. The mayor did not cancel his million dollar office renovation.

As a result we have food banks, severe reductions in shelter space, increased homelessness. And now the braintrust of city hall and provincial halls of power and the upper classes of society. Leaders of this society, the privileged want to legislate against the poor.

To reduce this problem isn't to reinforce the psychopathic political theory of canadian conservatives. Rather this whole situation can be solved by simply restoring welfare subsidies to the percentages of the mid 1980's, increase funding to social housing and assistance programs.

Increases in social spending like that would be more cost effective, more proactive than increasing funding to police. If done so, the discrimination and hopelessness that embraces Canadian poor can be solved literally as soon as tomorrow. It won't for the simple reason that politicians of all parties, even the one's claiming to be proactive against poverty won't have any target group to blame to mask their own incompetence.

If anyone ever asks me the biggest change in Canada over my lifetime? The answer wouldn't be the growing new cities. Or the growth of the richest people's property. Or technical feats which usually are exported to other nations. No its simply that compared with the Canada of 40 years ago, this country has become a cold, mean, and greedy nation.

Medical conundrumitis

When the horse stands eating a the manger masticating grass input, at the other end, the rate of output often increases. The horse in question describes the Canadian medical establishment.

Here's why. Most doctors and medical professionals work for the public system while actively promoting the advantages of private medicine. Opponents citing a lot of really good reasons against the idea remain equally ignorant to a rather poignant reason grinding against such an idea. A private system in Canada will not work.

You see the doctors claim that public system doesn't work. The flaw in their argument is that they are the people that basically run that system. A private system cannot work since they have proven that they cannot run the public system efficiently.

Now some people claim that the doctors are only part of the Canadian medical system. That is horseshit. They are the public health system according to the acts they do. Doctors have their mucky fingers all over and into the pie. But they want even more.

Now I've been in the private commercial business systems for years. The only reason that the Canadian medical system runs poorly is because the doctors run it, or strongly influence its operation. So having a private parallel system will not mean any improvement whatsoever because the same idiots will run that too.

Complete joke... in two words :)

Hamilton Tigercats

Tin Can under the weather

My tin can antenna hasn't been working all that well in the last week. Neither have I. I caught a rather decent dose of sunstroke about seven days ago. Recovery time varies.

I had a doctor's appointment during that period of time. It was rather humorous. I forgot all the names of my former family doctors and counselors. I thought the powers that be were going to institutionalize me right on the spot it was so bad.

About four days in a dark room rather helped a bit. The biggest problem has been the measured time forays into the heat and smog of the outside. Tuesday has been cooler and thankfully cloudy. Once one gets a heat or sunstroke then the chances are really good for a re-occurrence.

For a full recovery a nice long grey winter is the best cure. Can hardly wait.