“Imagine if you were the owner of the only fully equipped garage outlet in a small town and some government regulatory agency ordered you to rent your premises a few hours a day, at a predetermined tariff, to other local mechanics. A decision by the CRTC will force telecoms to give ISPs acccess to their network at the same speeds they offer their own customers.”
Worth A Look
Natives Fear Ottawa Aiming To Convert Reserves To Private Land Ownership: Federal study of successful reserves with rent-paying businesses prompts some bands to raise alarm over resource rights
“Ottawa has quietly ordered a study of Canada’s most economically successful first nations, raising the prospect of a new approach to developing businesses on reserves while sparking fear among some native leaders that their rights to land and resources are at risk.”
Welcome Return Of The Prodigal True Liberal
“Fraser wants the Liberal Party to return to “liberal values”. But what are they? Has any ideological label been more contested, coveted and contorted than the term liberal?
First Nation Fraud Case Encouraging
A case involving fraudulent use of treaty land entitlement money on one Saskatchewan First Nation shows there is plenty of work to do in ensuring governance and better democracy for Native communities.
Featured News
The Renewable Part of Hydrogen is the Hype
Once again, the world is staging ClimateFest 26, aka the United Nations Conference of the Parties, where peddlers of alternative energy schemes try to plunge their dippers into the river of climate change funding that flows around the world. This funding is generated...
Small Gestures Speak Louder than Great Deeds
The age-old expression that actions speak louder than words conveys an important insight: character is best judged through action. Anyone can say or promise anything but doing requires ability and skill, discipline and commitment. So, the simplest test of character is...
Political Storm Clouds Still There
Both Harper and Igtnatieff are play-acting. If Ignatieff saw a reasonable chance the defeat of the government would result in him being called upon to form a government without an election being called, he would seize the opportunity. The notion that Harper is willing to govern at the sufferance of the Liberals and NDP can be held only by those who understand neither government nor Parliament. To give the opposition a veto power or to implement only proposals acceptable to them is an abdication, rather than the exercise, of power.
EU Climate Agreement
The agreement was indeed historic, but in a different way than suggested by the Minister. In the “small print” which is part of the compromise, the EU said farewell to its isolated position in the world of climate management. Indeed, important sectors of European industry will be exempted from the compulsory purchase of CO2 -emission permits, in order not to be disadvantaged against foreign competitors who will not participate in the Kyoto Protocol.
Union On Express Bus To Self-Destruction
In the midst of what is, at least for anyone under the age of 75, the most serious global economic crisis ever experienced, one would think that unionized public sector workers should understand that now is not the time to demand more. Yet, secure in the knowledge that monopoly government employers don’t go bankrupt, no matter how high their costs or how poor their customer service, union leaders callously fight to extract more from beleaguered taxpayers.
Deadly Cold, Heavy Snow Grip Europe
“It all reminds me of the war when we were freezing, except there is no shooting,” said Hilmo Celjo, who was lining up near the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, to buy wood and coal.
All Fall Down
That’s how we got here — a near total breakdown of responsibility at every link in our financial chain, and now we either bail out the people who brought us here or risk a total systemic crash. These are the wages of our sins. I used to say our kids will pay dearly for this. But actually, it’s our problem. For the next few years we’re all going to be working harder for less money and fewer government services — if we’re lucky.
Top 10 Dud Global Warming Predictions
Lesson: Something is wrong with warming models that predict warming in a cooling world, especially when we’re each year pumping out even more greenhouse gases.
Moving on Through Hayek
Hayek’s insights into the reasons for government failure remain as relevant to economic and social policymaking today as they were to exposing the catastrophic defects inherent in socialist central planning more than half a century ago. His ideas do not provide ready-made solutions for economic and social problems. But they do offer basic principles to help us set realistic policies and to cope with the difficulties inherent in creating institutions and regulations that will achieve their objectives.
A Bad Climate Trade-off
Leaders in Poznan are talking loudly of the need to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, but until they put their trade policies where their mouths are, it will be just a lot of hot air.
Kyoto Is Worthless (and you don’t have to be a skeptic to believe that now)
This fabricated market in carbon has at its heart the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism. This is how the EU, which had an obligation under Kyoto to reduce its emissions by two per cent by 2012, has managed to claim success while actually increasing its emissions by 13 per cent. By purchasing so called “offsets” from countries such as China, Britain, for example, proclaims itself a “leader in the fight against climate change”. Most of this is entirely fraudulent, in the sense that the Chinese have been paid billions to destroy particular atmospheric pollutants, such as CFC-23, which have actually been manufactured in order to be destroyed – and for no other purpose.