I hope you're wrong amigo. This is some bad mojo...

Posted by: Richard Evans at July 25, 2006 12:18 AM

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Steve...you do realize how serious an issue this would be if your title rings true..."fabric of democracy unravelling"?

I know you do, but before we start ringing the bells and yelling the sky is falling - putting a site on a restricted list isn't the end of civilization - just a bad admin or management decision.

Meaning, this is something akin to a knee jerk reaction.

However, it does show a lack of leadership and avoiding facing the music.

Democracy unravelling in Canada isn't new - remember Cretien sending the RCMP to an Ottawa reporters home a few years ago? Or RCMP with their fingers in AdScam cash for Musical Rides?

But...if lawlessness does continue, and native teens and young men roaming around looking for trouble, Clockwork Orange won't be too far off in Caledonia.

And that is bad mojo.

Posted by: tomax7 at July 25, 2006 12:57 AM

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I don't pretend to understand the finer points of the Canadian view of free speech and political censorship but from down here, south of the border, this looks pretty frightening. Then again, I was surprised at how you all seemed to accept the "blackout" on news of the investigation of Labor's corruption. I'm trying to get a handle on this but my family(most of it) left Canada long enough ago that we retain little understanding of your strange and alien ways.....it's almost like a whole different country!!! ;)
Love you guys,
Tim

Posted by: TBinSTL at July 25, 2006 01:32 AM

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TB...the irony is we Canadians have to use US and offshore hosting to get around publication bans.

The other irony is during the blackout Captain's Quarters exposed a lot of what the Liberals were doing, and helped (i hope) caused their demise and removal from the Canadian landscape.

But as you see with OPP and Caledonia 'blackout' things still need to be fixed up here.

Had the Liberals won the last election, coupled with Kerry in the US, I'd give blogs maybe 2-3 years before they'd get shut down. You know, National Security type thing.

Right.

Posted by: tomax7 at July 25, 2006 01:56 AM

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For the title of the piece, I was quoting Justice Thomas. He has witnessed his court order ignored for months by the police, and he is worried that the "fabric of democracy", as he puts it, is coming apart. It struck me that the business of the website is part of the same larger picture, as well as having a potential immediate effect on Justice Marshall himself, given that he is a provincial employee.

Posted by: Steve Janke at July 25, 2006 06:35 AM

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I don't understand why the opposition parties are so silent on all of this. To me, it would be perfect political fodder for the 2007 election.

A threat to our democracy is a fundamental concern.

Posted by: Joanne TB at July 25, 2006 07:27 AM

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Shades of Big Brother? The rank and file OPP members are as powerless as we are to stop this behaviour on the part of our elected 'leaders'. We have let our country down with our apathy. What to do?

Posted by: George at July 25, 2006 08:01 AM

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If only there was some way to contact Justice Marshall directly and tell him of what is going on. I dropped a message on John Tory's site, but who knows what good that will do.

Posted by: Surecure at July 25, 2006 09:01 AM

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I'm glad people are finally getting it. McGuinty and his ironically named Liberal party are anything but. They want to control as many aspects of your life as possible and don't seem to be reluctant to erode your rights to achieve that end.

To be honest, I find the Caledonia website rather strident and poorly written. It would appear that the person who runs it has an axe to grind with the OPP, which is OK by me, everyone should be able to publish their views.

By restricting access to the site, the Fibs are inadvertently promoting it. I expect the restriction came from McGuinty/Bryant, not the OPP. McGuinty would probably be happy to see no coverage whatsoever of the shocking situation in Caledonia.

The problem with the Fiberal gang is that they don't understand a simple aspect of human nature: the more you ban, restrict and try to control things, the more attractive these things tend to become.

Posted by: Selma at July 25, 2006 09:46 AM

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Selma: "...who runs it has an axe to grind with the OPP"

...I too feel this way. Was going to offer to revamp his site n/c, but the OPP bashing doesn't sit easy with me and if anything discredits any valid points he may have.

As I posted in another stream it's akin to getting a spam email with EVERYTHING IN CAPTIAL LETTERS, wanting you to TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW type thing.

The OPP aren't totally to blame, they are just puppets for a listless regime.

Having said that, the last thing the OPP wants to be felt sorry for, but that's all they are going to get from a lot of law obiding citizens if they don't stand up for law, order and justice.

Unfortunately they are the 'fall guy' in this act. Time to change directors.

Posted by: tomax7 at July 25, 2006 10:40 AM

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I think this just goes to show how flaccid the whole notion of a provincial government is. There are already calls for Harper to step in. Is there anything the provinces can do without needing the Feds to play the heavy? Law enforcement - nope. Securities regulation - nope - fly by nighter stock scammers move with impunity from province to province. Provincial trade - nope - there are more inter-provincial barriers to trade than there are between the Canada and the US.

I say remove the provinces and split the powers between the municipalities and the Feds. Time to downsize government...

Posted by: at July 25, 2006 10:57 AM

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Hi Steve, I work for the Government of Ontario, in a Ministry head office. I'm not sure where "mapleleaf4ever" got his information from, but I can access the Caledonia Wake-Up Call website just fine. As a matter of fact, I'm looking at it right now from my work computer (latest updates are "Jul 24 - Internet Polls" and "Jul 25 - Four Males Arrested in Caledonia Disturbance"), which is directly hooked up to the government network, behind the Ministry's firewall and everything.

Posted by: A at July 25, 2006 11:36 AM

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I can confirm that all OPP computers are blocked from viewing our site - it appears Government computers still can.

Of the 1100+ web pages on my site, a couple dozen are on the OPP – this is hardly holding something against them.

This all started a week ago when OPPA (the union) threatened to sue if I didn't change one web page out of the 1100+. This I did along with posting their lawyer's letter for all to see.

Five days later the OPP themselves banned all Computers from viewing my site - it appears to me they have a problem with me. It is the people of Caledonia who have a problem with them.

I'm just pointing out the various criminal stories that the OPP are trying to say never happened - coverup? They want everyone in Ontario to believe everything is calm in Caledonia. They do not want news stories about Caledonia.

Regarding the capital letters - get over it, it is called marketing - only one page had the capital letters – wow!

Of course, I am trying to draw people's attention - crimes are being committed without anyone being charged. Doesn't that deserve CAPITAL LETTERS?

Posted by: Gary McHale at July 25, 2006 12:17 PM

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I just pray that Justice Marshall reads these blogs. He is the only one that seems to care about democracy and justice in Ontario. He is our only hope.

Posted by: Joanne TB at July 25, 2006 12:25 PM

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...seeing I'm the one who brought up CAPTIAL LETTERS...

Gary, we can discuss your site via email if you wish, but your site does look 'hokie' and can be passed off as amaturish and as extreem.

BTW, speaking of Marketing, who or what is your target market - the National Inquirer rag mag readers, or the common people of Ontario and the rest of the country?

Big difference in how you present something.

Posted by: tomax7 at July 25, 2006 01:17 PM

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The Ontario Liberals are basically Communists...it would be no surprise if they do the same things that the Chinese government does...maybe next they'll be making a special Google for gov't employees and start filtering stuff out like 'freedom of speech' and 'civil liberties' :)

Posted by: Sticky at July 25, 2006 01:38 PM

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...oh, and I heartily agree with the no-name comment above that it's time to get rid of a redundant layer of government. All this subdivision came from the horse and buggy days...we now live in speed-of-light mass communications and speed of sound travel and no longer need all these autonomous regions.

Posted by: Sticky at July 25, 2006 01:44 PM

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Sticky, can you name a single other state with anywhere near the same levels of geographic, economic, demographic, or cultural diversity that Canada has that operates only a two-layer (i.e., federal and municipal) government structure? There may be some merit to shuffling around government responsibilities and power, but it's inane to suggest simply eliminating provincial political administrations entirely.

Posted by: A at July 25, 2006 01:59 PM

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...can you imagine how Canada would look right now on this two layer system if the Liberals were in power?

I shudder just thinking it...

Posted by: tomax7 at July 25, 2006 02:49 PM

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I work for the Ontario Ministry of Finance.

Up until yesterday (July 24) access to the Caledonia Wake Up Call website was blocked.

As of today (July 25) access to the Caledonia Wake Up Call website was no longer blocked.

An interesting coincidence

Posted by: Anonymous at July 25, 2006 02:54 PM

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A:

What areas do you think should remain under the purview of the provincial governments? I for one am tired of the premiers and their ministers looking more like panhandlers than leaders every time they have one of their brainstorming sessions. Every time a province has some sort of woe, ten fingers point in the general direction of Ottawa anyways.

I gave law enforcement, securities regulation and interprovincial trade barriers as three examples where the provinces should be stripped of their responsibilities - surely you can conversely come up with some worth defending instead of some nebulous assertion.

Tomax7:

I agree that the Liberals have wreaked havoc on the nation and that will take some undoing. However, the provincial NDP parties have managed to do way more damage during their tenure in Ontario, BC, and across the Prairies (save for Alberta)...

Posted by: at July 25, 2006 04:36 PM

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"provincial NDP parties have managed..."

SSDP.

;-)

- same, uh, stuff, different pile.

Posted by: tomax7 at July 25, 2006 04:48 PM

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tomax7:

There's a lot of difference between the two. The NDP is like a 16 year old kid who just got his license - the parents (voters) will give him the family beater (provincial office) and expect him to return it worse off than when he took it out. There's no way the parents trust him enough with the keys to the new car (federal office).

The Liberals are more like the 20 year old neighbour who's courting someone's (voters again) 16 year old daughter (i.e. federal money). No matter how flashy and genuine they try to come across, you can't help but see their underlying motives (i.e. name your scandal).

Posted by: at July 25, 2006 05:15 PM

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McHale's website looks hokey?

Holy cow, I just checked out yours! McHale is just a concerned citizen, you're attempting to pass yourself off as a web designer. Who do you design sites for, the church choir/bake sale?

now that's funny. to be sure McHale's website is no lump of gold - I wouldn't be surprised if he learned how to publish it on his own. But you're mocking him? Your site looks like it fell out of some archive circa 1996!

Posted by: Anonymous at July 25, 2006 07:37 PM

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Anonymous: how about the big ones, for starters? How do you imagine the health care system or the education system would operate without provincial administration? Would the feds run a country-wide thing from Parliament Hill? Or would every single last municipality (whether a big city or a tiny hamlet in the north) get a share of federal funding and be left on their own to hammer out a school or hospital network? Would you also amalgamate (or conversely, dismantle) all the provincial physician & surgeon and nurses colleges? They both operate in parallel with the provincial governments, after all.

Try imagining the state of our country's highways if maintenance were left entirely to Ottawa. A federal social services & welfare system--how inefficient and overburdened and abused would that be? How about the energy grid? And should there just be a giant federal penitentiary network, or should Calgary or Montreal or Digby (N.S.; population 2,111) have to fund and build their own?

You mistake as the source of your ire inefficient government laws, regulations, and funding arrangements with government itself. These are hardly the same thing. As I stated earlier, there may be merit in reorganizing what the feds, provinces, and municipalities are each responsible for, as well as in how funding moves between those three levels. But removing the middle tier altogether? A ridiculous notion.

Posted by: A at July 25, 2006 08:16 PM

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A: Not to go off the deep-end, but Canada "only a two-layer (i.e., federal and municipal) government structure?" Boy you won't be making any friends on the municipal level if you don't consider their work to be "governing"...

Besides, all your ranting about the negative aspects of Federal government taking more governing power on a Conservative leaning site is a bit rich. With the exception of the anonymous poster, isn't that like preaching to the converted?

Posted by: Surecure at July 25, 2006 10:12 PM

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A: I stand by what I said. During the election debates, Gilles Duceppe did come up with one valid point...there are 10,000 medical people in various bureaucracy positions in Ottawa and not in hospitals...I would call that massive redundancy.

Canada needs to get over the idea that it's a BIG COUNTRY...it's not...it's a small country of 28 million and declining. We NEED to be more efficient. More people live in New York City and Los Angeles than in our WHOLE COUNTRY.

So yes...time for a merger and a downsizing...we can hire 'Chainsaw Al' :)

Posted by: Sticky at July 26, 2006 12:17 AM

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Ok, I'll bite Anonymous: "Your site looks like it fell out of some archive circa 1996!"

I'll be the first to agree with you, I'm not really a flashy kinda guy, plus my 15+ clients don't seem to have an issue with it either.

Besides, most of my sites rank #1-4 spots in Google, Yahoo, Ask, and MSN...hey guess who ranks #1 with "web design notes" as a key phrase?

But hey, seeing you don't know how to put one's name to their posting maybe you need a little cheering up.

Type "please laugh" in Google. While I'm in #1 spot I think you're being referred to in #2 spot...

;-)

Posted by: tomax7 at July 26, 2006 01:55 AM

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ok, I confess, I was wondering who the other person who visited my site today was.

;-)

Posted by: tomax7 at July 26, 2006 02:18 AM

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Surecore: It was Sticky (and Anonymous), not myself, who proposed eliminating provincial government and reducing Canada to a federal-municipal-only system. I was merely challenging him to name another country with the same vastness and diversity as Canada that operates a two-layer government structure like the hypothetical one he proposes.

Also, as it is Anonymous and Sticky who propose eliminating the provincial tier of government, it's they who are encouraging the Feds to take on more governing power (and on a Conservative leaning site, to boot).

Posted by: A at July 26, 2006 08:39 AM

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Sticky: NYC (pop. 8 million) does not in fact have a larger population than Canada. Indeed, NY State (19 mil.) does not have a larger population than Canada. Neither does LA proper (4 mil.) nor metro (13 mil.), though California (37 million) does (all figures from 2005 US Census Bureau). You may be thinking of Greater Tokyo (36 mil.), though Tokyo itself is quite small (8 mil.).

But your point is taken--Canada's population is not huge. Its landmass, however, is. It's also geographically vast, and regionally and economically diverse. So we need administrative regions (i.e., provinces) in between the federal and municipal levels to support this diversity. One purpose of provincial governments, after all, is to streamline local processes. It'd be far more inefficient if each municipality operated as a self-contained city-state.

I agree with both Mr. Duceppe and you that there are 'massive redundancies' throughout the system. However, these redundancies exist primarily WITHIN each layer of government, not BETWEEN them. There are ways to make government leaner without cutting out its middle. If you're running a business, you don't improve efficiency by firing all the middle managers, leaving just the board of directors and the factory floor workers. You improve it by cutting red tape, shuffling responsibilities, and reorganizing staff in each level.

Given that you're the one advocating getting rid of provincial governments altogether, how is it that you're calling me 'Chainsaw Al'?

Posted by: A at July 26, 2006 09:24 AM

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A:

I would argue that with all three levels of government currently with their hands in the till, the social services function is more subject to abuse as it exists now. I'm not enough a soulless conservative to think that the less fortunate in society don't deserve our attention but I do think the poor would be better served with one agency instead of the plethora that exist now. Less money for civic, provincial and federal bureaucracies would mean more money in their pockets.

Vis-a-vis healthcare - are you actually espousing the merits of TEN different colleges of physicians & surgeons? Do you think these myriad fiefdoms ensure that someone in Digby is getting the same standard of care as in Kenora or Prince Rupert?

We can thank the Liberals for the current state of the Trans Canada Highway - it is up to the voters to hold the Feds accountable. If a gas tax is levied in the name of infrastructure improvement, there should be ramifications when these taxes slip into general revenues and the wallets of parasitic ad execs.

Regarding allocation of hospitals, etc. - how is the municipalities hammering out where a new hospital or jail will go any different than the municipalities currently engaging in lobbying the provinces to situate a hospital/jail in their population centre? The municipalities would have to do what is best for the overall interest of their contituents and not just engage in rent-seeking politicking at the Legislatures.

One of the fundamental tenets of the fiscal conservative is less government so I don't understand how you can be surprised that someone would espouse the virtues of same on this site.

Posted by: at July 26, 2006 09:35 AM

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A:

BTW, I also question your analogy of the municipalities being the front line workers, provinces being middle management and the feds being upper management. Given that they all operate relatively independently of one another, they are more akin to three different companies delivering a service called government. Do you have three different phone companies giving you phone services? Do you routinely shop at three different stores simultaneously to buy groceries?

Posted by: at July 26, 2006 09:54 AM

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My mistake A. And by the way it's Surecure (U at the end), not Surecore (O at the end).

Posted by: Surecure at July 26, 2006 10:33 AM

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Caledoniawakeupcallsite does not provide accurate information. They do not post links to some original articles, but only copies ... copies can be doctored to say what they want them to say. They were exposed for doing this once already.

The information on the site is not reliable ... it may be misleading. It is a smear website.

Posted by: saga at July 26, 2006 11:11 AM

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I should add that Gary McHale of wakeupcall said he got the article from Steve Janke, from this site ... it is as yet unclear who doctored the report, but both claedoniawakeupcall and angryinthegreatwhitenorth used it.

Posted by: saga at July 26, 2006 11:14 AM

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Surecure: No worries. Apologies for the typo.

Anon: True, the analogy of government-as-single-company is flawed. However, for a given service (say, health care), all three levels do work together in a somewhat vertical fashion (e.g., Feds provide money, provinces provide policy/infrastructure, and services are delivered locally). Again, not perfect (e.g., municipal gov't isn’t directly involved), but the point is, you need multiple levels of organization to keep things efficient.

Welfare distribution can and should be improved. But a single, federally-run social services system would be administratively insane and arguably no more efficient. Same rationale applies for having separate licensing bodies for MDs. Improvements are needed to ensure that Digby gets the same standard of healthcare as Kenora or Prince Rupert, but I'm pretty sure that a single federal regulatory body responsible for Digby, Kenora, AND Prince Rupert (as well as the thousand+ other municipalities in the country simultaneously) would fare far worse. And would you rather each municipality lobby Ottawa individually and directly for prisons and hospitals?

Ditto for roads. True, the TransCanada (the only highway the Feds are partially responsible for) needs more work, but if Ottawa can barely manage one highway, imagine if they were responsible for all of them. Or, if it's up to the municipalities, who'd take care of rural roads that connect remote communities?

My overarching point, Anon, is that less (or at the very least, more efficient) gov't is one thing. But realize that espousing the complete elimination of provincial gov't means, for all practical purposes, eliminating the notion of provinces entirely. There'd be no such thing as B.C. or Alberta or Newfoundland -- just ‘Canada’ and thousands of individual municipalities. Is that really what you're proposing?

Posted by: A at July 26, 2006 11:19 AM

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A:

There are obvious places where provincial politics are hindering our ability to compete internationally - i.e. securities regulation. It is embarassing to see the SEC step in on the provincial regulators before faith can be restored in our financial markets. We fear American influence but when it comes to sovereignty in our OWN capital markets, it takes an American (national not state-based) institution to bring justice to the likes of Conrad Black, etc.

Perhaps the total eradication of provincial governments is a stretch but I would argue that the branches of provincial responsibility require a chainsaw more than they need a slight pruning. So I guess I support a radical overhaul and not necessarily complete eradication of the provinces. You raise some interesting issues but I am sure they could be dealt with with the proper implementation.

I still don't understand your contention on provincial licensing bodies for doctors. How upset would you be as a consumer if you saw two heads of lettuce and just as you were about to pick one, you were told that as an Ontario resident you were trying to get a head of lettuce destined for Quebec. We wouldn't tolerate this on mass consumer products (except for margarine in Quebec - another example of provincial politics gone awry) - why would we accept this on something as important as health care or education? Shouldn't we have a set standard for these important items irrespective of geography and/or provincial politicking?

Posted by: at July 26, 2006 01:10 PM

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Anon: I'm not familiar with the inner working of provincial securities regulations, though if it's like other areas, I'm sure there's always room for substantial improvements. I can agree that the public good is too often undermined by petty political squabbling, which can be endemic at any levels.

As for licensing bodies, as a consumer, I'd only be upset if the head of lettuce I'm unable to access is clearly superior to the one available to me. As long as both are fresh and crunchy, what does it matter that I my lettuce is licensed in Ontario? Province-based medical licensing makes logistical sense as long as the provinces are responsible for administering health care services. Is there reason to believe that some provincial licensing bodies hold their doctors and nurses (and lawyers and teachers and pharmacists and veterinarians and foresters and land surveyors...) at a higher standard of practise than others?

Posted by: A at July 26, 2006 02:49 PM

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A:

If all of these professionals are held to the same standard, then ten different licensing bodies for each profession makes no intuitive sense. If there is no difference, then surely there is no issue to amalgamating them all, right? Oh wait - we get into the issue of fiefdoms...

We should work to harmonize laws and standards to facilitate the mobility of these professionals. As was previously stated in someone else's post, the provincial structure was predicated on an old paradigm where people were not as mobile and communications were antiquated.

If all provincial standards are as similar as you have asserted, why does a lawyer have to register to practise law in EACH province? Shouldn't they just autmotically recognize that this individual is competent enough to practise his/her profession? By your own logic the only purpose that differing redundant governing bodies serve is to hamper the interprovincial mobility of professionals. That in my books is another criticism of the current system.

Posted by: at July 26, 2006 04:00 PM

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Standards of practise may be equally ambitious across all provinces and territories, but that doesn't make separate licensing bodies redundant, because of non-standards-related idiosyncrasies in each jurisdiction. There is more to licensing bodies than just setting abstract standards of practise, codes of ethics, etc.

At the very least, maintaining separate provincial licensing bodies makes sense from administrative and fiscal perspectives, assuming that provinces also exist. Example: since provinces pay doctors, it makes sense to have some agency at the provincial level to monitor and regulate how many doctors are practising in each province, if only for budgeting purposes. Licensing fees and processes in each province also serve the purpose of encouraging professionals to commit to their chosen jurisdictions, which promotes stable service delivery. This is a particularly good thing in smaller communities that have only a handful of doctors and can ill-afford to have them suddenly bugger off to another province, and is only a slight use of the stick on the part of the regulatory bodies.

Another example: different provinces have different laws, regulations, and legal practises (say, for example, Ontario's Courts of Justice Act, and associated regulations). Since law societies self-regulate, it administratively more efficient for Ontario lawyers who violate a regulation to be sanctioned by their own licensing body, who best understand these convoluted pieces of legislation. Amalgamating all law societies into a single one could work in theory, but this single law society would have to wrestle with 13 different sets of rules governing the administration of justice, thus negating any efficiency improvements.

I agree that processes could and should be streamlined to enable professionals to more easily transfer their practises from one province to another. In the case of lawyers, provisions already exist in many jurisdictions. This agreement, which you'll note continues to recognize the role of individual provincial law societies, acknowledges that lawyers trained in one province is well-qualified to practise in another, and are therefore exempt from having to write transfer examinations. This model could be emulated in other professions.

Posted by: A at July 26, 2006 06:07 PM

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...i don't know if this site is unravelling or the topic at hand...

Posted by: tomax7 at July 26, 2006 10:50 PM

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A: I guess we'll agree to disagree, although I admit it's been fun.

Tomax7: I don't think the thread was hijacked - the current structure of the justice system is partly to blame for the situation in Caledonia. If McWimpy can go all Neville Chamberlain and still manage to deflect the blame to Harper, do you think he has any impetus to act? This incident just shows how useless the provinces are in many instances...

Posted by: at July 27, 2006 09:47 AM

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I,m really tired of the natives crying this is their land, it,s not.Many years ago they fought a battle , they lost so, sorry.Now they get free money, free health care, don,t pay taxes,they are free to hunt and fish whenever they want(depleting the fish stock as they fish at spawning season with nets and spears), doesn,t sound to bad for losing a war. I wonder if we would have gotten half of that if we had lost?When ever they put up a road block I say hold back their checks put up our own road blocks to the hospitals, and liquor stores and i,d bet their road blocks would come down soon.I know that some people won,t like this comment but I know a lot of people feel that the same way.

Posted by: bill at July 28, 2006 12:19 AM

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