Monte Sonnenberg’s piece on Wikileaks (“With friends like these, who needs enemies?”, Dec 7) walks a curious tightrope. More people have laid eyes on the leaked diplomatic cables through The Guardian, The New York Times and the Washington Post than through the original Wikileaks site itself, but he is not calling for their chief editors to be waterboarded at Gitmo. What gives?
The howling and hysteria over the leaked cables is every bit as much a danger to the establishment media as it is to the fragile ego and careers of high ranking political leaders. Neither seem to be able to decide whether the content is trivial and petty chatter between diplomats, or a lethal compromise of national security priorities. The “innocent lives placed in danger” is a perfect diversion from the real threat posed by Wikileaks; a pattern where governments everywhere have their sanctity and legitimacy stripped away, and the eventual (and predictable) attempt to achieve information lockdown, which is ultimately impossible in a networked, digital age. And of course, as Mr. Sonnenberg unwittingly reminds us, a desperate effort by archaic institutions to maintain their hallowed role as protected gatekeepers of our knowledge of the world.
One crucial aspect of a free and open society, Mr. Sonnenberg, is the right of people to decide for themselves when and if their government can keep secrets, and why. Perhaps if the mainstream media aspired to something more significant than stenographers of the political class, Wikileaks and the underground media culture would not be rendering them obsolete.
The problems with Brantford’s bus system pointed out by Brodie Vissers (“Bus system needs improvement”, Nov. 22) are typical of every municipality which has collectivized its transit system, and its deficiencies ultimately cannot be remedied within a central planning perspective. Riders pay directly only a relatively small portion of the cost of maintaining the transit service, which invariably runs at a deficit, despite the enormous funding from local and provincial governments.
So it’s little surprise that rider satisfaction seems largely irrelevant to the day to day operations of the transit service, since from the point of view of the unionized public sector staff, riders are not customers but pests huddling at mass loading points who only serve to disrupt the fixed route schedule. Unlike private businesses who must gauge a volatile consumer market daily in order to stay in business, decisions impacting service to their captive market rely on public meetings, petitions, public complaints and most important of all, levels of funding, where poor service is more likely to draw more operating revenue in the name of improvement. As a result, adaptation to changing demographics is glacial, and resources are more likely to be devoted to showy renovations and inflated wages than actual improvement of service.
Private companies once operated a variety of inexpensive and efficient public transportation services, but in the 20th century were driven out by regulation, political collusion and corruption, and many were outlawed altogether by governments pressured by public sector unions. It’s time to consider replacing our lumbering, Soviet style mass transit monopoly with a decentralized model that, when applied consistently, has a proven history and works so well for the rest of the economy.
Danielle LaBossiere Parr (Technical protection measures curb threat of piracy – Aug 7), in his zeal to promote the new copyright bill, also fails to provide the full picture. Obviously he sees no contradiction in which a person who legally buys something can be accused of “stealing” it at the same time. Bill C-32 does not merely legitimize the digital locks that software manufacturers and distributers encode in their products; it also further criminalizes the act of circumventing those locks; in other words, making modifications to products that a consumer has purchased and owns. The proposed legislation is logically absurd and a violation of basic property rights.
The revolution in digital reproduction, and the near zero cost of distribution through broadband and wireless networking is quickly rendering so called “intellectual property” as an obsolete, archaic and unenforceable program of government protected monopoly and privilege. Defenders of this franchise rarely mention the countless ways through which copyrights, patents, and the latest DRM laws actually stifle innovation and competition. Not only do such laws discourage compatibility across different brands, it raises prices for consumers by providing venders legal protection from the development of improvements from more efficient rivals. A law that enables producers of digital content to treat its customers as criminals is a law we can do without.
Mr. Horsnell's letter ("Concerns over eco fees", July 16) has its heart in the right place, but he makes the problematic claim that the "eco fee" is not a tax. If the government compels payment to itself, we call it a tax. When a government takes from Peter to give to Paul, we call the compelled payment a tax. If the government compels Peter to pay Paul directly, what has happened here? Essentially, the government has granted Paul the power to tax. In this case, "Paul" is Stewardship Ontario.
Since the rationale for this tax is the need to divert waste from landfills, the tax is intended as a disincentive at the consumer level. However, we are told this is not a tax because manufacturers and retailers can choose to absorb this "fee" at their own expense. So, while this fee is equivalent to a tax from the manufacturing and retailing perspective, the cost of this tax will only be passed to the consumer by them voluntarily, and is therefore a fee. The problem with this convoluted explanation is clear.
By this standard, the former PST, the GST and the current HST are not taxes, but "fees" since a merchant could always, and often does, absorb these costs on their own. How many times have we been exposed to that "pay no GST" marketing gimmick, or paid a discounted price for an item that essentially waived the sales tax? A tax is a tax. The "eco fee" is mandated by the government, and that makes it a tax regardless of who ultimately pays it.
The more interesting question is: Why the intense effort to deny this is a tax? Could it be that no one wants to think of Stewardship Ontario as a recipient of legalized graft? Or could it be the need to pretend that the government is developing market based solutions to waste management, when in reality it is forcing the taxpayer to finance a massive jobs program for the eco-industry?
Myth: The south side fell victim to neglect and disrepair. Building code standards for fire and safety were not upheld, and a general blight fell over the south side, detracting from the advances made in urban renewal by the municipal government for the surrounding area.
Fact: According to a recent news report, almost all of the bylaw and property standards citations issued against the owners concerned exterior conditions, and none for safety and fire code infractions.
The blight and disrepair of the south side was the result of a three pronged assault on the private commerce and commercial development of the downtown by the city government.
1. Taxes, regulations and bylaws artificially inflated the costs of maintenance, repair and created disincentives to capital investment.
2. Previous boondoggles in the core were already taking their toll in the downtown. The vast amount of funds and infrastructure for the former Icomm Center (now a government run gambling parlor), the closing of market street to Colborne at a key intersection, combined with millions in structural (roads, utilities etc.) and direct subsidies to development in the north end.
2. Once the paralysis of the south side was in place, the city planners were only getting started. Then they decided to Corral the south side landlords and business into an "improvement district" which would utilize the immense brain power of city council and its pool of loyal consultants, and the cash invested by the property owners. However, city planner's stupid ideas are less likely to draw private investment without funding guarantees; another bright idea was moved to the back burner.
3. So the various businesses and landlords forged ahead on their own. Much of the south side was adjusting to the commercial losses and transitioning to a residential district. Plans were put in place to convert many of the former shop fronts to street level rental housing for low income families and individuals (called "slums" when they are privately run, and "social housing" when they are government run). The activity of Colborne, as Jane Jacobs would put it, and the neighborhood would be monitored by the people who lived there (horrors!). Again, the city planners became incontinent at the thought of an uncoordinated, unplanned community right smack where their bureaucratic wisdom was needed the most, so existing bylaws were amended and altered to prohibit these changes, which further backfired for two reasons: First, some permissions for mixed use alterations were grandfathered in, and the changes that could be enforced only drove vacancy rates up higher. The incompetence of the government had turned the south side into an urban wasteland, so city council capitalized on the growing frustration and demands that they "do something", and quickly signed the Memorandum of Understanding to justify the seizure of this vast stretch of nominally private land once and for all. Now in city hands, it could be destroyed literally, as well as economically.
In a rare and uncharacteristic show of concern for property rights, city council is reconsidering an expansion of the site alteration bylaws that could further prevent you from cutting down a tree on your own property.
Hopefully, by "private property", they don't simply mean the interests of large developers. We'll see. I love trees as much as the next guy, but frankly, those on public property and crown lands are in much greater danger of being cut down than anywhere else.
