Lost in reporting

Garbage in - garbage out. I might put up with media bias, particularly at the CBC and its online outlet (the "garbage in"), if it were not compounded by readers' asinine commentary and just as asinine "approval" ("garbage out"). While other lefties waste elbow grease befouling news items and congratulating their ilk on their vandalism of truth, I prefer putting my neurons in gear and discovering what, if any, the CBC does not want its readers to know.

In a story about StatsCan reporting a decrease in homicide rates, including gangland murders, the pet topic of objectivity-haters from sea to sea was missing. I am talking, of course, of the Long Gun Registry and its influence, if any, on firearm crime. Commenters brayed about the LGR being successful, or the government suppressing the data, or other drivel I won't waste bytes on.

The CBC literally copy-pasted the entire Statistics Canada report, excluding the sections on registered firearms and spousal homicide.

Read and weep. Of murder weapons recovered between 2005 and 2009, 7 out of 10 were unregistered. In the four-year period considered, only 253 guns were recovered and checked against the registry.

In 2009, out of 179 firearm homicides, 122 (68%) were committed using a handgun, 29 (16%) using a rifle and 14 (8%) using a saw-off (14 are, apparently, undefined).

Assuming the proportions remained the same year after year between 2005 and 2009, registered and recovered murder firearms were split as follows: 67% rifles, 22% handguns and 12% saw-offs.

Compare the proportion of handguns used in murders (68%) to the proportion of handguns recovered and identified as a registered murder weapon (22%).

Want to make the long gun registry effective? Stop pretending it to be a deterrent. Remember that between 2002 and 2008, including five years since the implementation of the LGR, gun crime went UP.

Focus on its potential as a crime-solving tool for those 3 murders out of 10. Make it a one-off fee, merge the database with the firearm license database already kept by the RCMP and for the love of God make it contain the sole truly useful bit of information: the gun's signature on the bullet.

Let's rejoice that murders are down in Canada. And, while we're at it, let's keep it at that.

Go Agop for Pierrefonds-Dollard!

I had the pleasure, yesterday, of witnessing the official nomination of Agop Evereklian as the candidate for Pierrefonds-Dollard. Catching up with good friends and acquaintances was just part of what made the evening very enjoyable.

Agop, among other things, radiates common sense and pragmatism. In his speech to a full hall he praised his family, recounted his path to citizenship and debunked the usual myths told about Conservatives.

It was a refreshing speech to hear. In a crisp and clear language the new candidate for Pierrefonds-Dollard made clear where his roots, energy and loyalties lie: the family, an idea, and his community. I liked him when I first met him as the candidate for Laval-Les-Iles, and my admiration for Agop has grown over these months.

Pierrefonds-Dollard is a winnable riding, and I for one will offer all the support I can to ensure such an awesome man can spearhead the Island of Montreal back into the governing caucus. Go Agop!

www.goagop.ca

Apologising for doing your job?

To some, this is America "standing up", nobody really knows to what. To me, this is idiocy and hypocrisy.

In Portland, ME, just like everywhere in the world, September 11th 2010 was the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. People of Islamic faith partied in the streets and celebrated their version of Christmas, almost. The Portland Press Herald covered the event. Due to the event's magnitude, the piece got the front page. Complaints flooded in, saying the piece was "unbalanced" because it didn't mention how a bunch of Islamic extremists committed an atrocious crime on the same day nine years prior.

That a local newspaper needs to apologise to its readership for covering a peaceful and joyful celebration because of its concomitance with an atrocity is quite silly.

Imagine the Armenian community kicked up a storm because papers decided to cover local Easter celebrations on April 24th 2011, rather than commemorate the anniversary of the Armenian genocide. I would find it preposterous. Lack of prominent coverage bears no relation to denialism.

The editorial board of the Portland Press Herald made the right decision. A big event happened in Portland, Maine, on September 11th. A local paper covers the local event. If one wants raging 9/11 coverage and the inevitable punditry, dial in to the national papers or turn on the TV.

Context, people, context! If Scientific American went to the presses on Sept. 11th, would we expect the cover to be dedicated to the events of 9/11/01?

Let local papers serve the local community. If you're craving different news, turn on your ubiquitous TV with a gazillion channels advertising crap, or do a google news search. It isn't that hard, seeing that most of the vitriol came to the paper via web.

Bernier: what teat? I see no federal money teat!

I don't judge the Prime Minister and Quebec City's MPs for promising to fund arenas. Advice, pork and constituents are a powerful driver of political action.

Well, thank God for Maxime Bernier, as he's shaking up the dusty back benches. He surely won't let a disgruntlement turn into a toppling rebellion. Yet Bernier's outspoken criticism and natural charisma should stop this senseless waste of money.

Bernier has been speculated about as a candidate for the leadership of the Tory party, even as I wrote this. On the surface, he has a majority all but served to him on a silver platter. A francophone Quebecer, eloquent, libertarian. 

He's also smart enough not to force a leadership election. If the PM listens, points will be scored by the party. One: we'll still be the party that elects fiscally responsible MPs. Second: we'll show we're not a one-man-show, as alleged by many opponents. Third: a backbench grumble will be a great excuse for the PM to reiterate how his government is accountable to Parliament and how the Cabinet is always there, listening.

This could still be spun well!

If my tax dollars built it, shouldn't I get in for free?

I wonder what advice the PM received before embarking on what promises to be a foray of federal spending on sports facilities.

The original idea of luring back an elite team to Quebec City with a shiny new venue is admirable. After all, two Quebec teams in the NHL are better than one. The yawning deficit should, however, deter any politician from spending more than what's strictly necessary to keep the country afloat.

This is hardly a vote-grabbing initiative: Quebec City is one of our most reliable electoral areas in QC, and the "gratitude" vote in the province is fickle. Those who doubt my analysis need only remember how the "Quebec nation" shtick was wiped out by a tiny cut in elitist artists' subsidised holiday budgets. Harper doesn't seem to be attempting to indulge Quebec nationalists either: he'd choose a much better chance at winning big in QC at the price of disgruntling his AB base.

Probably QC hasn't anything to do with the decision. Lavishing money on activities popular with the masses is likely to endear the PM and the Party to quite a few voters. This might be the reason why, following the announcement of Quebec City's cash shower, promises of similar largesse in other parts of Canada began rolling in.

I can see this working to everyone's advantage, provided the small print is well negotiated. Throwing cash at an arena is useless. Making the subsidy into a revenue-sharing agreement could, instead, placate both interventionists and fiscal hawks. On one hand, the Government finances what Canadians like. On the other, it expects a return.

I won't get started on the grants system. I'll simply advocate that, in times of economic uncertainty, the Government prove it isn't giving someone a free ride.

If French is endangered, why are BC'ers queuing up for it?

How will doom-monging Francomaniacs explain this? Vancouver french immersion can't take all applicants, and more are piling in. For a province on the other end of the country, BC is quite keen on the language Duceppe, Marois and company call endangered.

The CBC report is a pleasant read. It shows many parents being much more pragmatic than certain brave-new-world-ists. Those are the cretins who'd have you believe their pathological guilt-induced mania of English, and the West, being on their way out. Chased out by Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, et cetera.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and the Van parents know it. Rather than heeding the asinine suggestion of Mandarin immersion ventilated in the comments section (always an entertaining read, if you want to gauge the extent of human ignorance that is), one is well advised to know that it's unilingual Chinese who are on their way out. In the meantime, many jobs in Canada will pay you better if (or not hire you unless) you speak French.

French has traction throughout Canada because mindful parents (and just-as-mindful students) know it's still the language that unlocks doors, or opens them wider throughout the country. It has lost momentum almost everywhere else, in no small part due to the very same people who purport to protect it.

English has the soft power of business and education, Italian entices through the arts, Arabic through oil and geopolitical events, Spanish and Portuguese through Latin American development. What is the selling point of French?

It used to be the language of the European aristocracy. It has to share its space with others in the EU bureaucracy. An uncompetitive job market at home and lack of coordinated development abroad are reducing French to just above niche language. 

It needn't be so. French-speaking nations need to find a common selling point for their language and coordinate efforts to entice learners. If sustainable development and the African renaissance spoke French, the next generation of businessmen and civil servants the world over would be blabbering in it non-stop. The continent is, on the other hand, being penetrated by English and Chinese.

I like being able to speak French. Despite this, I hate seeing others have the language rammed down their throats. A hated language is worse than a dead one, and the efforts by some in France and Quebec to impose their vernacular are nothing but a recipe for disaster.

I have no magic solution to French woes. I merely see it losing ground because some are too busy duct-taping what's solid and ignoring the rest of the house crumbling.

Oh, UN, the idiots you hire!

You can trust the United Nations, and its subsidiary bodies, to be on the side of tin-pot despots. Like the ones who make up a sizeable chunk of the organisation. The latest despatch from the Department of Idiocy is signed by the head of the ITU, Hamadoun Toure, who advocates no less than universal government access to Blackberry secure communications.

His Soviet and Russian education have surely influenced his world view. How else can we explain the elimination from his dictionary of terms such as common sense, privacy or, God forbid, not mentioning "security" every time one runs out of arguments?

The country most plagued by Islamic terrorism, Israel, has never to my knowledge contemplated putting such pressure on RIM. The reason? Israelis have an excellent intelligence service and an efficient law enforcement branch. They know that terrorists were discovered, caught and killed in times when electronic surveillance was science fiction.

I don't deny the importance of spying in the ether rather than on the ground. Yet the latest pressures on RIM to hand over the encryption keys are nothing but an excuse to be lazy, sit back, and assume everyone nowadays runs terror networks from the comfort of their own home, or cave, with Blackberries.

On the other hand, with Blackberries spied everywhere we might just uncover more of the corruption and cronyism that dog the UN's operations. Suddenly the overpaid talking shop won't be as enthusiastic about a  worldwide Big Brother.

Cracking the Berries is nonsense. That the UN endorses it just proves me right.

Long form, long gun: it's a battle for efficiency

The long form census "controversy" is nothing more than laziness, inefficiency and free-riding trying to murk the waters of the debate. Why, pray say, should anyone feel threatened with jail time or fines for not telling the Government what name one calls God by?

There is no reason for the federal government to extract that information from citizens under duress, particularly when we give both federal and local entities so much information they could already clone our lives.

Revenue Canada knows exactly how many people live in your household, how much you earn, where your kids study, if you use public transport, if you live in a nice house, et cetera. The provincial automobile authorities could report you to Jeremy Clarkson for driving a Prius, hogging the road with a trailer or not going fast in a supercar.

The truth is, all the information we give to local and federal bureaucrats is probably stored in some filing system, for no other department to peruse. This makes for tons of duplicate queries, and the inefficiency of the service machine is passed on, as a time cost, to the hapless taxpayer.

If you want to know, you will find a way of obtaining the knowledge. Many local organisations keep their own records much better than the central government, and Montreal is a good example. Economic and population statistics should be fished from Revenue Canada because no-one escapes them. Other data that is necessary for smooth local governance and the provision of local services can be just as easily collected by the relevant local entity. Be it a hospital, a clinic, a school, or whatever.

What's required is a standardised way of storing the data, i.e. homogenising the record-keeping software across the country. Why hasn't this been done? The answer escapes me. Just like the reason why the government hasn't placed more emphasis on the efficiency argument rather than just the abolition of census compulsion.

While we talk about redundant data, how about the Long Gun Registry? It's rubbish, and the police's excuses for keeping it are just as rubbish. 

No sane person would sign their name at the scene of a violent crime, and finding a stolen registered gun at a scene would simply lead the investigators back to the original owner. Well, big deal. Furthermore, the registry will never tell the officers whether or not there can CERTAINLY be no gun in the house they're called to. Wasn't caution an essential part of the job, rather than trusting a screen?

The registry, as it is now, duplicates the records of firearm licenses kept by the RCMP. If a register of owners and guns is necessary, let the weapon be registered at purchase and associated to a license.  The resulting database can then be queried at will by the RCMP. Problem solved and no need for a periodic tax on honest weapon owners, who are made to pay for the cost smugglers and gangsters impose on this country.

The current Government isn't just tinkering with silly provisions. It is on a drive to increase the efficiency of the way Canada deals with the data it is given. If only they spun this a little better.

A great event with Minister Paradis in Montreal.

I had the honour of attending a reception with Christian Paradis, Minister for Natural Resources and Quebec lieutenant for the Conservative party. It was a remarkable turnout (in excess of 150 people) in the heart of Bloc territory, at bar Saint Sulpice.

I was joined, among many others, by my friends Dr Roy and Jess Weiser,  secretary for Westmount-Ville-Marie conservatives.

I was also able to gauge the level of Conservative organization and strategy in the province. It was gladdening to learn that the party is actively engaging with its QC ridings and building up a more permanent presence than before. Riding associations are being structured, candidates are being sourced and, more importantly, Tories no longer have to hide their views.

There's tons of work still to be done, but the fight is well and truly on. If, that is, holding a reception in the heart of an opposition leaders' riding wasn't enough of a message.

Refugees don't shop around for the laxest immigration laws!

I have a lofty perception of seeking refuge from persecution by one's own country. In my mind, a refugee takes the shortest route to a safe port and then tries to move on through legal means to greener pastures.

The Tamils who arrived by boat to BC are not refugees. They passed by numerous safe harbours on their way across the Indian and Pacific oceans. India's Tamil Nadu state is the first obvious choice, as India's governing parties don't want to jeopardise their electoral chances in such a key constituency by deporting the electors' ethnic compatriots.

Then there's the Maldives, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Papua, a sleuth of Polynesian and Micronesian countries, and so on.

The current government of Sri Lanka is dodgy at best, and I wouldn't trust these refugees being sent back to where they came from. But Canada should set an example and reach an agreement with some country closer to SR to take these refugees in. Tamil Tigers or not, none of them should be allowed to set foot in Canada.