Category: Canada

Anything related to Canada or Canadians

Sprawl and municipal services

On his blog, David Reevely makes a convincing case against urban sprawl that I hadn’t heard previously:

The trouble is, sprawl has costs. It’s incredibly expensive for us all. Light-density housing is great to live in, but it’s brutal to supply with public services. Take fire stations: their response times are primarily a function of how far the firefighters have to drive to get to a call. That means that to maintain minimally acceptable standards, you need to have a fire station every so-many kilometres. If 10,000 people live within that radius, then 10,000 people share the cost of supporting that fire station, its firefighters and their equipment. If you pack 100,000 people into that radius, then the cost is divided among 100,000 people, and you have a lot left over from their property taxes for other things. But if you have too few, and their property taxes aren’t enough to pay for the fire station, then you need to bring in money from somewhere else.

It’s a bit ironic, really. We discussed before how people living in rural areas can get a false sense of their own self-sufficiency. It’s ironic that rather than being bold frontierspeople, living off the land, those who populate the less dense fringes of urban centres might impose disproportionate costs on the municipal authorities.

Northern lights webcam

The Canadian Space Agency has set up a website that allows the live viewing of the northern lights from Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories. You can watch live during the appropriate hours, as well as watch the previous night’s video in time lapse and selected videos from especially active nights.

The videos are pretty small and not super high resolution. The ‘AuroraMAX’ site would probably benefit from the addition of some large still photos. The sun’s 11-year cycle of activity is expected to peak in 2013, and the site has a mandate to carry on until then. The site doesn’t say what kind of equipment is being used, but it seems to be a fisheye lens on either a video camera or dSLR.

How to meet Canada’s climate targets

The biggest problem with Canada’s climate change policy is that our plans are not sufficient to meet our targets. Furthermore, our plans aren’t even being implemented.

The government says it wants to cut Canadian emissions to 17% below 2006 levels by 2020, and to 60-70% below by 2050. If they really wanted to do that, they could achieve that outcome simply by doing the following:

  1. Choose a series of annual emissions targets, starting this year and running out to 2050 and beyond.
  2. In each of those years, auction a quantity of permits for the production and import of fossil fuels. Also require permits for activities that generate other greenhouse gases, such as methane. Anybody who wanted to produce fossil fuels, import them, or emit greenhouse gases in other ways would require a quantity of permits equal to their emissions. The price of the permits would be determined by auctioning.
  3. Take the auction revenues and send an equal share to every Canadian each quarter by direct bank account deposit or cheque.

This approach would be simple and fair. It would not cost much to administer, since the permits would be auctioned at as high a level as possible. It would conform to the polluter pays principle, since they would do just that. It would send price signals to consumers, as the firms that bought permits passed along the cost. And the whole system would be revenue neutral, since all the revenues would be returned to Canadians. Critically, it would ensure that Canada hit its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, each and every year.

This kind of approach is known as cap and dividend.

So, why doesn’t the government just go ahead and do this? The major reason is that people who have emitted greenhouse gases in the past feel that gives them the right to do so in the future. If this plan was put in place, all the industries that have been using the atmosphere as a free dumping ground for CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases would suddenly need to pay for their waste disposal. This could seriously affect the growth prospects of some industries.

That said, since the cap would begin at current levels and gradually shrink down toward the target, no businesses would get obliterated immediately. They would simply need to adapt, in a fair way, to the kinds of business models required to meet the government’s stated climate change targets. The fact that the government is not pursuing an approach that would cause them to do so is the clearest indication that Canada’s government is not serious about dealing with the issue of climate change.

The state of Canada’s civil service

Alex Himelfarb, a former Clerk of the Privy Council (Canada’s top civil servant), recently published an article in The Mark talking about public policy and Canada’s civil service. He is candid about how he sees the role of the civil service developing, calling it an institution “increasingly described as in crisis, trying to serve in a climate of blame and mistrust masquerading as accountability.” He expresses concern about partisanship and the superficial character of politial debate, and warns about how policy can drift in damaging directions. Finally, he suggests that there is hope in the emergence of increased public debate:

What we need now is a public discourse that neither dismisses nor panders to our private concerns, but rather links them to public issues. It’s time we override our impulse to paper over our differences and demand that our leaders participate with us in the dialogue, however difficult, we so need. We cannot let Canada change without a fight – or at least a vigorous conversation.

To some extent, this mirrors the enthusiasm of the present Clerk for Web 2.0 – though government in general may not yet be willing to allow the level of freedom, individuality, and independence required for that shift to be meaningful.

Himelfarb also wrote another piece, in the same newspaper, about ‘Why We Vote Against Our Interests‘. As further discussed in an interview on The Commons, the former Clerk expresses concern about the diminished role of expertise in policy-making:

There is something unseemly and even dangerous about the assault on evidence and experts especially coming from our political leaders. But it has resonance with many because government seems distant from and irrelevant to our lives, a “foreign thing” where decisions are made about us but without us. The distance between citizen and state must be reduced.

We can only hope that the public policy debate in Canada evolves back towards reasoned discussion on the basis of sound logic and evidence. To make policy Stephen Colbert style – from the gut – doesn’t equip Canada to deal with the challenges ahead, or take advantage of upcoming opportunities.

‘Failure due to dishonesty’ at SFU

Last year, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver introduced a new grade for university courses: ‘FD’ or ‘failure due to dishonesty.’ Department chairs are empowered to give the grade on the basis of “behavior [that] warrants a severe penalty”. Usually, it is applied to repeat offenders. The grade continues to appear on a student’s transcript until two years after graduation.

To me, this seems like a sensible thing to do. Particularly when it comes to take-home essays, cheating in university is easy. When students do it, they harm the quality of education that everybody gets, while also gaining unfair advantages when it comes to things like scholarships. Having a mechanism for conveying the fact that someone has behaved in a seriously improper way (rather than failing a course for some more acceptable reason) would be beneficial both in terms of deterring bad conduct and by giving an obvious sign to anyone making decisions on the basis of a transcript, whether the issue at hand is a scholarship, grad school admission, or a job.

Ottawa’s mayoral election

I have never had much interest in municipal politics. For one thing, the policy areas I am most concerned about aren’t ones over which municipalities have too much control. For another, I have generally not expected myself to live in one place for long. Finally, it just hasn’t seemed worth the effort to track municipal politicians, platforms, etc.

Ottawa is now in the midst of a mayoral race between (at least) incumbent mayor Larry O’Brien and challenger Jim Watson. I don’t know much about the platforms of either. That said, I do acutely remember the awful bus strike that happened on O’Brien’s watch. I think the union deserves to be punished for abusing their monopoly power over the general population, but O’Brien probably deserves to be punished too for not managing things better.

That said, I suppose I will have to investigate the candidates more comprehensibly before I decide how (and whether) to vote.

[Update: 25 October 2010] The Ottawa Citizen has a good website with information on this election. The general sense seems to be that Watson will win the mayoral race. Another thing I’ve discovered is that it is rather difficult to learn which school district zone you live in, much less find much information about the candidates online.

[Update: 28 October 2010] While the candidates on offer didn’t inspire much enthusiasm for me, I was pleased with the physical process of voting.

Greenland offshore oil

In a development that seems to reinforce a number of ongoing trends, it seems there may be oil to exploit off the coast of Greenland. As with other places in the Arctic, the combination of new technologies, higher oil prices, and retreating ice is making it plausible to access fossil fuels that would once have been out of reach. At least as reported by The Economist, residents seem moderately intrigued by the prospects for increased wealth, but largely disinterested in the ongoing climate change that could profoundly transform the massive island:

Most of Greenland’s 56,000 inhabitants seem persuaded [that the risk from oil spills is acceptable]. Despite the vulnerability of the country’s ice sheet to global warming, a recent Greenpeace meeting in Nuuk drew a paltry 45 people. Even this minimal interest in the environmentalists’ message could fall further as the implications of this week’s news start to sink in.

Cairn Energy, a British oil and gas firm, already has an area designated for exploration which is thought to include 4 billion barrels of oil. United States Geological Survey data suggests that a total of 17 billion barrels may lie in the waters between Canada and Greenland.

As with so many issues related to climate change, there is an important disjuncture here between different relevant timescales. Whereas it is plausible that the next few decades could see the deployment of offshore oil and gas platforms in the Arctic – and at least the beginning of significant revenues from them – the warming of the climate will largely occur over a more extended span of time. Nevertheless, we have good reasons to believe that the emissions trajectory humanity is investing in right now is incompatible with the continued existence of the Greenland icesheet, though the disappearance will probably take centuries. Of course, that change will profoundly alter life in the region. At the same time, the seven metres of sea level rise embedded in that ice would surely prove problematic for many of the cities and nations that may find themselves benefitting from the use of Greenland’s oil and gas in the interim.

Canada and Joint Strike Fighters

Responding to criticism about Canada’s decision to purchase 65 Lockheed-Martin Joint Strike Fighters (F-35), through a sole source contract for a total cost of about $16 billion, the government has twice highlighted interceptions of Russian bombers as justifications for the purchase.

Does this analysis make any sense?

Partly, it comes down to what the Russians are trying to do. If they just wanted to obliterate Canada, they would do so using ground- and submarine-based ballistic missiles, and perhaps cruise missiles. There would be no reason to send vulnerable bombers into Canadian airspace. On the other hand, just as NATO regularly tests Russian air defence systems, the Russians could be flying into Canadian territory to provoke us into pointing RADAR in their direction, so they can try to suss out what capabilities we have. Finally, the flights could be an attempt to assert sovereignty or de facto control over the Arctic.

In the foreseeable future, the only plausible path to a war with Russia would be an invasion of a central European country prompting an armed response from NATO. In such a circumstance, Canadian Joint Strike Fighters could conceivably be useful. They could also potentially be useful in conflicts like Afghanistan, where air superiority and close air support are clear advantages for Canada and its allies. Also, purchasing Joint Strike Fighters could help keep Canada in the good graces of the United States, especially given how politically savvy the big defence companies are, and how strategic they are about spreading big weapon contract jobs across the country.

Does that justify a price tag of around $500 per Canadian? Does it justify whatever ‘collateral damage’ will result from the purchase of the jets?

Three hung Parliaments

I had a busy weekend, so I don’t have posts prepared.

Here’s a question for readers, though. After the recent Australian election, there are now three Westminster style democracies that lack majority governments. Two went from longstanding left-wing administrations to lacklustre leaders (Paul Martin and Gordon Brown), while the other briefly went from Liberal to Labour before entering the current predicament.

Is there any reason why this happened in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom at overlapping times? Is there some demographic or ideological cause? Have party loyalties weakened, creating a muddle? Or has politics become more polarized, reducing the extent to which parties seek the middle ground?

[Correction] The post above originally claimed that Australia had a Tory government. In fact, the centre-right Liberal party was in power from 1996 to 2007.

[Aside] My A570 IS point and shoot digicam certainly is easier to carry around than the 5D Mk II, but look how much noise there is at 400 ISO!