By that, I'm not referring to the actions of that poor deluded soul who attempted to exorcise the malevolent spirit in residence at 24 Sussex last Saturday.it is "extremely disappointed" federal funds went to a theatre festival that will stage a play this week that features, in the words of the playwright, a "sympathetic portrayal" of a convicted terrorist [...] Catherine Frid's one-act play "Homegrown" opens Thursday night in Toronto as part of the Summerworks theatre festival [which] received $35,000 in federal funding to mount "Homegrown" and 41 other one-act plays.No surprise there - remember, the young Spiteful told Susan Crean, the co-author of 'Two Nations' with Quebec activist/sociologist Marcel Rioux: "You should not have been allowed to write that book."
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Andrew Sum, an economics professor and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “Not only did they throw all these people off the payrolls, they also cut back on the hours of the people who stayed on the job.”
As Professor Sum studied the data coming in from the recession, he realized that the carnage that occurred in the workplace was out of proportion to the economic hit that corporations were taking. While no one questions the severity of the downturn — the worst of the entire post-World War II period — the economic data show that workers to a great extent were shamefully exploited.
The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent.
In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.
“They threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output,” said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.”
If Stevie Spiteful and his cadre of thugs accept the operating principles of corporate greed, it would be another reason why he abolished the long-form census questionnaire. Without solid data for comparison, the long-range impact of such practices on Canadian workers could not be verified.
Gee, does this mean Stevie Spiteful is a maverick economist? (snort, snicker)The Canadian Association for Business Economics poll found that 76 per cent of 252 respondents surveyed last week say they do not believe it is good policy to replace the mandatory long-form census with a voluntary national household survey.
The survey comes as a growing number of groups are speaking out against the proposed change, saying it will degrade the quality of information on everything from city planning to school sizes and immigrant income levels. [...]
“There is no substitute for the census. It is the foundation of our household information set,” said Paul Jacobson, vice-president of the economics association. The switch means “we’re spending more money for less quality – that’s the part a lot of us find offensive.” [...]
Economists use census results to track changes in Canadian life, right down to the neighbourhood level. The census also serves as the backbone upon which almost all other household surveys, including the labour force survey, are weighted.
This is how it starts. A narcissistic sociopath takes control of a political party and proclaims: "We can create a country built on solid Conservative values [...] the kind of country I want to lead." Here are a few more quotes:"Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."The first pronouncement is from Stephen Joseph Harper. The rest are from Joseph Stalin.
"Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs."
"The writer is the engineer of the human soul."
"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas."
"Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party."
"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
“Do you think it is right that you can threaten your neighbour with jail time if she doesn’t tell you if she has mental issues or not?” he wrote. “Or who does what chores in the house? Or whether she is a Jew or not? Don't you find that one even a little bit chilling?”What I find chilling is the sustained campaign of propaganda and disinformation Stevie Spiteful's PMO has waged on every issue it has shoved down the throat of the electorate since the ReformaTories formed their first minority government in 2006.
And as the continuing debacle over the G-8/G-20 demontrates, the Cons' electoral promise of transparence and accountability in government is nothing more than a typical Con job.
The only obstacle to a Canada controlled by Harper's steel fist and administered by his cowering cadre of lying bullies is a purposeful response by Canadian voters.
More crumbling away: Who needs to get nasty feedback or pesky facts entered into the public record?
Federal civil servants won't get to fill out a workplace survey this year because the Conservative government has axed it. [...]
A Statistics Canada official broke the news to colleagues last month in an email obtained by The Canadian Press. "I regret to inform you that plans for the 2010 Public Service Employee Survey are cancelled," Geoff Bowlby, head of the agency's labour statistics division, wrote on June 2. "We received notice from Treasury Board secretariat yesterday evening that funding for the project was not approved for this year. [...]Neither Treasury Board President Stockwell Day nor his department were immediately able to say how much the survey cost. The government solicits voluntary feedback from its workers every three years to improve programs and services. The survey gives a snapshot of workers' demographics, skills, career expectations and concerns.
Ideology and batshitcrazy: The mouthpieces and Attack Parrots™© the PMO keeps trotting out - Flaherty, Clement, Day and Bernier - regurgitate "half-truths, red herrings, misdirection, scaremongering, and a straw man or two" over and over again to support Stevie Peevie's unilateral and monomaniacal decision.The national body that advises Statistics Canada and the chief statistician called Monday for the restoration of the long-form census, along with the removal of the threat of jail time for not completing it and reform of the planning process for the next census, in 2016.
The National Statistics Council, a 40-member panel of prominent analysts and researchers from across Canada, issued a statement expressing concern about the government's plans to make the mandatory long-form census a voluntary survey, urging a series of reforms and compromises instead.
"We believe that the changes will harm the integrity and quality of the Canadian statistical system," Ian McKinnon, chair of the council, said of the Conservative government's plans. "At the same time, the council recognizes that concerns about intrusiveness and confidentiality should be addressed."
The council believes Canadians "should not be overburdened by intrusive demands for unnecessary information," the statement said, but loss of the mandatory long-form data will leave a "serious gap" in the snapshot of Canadian society and its portrait of change over time. There are just a few weeks left to make changes to either the long-form census or the voluntary National Household Survey proposed to replace it if the census is to go ahead as planned in May 2011, the council said, but discussion of the issue has ground to halt.
"Debate over the future course of the census has become heated without moving toward a resolution that meets both concerns about privacy and intrusiveness, as well as the need to maintain the quality of Canada's statistical system," McKinnon wrote.
Privacy Issues! Voluntary Questionnaires! Statistics Canada Said So!followed by Maxime Bernier with his short one:
Bedrooms of the Nation! Jedi Knights! My Staff Deleted The Emails!NDP, Bloc and Lib members of the Industry, Science and Technology Committee can hold up numbers that rate the credibility of their statements.
STFU!but only if there's Timbits. Lots of them.
The top Jewish and Evangelical Christian organizations in Canada have joined the surging wave of opposition to the Conservative government's axing of next year's long census.
The Canadian Jewish Congress and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada have both written to the Conservative cabinet to say they rely heavily on the data from the census in order to serve their faith communities.
Questions on religion are asked on the compulsory census every 10 years and the 2011 census would have been the next opportunity.
In a sharply worded editorial, the Canadian Medical Association Journal accuses the Tories of putting ideology ahead of “evidence-based decision making” and charges the government is taking an “uninformed approach to public policy.”
“Harper does not like StatsCan, that’s what we kept hearing,” according to a longtime employee of the agency. “In particular, he does not like the analytical work we’ve done for years.” The Prime Minister thinks of it as fodder for critics.
Sure enough, it’s the analytical work that he has been decimating. Gone, truncated or privatized are surveys that kept track of pensions and benefits at our places of work; the proportion of our incomes going to housing, vacation, medical expenses to see how well or badly we all were doing; the level of inequality among Canadians; the economic integration of immigrants; and how people with physical and mental disabilities were coping.
“When these surveys were being cut back, the concerned federal departments were told not to comment on how that might muck up their work,” said the source. “They were told to shut up. The message had come from the top.”
Will Harper reverse his decision? Will glass be shattered and furniture smashed, will rugs be chewed and holes gouged in the walls, and will the temp help have to coaxed out from underneath the desks again? Stay tuned. 
