What's in it?

The Wall government has been so secretive about the New West agreement, it made me wonder what's in it. Larry Hubich and Buckdog conclude its TILMA with a wardrobe makeover.
The Star Phoenix editorializes

...when Mr. Lingenfelter first asked the premier whether he was about to sign a trade deal with Saskatchewan's two western TILMA partners, Mr. Wall denied the ceremony was imminent.
Signing a trade deal with the two westernmost provinces shouldn't be something the premier downplays or slides in through a back door.

Some of the details are dribbling out. The Star Phoenix online story includes these snippets:

Alberta and B.C. built a joint weigh station [for truckers]...workers to have their credentials recognized in other provinces [and] the New West agreement will cover the financial services sector as well...Public bodies such as municipalities and school boards procuring goods and services worth a certain amount will be required to hold transparent processes so that suppliers in all three provinces can have a chance to bid....there are specific areas -- including aboriginal issues, water, taxation, labour standards and support for the cultural sector -- where a jurisdiction's ability to set policy will not be affected.

The Edmonton Journal informs us:

Teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers and members of any other regulated profession will be able to move freely between the provinces.
. . . pooling their purchases for things like machinery and medical supplies . . . Governments will still be able to enforce their own regulations for "legitimate objectives," such as public health and safety, environmental protection and worker safety.

"Legitimate" would seem to be the key word here -- who decides that?
The Council of Canadians reminds us why Saskatchewan didn't like TILMA three years ago:

In 2007 over 70 organizations and individuals raised concerns about several provisions of TILMA , including those that would lower regulatory standards and that would implement a private tribunal for corporations to challenge provincial rules and standards.
“Saskatchewan was right to reject TILMA then, and it should reject a rebranded TILMA now,” adds Scott Harris, the Prairie Regional Organizer with the Council of Canadians. “Nothing has suddenly changed to make lowest-common-denominator regulations and standards good for Saskatchewan. Nothing has suddenly changed to make giving corporations the right to sue elected governments for millions of dollars for ‘impeding trade’ – decided on by unaccountable dispute panels – suddenly a good idea for Saskatchewan.”
“Handcuffing the ability of the province, municipalities, school boards and public enterprises to make decisions in the best interest of Saskatchewan flies in the face of democratic principles,” concludes Gary Schoenfeldt, chair of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour Trade Committee.

And the Council reminds Brad Wall he promised to consult before signing anything.

“The Premier has an obligation to show the people of Saskatchewan what’s in this new TILMA agreement before he signs anything. Both Brad Wall and Ken Krawetz are on record as saying they would never sign a TILMA agreement without first consulting with Saskatchewan people and we are asking them to keep their promise.”

So the Sask Party spin is starting already. Why, the province WAS consulted, Wall says, back in 2007 ! He doesn't mention, of course, the negative result. And neither does the Star Phoenix, because that would be just rude.

Shorter

Maybe this stuff reads better in the original German.
And this.

The Show-Your-Papers State

I liked this graphic posted by John Cole to illustrate a story about the new Arizona law making brown people guilty until they prove themselves innocent:



And the idea that "innocent" people never have anything to fear from police is just naive. As Matt Welch observes

When you have thousands upon thousands of criminal laws, chances are non-trivial that you're breaking one of them as we speak, or at least can be seen as possibly breaking one of them, in case you happen to cross paths with a motivated law enforcement officer.

Its a hallowed law enforcement tradition, to pull over cars full of young people and find something to charge them with.

Call me disappointed

Darn, Simon and Garfunkle have cancelled, hopefully will reschedule. In the meantime, this will have to keep me happy:

How great would this be?

A Stanley Cup between the Comeback Canadiens



and the Crazy Canucks

What kind of country are we?

The kind that deports a diabetic pregnant 42-year-old woman and separates her from her family.
Yes, that kind.
I think I'm getting Oppositional Defiant Disorder.
And speaking of the Opposition, where are they on this deportation?

Be careful who your friends are

I heard an interview with a US teabagger on yesterday's radio talk show, they were talking about the Canadian gun registry and so Roy Green talked to someone in the US who's all bent out of shape about Obama.
Green asked this fellow what he was concerned about. Of course he couldn't exactly say. He couldn't list one single thing or action or speech or proposal or anything at all that the Obama administration has done to control guns -- because they haven't done anything. (Actually, of course, it was Obama who signed off on allowing guns in national parks, but that definitely didn't fit his narrative so he didn't mention it.) But this guy is absolutely certain that they are all under terrible threat, looming danger, government is so awful that they just have to defend themselves from the horrible Obama administration that secretly wants to take away their right to bear arms.
And apparently abolishing Canada's long gun registry would be a step in the right direction and next lets tackle Canada's prohibitions about handguns and concealed carry laws and on and on. Oh, and did you know that the police associations whom these guys usually defend to the death particularly whenever they taser someone, are just a bunch of Liberal tools now?
Though I still believe that the Liberals won't be able to elect anyone out West until the registry is abolished, I must say that hearing this nonsense makes me rethink my own stance in favour of abolishing the long gun registry.
Is anyone else amused by the fact that the Conservatives were so skittish about abolishing the registry that they let one of their backbenchers do it as a private members bill and now they're doing fundraising around this "Conservative" bill?
Win or lose, they'll talk during the next election campaign about how "we" tried to abolish the registry.

Papers! Now!

One of the things about Arizona is that lots of Canadians like to spend the winter there, particularly retirees from Saskatchewan and Alberta.
I wonder whether police will start demanding to see their papers?

Mrs. Grundy

So Conservative MP Steven Fletcher thinks poor people shouldn't be able to have a drink in the privacy of their new home.
That must be because he thinks homeless people are drunks. Or morons.
And I'll bet he also wants a "four on the floor" rule when they have company, too.

What a jackass!

The civil service isn't very civil anymore:

[Government lawyer Alain] Prefontaine told the [Military Police Complaints] commission that the "documents will be given to the counsel when they are good and ready."
. . . Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh slammed Prefontaine's comments.
“It is reprehensible for anyone to make those kinds of arrogant and offensive remarks to a quasi-judicial body which is engaged in very important work,"

We pay this guy's salary! I feel more like Oscar every day.

Pointless

Wondering what news story would be the dumbest of the year (so far)?
We have a winner!

Cry for help

When I read this terrible story I said to myself, I'll bet that family was Aboriginal.
Yes, they were.
Maybe its unfair of me to generalize when I don't know the circumstances of this particular situation, but damn it all anyway -- why has it always been way too easy to ignore cries for help from Aboriginal women?

Regrets, he'll have a few

Stephen Harper will rue the day that he decided not to reappoit Michaelle Jean as Governor General.
She brough unique charm and grace to an austere and detached institution -- and yes, I'm speaking about both the PMO and the GGO.
Deciding he could do better will turn out to be another moment of hubris for our hubristic prime minister.

NAFTA and Acapulco Gold?

Yes, free trade between Canada, the United States and Mexico is just wonderful, isn't it, but I don't think this was really what Mulroney had in mind.

Nothing to see here, folks

So it was just clumsy police work that was to blame for prosecutors having to drop those serious drug and DUI charges against Rahim Jaffer.
And the plea bargain? Oh, that happens all the time too!
Funny, isn't it, that for some unknown and inexplicable reason, nobody could explain all this a month ago.