Archive: Posts about Canada
November 28th, 2008, 5 Comments »
Yesterday, as you probably know (I first read about it on Beth’s site), Finance Minister Jim Flaherty gave a financial update of sorts in the House of Commons. I’m not an economist, so I won’t speculate on the pros and cons of the Conservatives’ no-stimulus stance. I am, however, interested in talking about their proposed cuts to political subsidies.
I’d kind of forgotten about these subsidies, so here’s a little summary from the CBC:
Parties currently receive $1.95 for every vote they receive in a federal election, provided they win at least two per cent of the nationwide popular vote. The annual subsidy is used to pay for staff and expenses.
On the surface, it would appear Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have the most to lose if subsidies were cut because they garnered the most votes in the October election. The Conservatives earned $10 million in subsidies, compared to $7.7 million for the Liberals, $4.9 million for the NDP, $2.6 million for the Bloc Québécois and $1.8 million for the Greens.
But because the Conservatives have such a strong fundraising base, their subsidy represents only 37 per cent of the party’s total revenues. By comparison, the subsidy amounts to 63 per cent of the Liberals’ funding, 86 per cent of the Bloc’s, 57 per cent of the NDP’s and 65 per cent of the Greens’.
There is also, it’s worth noting, a $1000 cap on donations from unions, corporations and other organizations.
When the Liberals introduced this plan in 2003, I thought it was a terrifically democratic idea. Not only does it make each vote more meaningful, but it enables smaller and fringe parties to have a little more money to work with. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation supports the cuts, saying:
“It’s absurd that Canadian taxpayers are forced to subsidize through their taxes, political parties that they do not support, especially in the case of the Bloc Quebecois — a party that seeks to break up our country.”
I disagree. What could be more democratic than giving resources to all of the political voices, even the country’s critics? I don’t want my politicians beholden to corporate interests to the degree they are in the US.
In any case, there’s a great deal of sturm und drang in Ottawa about the proposed budget cuts. They amount, I gather, to about $50 million. The Conservatives knew this would be hugely controversial, and that it would look like they were exploiting home field advantage. Is their strategy backfiring (a bit like their cuts to the arts), or do they have a bigger picture in mind?
5 Comments »
November 24th, 2008, 1 Comment »
A while back I subscribed to the RSS feed for Statistics Canada. As you might imagine, the agency produces statistics and reports on a wide and occasionally bizarre array of stuff–fertilizer shipments, iron piping and so forth. As you know, these reports are regular fodder for journalists (and, uh, bloggers) hunting for low-hanging trend stories.
Today Statistics Canada released data on divorces across the country in 2005 (the newest year available, presumably). Using their handy data manipulation tool, I generated this chart:
So which province has the highest divorce rate? As you can see, it’s Alberta. I’m ignoring the northern territories, because the sample size is pretty small (Nunavut suffered all of 10 divorces in 2005).
What gives? Why are there 27% more divorces per capita in Alberta than in Saskatchewan? Is this like the US, where so-called conservative red states have a considerably higher incidence of divorce than blue states?
Here’s one thesis: people marry younger in Alberta, and the younger you marry, the likelier you are to get divorced. That’s disproven, though, because Saskatchewan has the lowest marriage age (27 for women, 29.3 for men) in the country as well as a low divorce rate.
1 Comment »
November 18th, 2008, 13 Comments »
A while back I subscribed to the RSS feed for Statistics Canada. As you might imagine, the agency produces statistics and reports on a wide and occasionally bizarre array of stuff–fertilizer shipments, iron piping and so forth. As you know, these reports are regular fodder for journalists (and, uh, bloggers) hunting for low-hanging trend stories.
Today Statistics Canada released data on divorces across the country in 2005 (the newest year available, presumably). Using their handy data manipulation tool, I generated this chart:
So which province has the highest divorce rate? As you can see, it’s Alberta. I’m ignoring the northern territories, because the sample size is pretty small (Nunavut suffered all of 10 divorces in 2005).
Is Alberta a Red State?
What gives? Why are there 27% more divorces per capita in Alberta than in Saskatchewan? Is this like the US, where so-called conservative red states have a considerably higher incidence of divorce than blue states?
Here’s one thesis: people marry younger in Alberta, and the younger you marry, the likelier you are to get divorced. That’s disproved, though, because Saskatchewan has the lowest marriage age (27 for women, 29.3 for men) in the country as well as a low divorce rate. That’s the red state theory–earlier marriages combined with lower socio-economic standing and less education. Stereotypes aside, I don’t think those factors apply to Alberta.
Here’s another idea that sounds plausible: compared to other provinces, Alberta has a low immigration rate. New Canadians, particularly those from Asia, are less likely to divorce.
Why do you think Alberta has the country’s highest rate of divorce?
Incidentally, while looking through some Statistics Canada research, I found this chart. The rate of divorce is apparently highest for those married about 4.5 years. After that there’s a long decline (to quote Neil Young). Once you hit 40 years of marriage, your odds of divorce are roughly two in 1000.
13 Comments »
November 11th, 2008, 1 Comment »
This Remembrance Day, I thought I’d write about Passchendaele, Paul Gross’s new film based around an important World War I battle. At $20 million, it’s the biggest budgeted Canadian movie ever produced, and it looks it. The war scenes that frame the long second act are grim and bloody. They’ll be familiar to viewers of the modern war movie, but they’re skillfully rendered and watchable.
The middle of the film takes place in the then small town of Calgary, Alberta. It features all the archetypes of the Canadian historical epic: the orphaned daughter, scorned by the townspeople; her young brother, denied the chance to go to war; the town drunk, played by a fat-suit-wearing (I hope) Gil Bellows and the shell-shocked veteran returned from the front. It’s all horse rides and hobble skirts while Paul Gross’s character falls for the aforementioned orphan, played by the lovely Caroline Dhavernas.
But, of course, sacrifices must be made, and the film ends predictably with the muddy, bloody Battle of Passchendaele.
From the CBC archives, where’s there’s a great short radio documentary about the battle:
On Nov. 6, 1917 Canadian troops captured Belgium’s Passchendaele ridge, ending a gruelling offensive that had begun on July 31, 1917. The Battle of Passchendaele is remembered for its atrocious conditions, heavy casualties and Canadian valour. Canadians, instrumental in securing victory, earned a total of nine Victoria Crosses for their courage.
It’s not Saving Private Ryan, but if you (like me) can’t get to a ceremony today to honour our armed forces, present and past, you could do worse than to watch Passchendaele and think about their sacrifice.
1 Comment »
October 29th, 2008, 1 Comment »
Yesterday I read on Mathew Ingram’s blog that the Christian Science Monitor is going strictly digital (though it’s launching a weekly magazine next year). It has always been, in my mind, a highly reputable publication. However, as the Times article reports, its print circulation reflects trends across the industry:
The Monitor is an anomaly in journalism, a nonprofit financed by a church and delivered through the mail. But with seven Pulitzer Prizes and a reputation for thoughtful writing and strong international coverage, it long maintained an outsize influence in the publishing world, which declined as its circulation has slipped to 52,000, from a high of more than 220,000 in 1970.
On the other hand, I think of the CSM as one of the first papers, along with The Guardian, to really embrace the web. If I recall correctly, they never used a pay-only firewall to block off their content. I hope they can retain their high quality of reportage and make a go of it on the web.
More locally, the Canadian satirical magazine Frank is folding (again):
But in today’s world of free - and instant - political blogging, [publisher Michael] Bate said it’s been getting much harder to present fresh material on a bimonthly basis to a paying audience.
Ottawa’s media circuit “was a gentleman’s club in the early ’90s and I think we wrote about subjects that were taboo,” Bate said. “In a way, we were the Internet then.”
If you look at their tremendously irritating website, it’s clear that they haven’t paid enough attention to their web strategy. From the sounds of it, they didn’t want to be an online magazine.
While I’m never happy to see an independent voice of the media (and particularly a satirical one) silenced, I’m pretty ambivalent about losing Frank. Whenever I looked at the magazine, it always felt like inside baseball exclusively for those in and around Ottawa. Plus, I’ve never forgotten a pretty despicable Frank stunt where they ran a fake contest to deflower a then 17-year-old Caroline Mulroney.
UPDATE: Scott Rosenberg, co-founder of Salon and, according to Wikipedia, ‘a relatively early participant in The WELL’ (that ‘relatively’ is so catty, eh?), has some interesting thoughts on the CSM move.
1 Comment »
October 15th, 2008, 5 Comments »
We were in the US this past long weekend, so we only got news of last night’s election when I logged into the AT&T wifi at SeaTac. To no one’s surprise, we got ourselves another Conservative minority government. I have read just about zero analysis of the results, but it seems to me that most of the parties hopped on the fail boat:
- The Liberals, obviously, were the biggest failure. They haven’t won so few seats since 1984. Adieu, Monsieur Dion.
- The Conservatives failed to secure a majority.
- The Greens failed, yet again, to win a single seat.
- Jack Layton failed to become Prime Minister. Though, admittedly, the NDP’s showing was one of its strongest ever.
I guess the Bloc Québécois has to be reasonably happy with their 50 seats, as the best they’ve ever done is 54.
Personally, I don’t mind minority governments. They feel democratic. And I don’t mind that the average Canadian is asked to pay attention to national issues every couple of years. Is it really that much of a burden to have to vote every 18 months instead of every five years?
UPDATE: Apparently the folks at Comedy Central agree with me.
5 Comments »
October 10th, 2008, 3 Comments »
Back in August, I mentioned the Conservative government’s cuts to arts programs, and their controversial grab for greater control over funding for film and TV production.
In roughly $5 billion worth of programs spending, Prime Minister Harper’s $45 million cuts feels like a rounding error. Did they hope to make the cuts quietly, or make a bold statement about tightening belts and, maybe, cultural funding? I’m not sure, but it feels like the issue broke the wrong way. Arts funding became an unexpectedly prominent issue in the campaign, providing fodder for the opposition Plus, the move may have provoked some previously apathetic non-voters to action.
As the Globe and Mail reports, Prime Minister Harper has repealed the problematic clause in Bill C-10. It feels like damage control:
The Conservative Leader’s about-face comes as Tory hopes of a majority fade, and support for the party is sagging in the crucial battlegrounds of Quebec and Ontario.
The move appears to be aimed at appeasing voters incensed at the provision in C-10, and at the nearly $45-million in recent cuts to a swath of other arts and culture programs.
The Globe also notes that all four opposition parties have promised to reinstate the $45 million in cuts.
3 Comments »
October 9th, 2008, 10 Comments »
I’m a big fan of Wordle. Everybody likes pretty tag clouds, but until recently, I’ve had no practical use for the tool.
What with the forthcoming election and all, and being in marketing, I thought it might be interesting to use Wordle to distill each of the four national parties’ websites into a tag cloud. The cloud would reflect the terms that the party uses most frequently on their English-language websites. With an assist from Ask Metafilter, I got them done. I’ll explain a little more about how after the clouds.
As usual, click for larger versions:
What Conclusions Can We Draw?
That’s more a question for you than me, as I haven’t spent much time trying to grok what these clouds tell us (yes, I used ‘grok’). What jumps out at you?
How Did We Make Them?
First, I grabbed a complete copy of each party’s website. I just stuck with HTML files, so if a party hosts a lot of PDFs with unique content, then that’s not reflected. The sites, of course, ended up being different sizes, and I’m relying on my site-copying software, so I can’t be certain I got all the pages.
Then we concatenated each set of HTML files into one gigantic file. Using some scripty-magic, we generated the top 100 or 250 words, each appearing as many times as they appear in the original site.
I went through each of these to clean out most or all of the leftover HTML code, navigational terms like ‘email’ or ‘newsletter’ and French words. The French is why we used 250 words in some cases. For some sites, I downloaded both the French and English version of the site, so I needed to remove the French. By working with a 250 word file, I was able to clean out the French and still have a sizable database of words.
In short, it’s somewhat unscientific, but I’m optimistic that the clouds represent a reasonably fair reflection of each site’s top content. If anyone wants to work with the content I copied, I’m happy to share it. I’m not going to publish the complete sites here, though, as I expect that would constitute a copyright violation.
10 Comments »
October 6th, 2008, 9 Comments »
Yesterday I was talking to somebody about voting. She asked, and I told her (as I told you) for whom I planned to vote.
She mentioned that her parents always kept their voting decisions a secret, possibly even from each other. I have a vague memory of my parents not discussing who they voted for either. Am I making this up, or was there a prevailing opinion in their generation that you didn’t disclose for whom you cast your ballot?
The essence of this notion seems to be (or have been) “your vote is nobody’s business but your own”. That’s true, and I suppose it was designed, in a Miss Manners kind of way, to avoid heated conflict in otherwise civil conversation. However, times and social norms change.
Plus, if you care about politics and your choice, I’d imagine that you’d want to try to convince other people of your position. And how can you do that without disclosing who you’re planning to support?
Do you discuss who you’re voting for among your family and friends? If not, why not?
9 Comments »
October 4th, 2008, 8 Comments »
I voted today. Unfortunately, I’m going to be in the US on October 14. I voted for the Green Party, as I have done so in the last two (maybe three?) elections. For pretty much the same reasons. I have no expectation that my candidate will win, but I believe in supporting the party whose values most closely align with my own.
I’m not a big fan of strategic voting. Even if I was, I’m pretty sure that the Conservative candidate in Victoria has about as much chance as winning as, say, the Christian Heritage candidate. Er, that’s not technically accurate, but Victoria hasn’t elected a Tory since 1988. Besides, VoteForEnvironment suggests that I can take my pick.
Party or Person?
When voting, how much consideration do you give to your local candidate and how much do you give to the national party? I’ve asked this question before, and some thoughtful discussion resulted. Four years later, I can’t think of a good reason not to ask it again.
As I indicated, my choice skews heavily toward the party. Why?
- I care more about national policy than local issues. I’m totally ambivalent about how my MP represents Victoria in Ottawa.
- It’s kind of by default. I lived in Vancouver for many years. Can I describe even one of Hedy Fry’s accomplishments as my MP? Can you? I’m no political news junkie, but I think I’ve been as informed and well-read as the average Vancouverite over the past decade. It’s much easier for me to identify with a national party that holds particular values and positions, as opposed to my local MP whose accomplishments and goals I can’t imagine.
My perception of the party leader–of their competency and character–matters as well. Less than the party, but more than the local candidate.
How about you? Do you vote for the candidate or the party?
UPDATE: On a vaguely-related note, somebody sent me this video featuring local Vancouver candidates talking about their parties’ platforms on climate change.
UPDATE #2: Speaking of videos, I love the aesthetics of this one (thought its message could be clearer).
8 Comments »
