Canadian Politics: Another Moose Bites The Dust

Imperfect

Critically important moose news, now brought to YOU.

Ottawa police shoot 1 of 2 loose moose

CBC News wrote:

A moose was shot dead by police and another has returned to the woods after the two animals wandered into the grounds of an Ottawa school on Tuesday.

Police had set up a perimeter Tuesday afternoon at the rear of École élémentaire catholique des Pionniers on Merkley Drive in Orléans, where the two moose had been corralled for most of the morning before escaping in the afternoon.

Yes, that's right, two moose were taking refuge in a catholic school, one of which was shot dead, likely for trespassing. But it gets worse.

Ottawa moose death leads to squabble

CBC News wrote:

The police shooting death of a moose near an Ottawa school this week has left officials at odds about who was responsible.

"I think there's been a lot of buck passing — pardon the pun — between the city, the NCC [the National Capital Commission] and the [Ontario] Ministry of Natural Resources," said Donna Dubreuil, founder of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre Wednesday.

Canada requires a more formal moose-shooting policy, and to that end, I have created a petition to that effect.

Formal Moose-Shooting Procedure in Canada

Please, go and sign, and contribute to the political future of Canada!

In other news, some Copyright Bill or other is coming out this week, oh and Stephen Harper is evil or something? I haven't been keeping track of other, lesser issues.

Decius

mmmm Moose.

Aegis

Best OP for this thread yet.

Reposting from the last thread since I find it interesting:

Michael Geist wrote:

"We Don't Care What You Do, As Long as the U.S. Is Satisfied"

David Akin has pointed to a new paper from Blayne Haggart, a doctoral student at Carleton who is focusing on copyright policy in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. The paper, being presented this week in Montreal, includes some interesting analysis of digital copyright reforms in each country. Given today's introduction of the copyright reform bill, of particular significance are comments Haggart obtained from Michele Austin, who served as Maxime Bernier's chief of staff when he was Industry Minister.

According to Austin, the decision to introduce U.S.-style DMCA rules in Canada in 2007 was strictly a political decision, the result of pressure from the Prime Minister's Office desire to meet U.S. demands. She states "the Prime Minister's Office's position was, move quickly, satisfy the United States." When Bernier and then-Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda protested, the PMO replied "we don't care what you do, as long as the U.S. is satisfied."

This mandate will not come as a huge surprise to anyone who has followed the issue, but it still shocks to see it presented in such stark terms. Given the strong public opposition to the anti-circumvention provisions in C-61, the thousands of Canadians who spoke out against the U.S. approach during the copyright consultation, and even Industry Minister Tony Clement's reported support for a more flexible approach, it would appear that the PMO's decision to side with Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore in requiring strict anti-circumvention rules reflects a long-term decision to prioritize U.S. interests on copyright ahead of the national interest. The decision is particularly discouraging since it is unnecessary - a compromise could be struck that provides legal protection for digital locks, is WIPO compliant, and preserves the copyright balance.

Imperfect

The best part is that I never have to update it with current news.

Moose are always current.

ALWAYS.

<moose-eye.gif>

hippofant

Imperfect wrote: »

Moose are always current.

You mean meese.

Decius

Imperfect wrote: »

Moose are always delicious.

quovadis13

hippofant wrote: »

Imperfect wrote: »

Moose are always current.

You mean meese.

mooses??

BTW, great OP

Sipex

Last month police in my city were forced to shot a bear to death.

Mind, they gave it a lot of time and called Animal Control (which never showed, even after three hours about).

Imperfect

Moosen?

Imperfect

Actually, I think I missed the biggest part of this story - there were "loose moose" on a catholic schoolground.

Exactly how did they know the moose were loose? Did they catch them sleeping around? Were they there to pick up catholic schoolgirls? Perhaps this is why they were shot! Considering it was an elementary school, I for one, applaud this action.

Sipex

Canada is for the execution of moose pedophiles.

Iron Weasel

Those fucking moose had it coming.

Azio

The Ender wrote: »

Yeah. CPC cutting back the GST was an idiotic move; the average person can't possibly save that much on goods, while the government lost a huge chunk of change.

I'm not sure how home & income tax are currently doing, but I imagine we need to take a second look at those too.

I support rolling back or repealing the GST because sales taxes are regressive and are most burdensome on the lower and working classes, who spend most of their income on goods. The problem is a GST rollback would need to be accompanied by an increase in corporate, income, and/or capital gains taxes and increased regulation of offshoring and tax shelters, which the Conservatives and Liberals have no interest in doing. Instead we got a GST rollback followed by a new sales tax on essentials like food and children's clothing. When you add everything up it amounts to a massive tax hike on the working class to pay for the middle and upper classes' economically disastrous behaviour and rampant tax cheating.

Sipex

Is there a list of what HST applies to compared to what the old GST and/or PST applied to?

I would like to know how to expect to be affected by my current habits.

LaOs

I had heard about the loose moose yesterday and then woke up this morning to find the local news talk radio host speaking with one of the Provincial environment (or whatever) officials talking about an increase in the moose population in Southern Saskatchewan, new warning signs along the highways, and proposed methods for controlling the (apparently now out of control and growingly dangerous) moose population in Saskatchewan.

Wacky!

Silex

Being that I live in Orléans, the moose news has making the rounds quite a bit, but I'm surprised at the national attention it has gotten. I really thought this was going to be kept to a strict local story.

Aegis

Silex wrote: »

Being that I live in Orléans, the moose news has making the rounds quite a bit, but I'm surprised at the national attention it has gotten. I really thought this was going to be kept to a strict local story.

Slow news week.

The Ender

I support rolling back or repealing the GST because sales taxes are regressive and are most burdensome on the lower and working classes, who spend most of their income on goods. The problem is a GST rollback would need to be accompanied by an increase in corporate, income, and/or capital gains taxes and increased regulation of offshoring and tax shelters, which the Conservatives and Liberals have no interest in doing.

That's a good point; I hadn't thought about that.

Instead we got a GST rollback followed by a new sales tax on essentials like food and children's clothing. When you add everything up it amounts to a massive tax hike on the working class to pay for the middle and upper classes' economically disastrous behaviour and rampant tax cheating.

...I must be living under a rock or something. When did this new tax on essentials get put into place? That should've pissed-off Harper's base over here, but I haven't heard a whisper of dissent.

shryke

The Ender wrote: »

I support rolling back or repealing the GST because sales taxes are regressive and are most burdensome on the lower and working classes, who spend most of their income on goods. The problem is a GST rollback would need to be accompanied by an increase in corporate, income, and/or capital gains taxes and increased regulation of offshoring and tax shelters, which the Conservatives and Liberals have no interest in doing.

That's a good point; I hadn't thought about that.

Instead we got a GST rollback followed by a new sales tax on essentials like food and children's clothing. When you add everything up it amounts to a massive tax hike on the working class to pay for the middle and upper classes' economically disastrous behaviour and rampant tax cheating.

...I must be living under a rock or something. When did this new tax on essentials get put into place? That should've pissed-off Harper's base over here, but I haven't heard a whisper of dissent.

I think he's talking about the HST.

Which, as I understand it, taxes some stuff more because certain provincial sales taxes (I think it's the provincial ones) don't target certain items that the GST does.


So, for example, before now if you bought a stereo and baby food you'd pay GST at X% on both but only pay PST at Y% on the stereo.
With the HST, you'd pay HST at (X + Y)% on both items.

So essentially, by implementing the HST, you've raised the price of baby food by Y%.


I could be completely mad though and totally off base.

hippofant

The Ender wrote: »

Instead we got a GST rollback followed by a new sales tax on essentials like food and children's clothing. When you add everything up it amounts to a massive tax hike on the working class to pay for the middle and upper classes' economically disastrous behaviour and rampant tax cheating.

...I must be living under a rock or something. When did this new tax on essentials get put into place? That should've pissed-off Harper's base over here, but I haven't heard a whisper of dissent.

BC and Ontario are both adopting the HST (harmonized sales tax) which replaces their PST/GST combos. For both provinces, this means that things that weren't taxed under the PST are now being taxed under the HST and things that weren't taxed under the GST also aren't being taxed under the HST. This means there's been a PST-sized tax added to many essentials, which are what comprised most of the formercategory.

Gnome-Interruptus

As an accountant, HST is nice. As a citizen, HST is the devil.

Entriech

The text of C-32 will be released eventually I imagine, but Michael Geist has his analysis up. So far it sounds like there have been some slight improvements, but they are still insisting on absolutely no circumvention of digital locks, even for legal purposes, which is a huge problem.

I'm hopeful that one of the opposition parties is able to budge them to get that exception in there. I really cannot understand not allowing for legal circumvention. The legalities are pretty clearly defined, they can still chase down bootleggers and pirates all they want, and we'll still be able to rip DVDs we own to our computers.

Edit: And here is a link to the bill.

Decius

Well the bill has been introduced. They're talking about it on the radio today. I called in and asked them to make sure people are aware this will block their fair use rights.

General_Win

Are there not loopholes for this kind of thing?

Like we're allowed to backup our media.

But we can't circumvent protection.

So who do we call to backup our stuff?

Would I call, for example, HMV asking that they send me a free of charge backup of my CD/DVD?
Do I ask the lobbyists?
Do I ask the government?
Do I ask Sony or Disney or whoever made it originally?

Entriech

General_Win wrote: »

Are there not loopholes for this kind of thing?

Like we're allowed to backup our media.

But we can't circumvent protection.

This is the crux of the issue. Every exception they provided is overruled by the digital lock provision. If a media company puts any kind of digital lock on something, even one that is completely ineffectual, all of your consumer rights go *poof*.

Protein Shakes

I don't understand - why did they not shoot the moose with a tranquilizer?

Raakam

Protein Shakes wrote: »

I don't understand - why did they not shoot the moose with a tranquilizer?

Could be that the moose was rather big and it would've taken a while for the tranquilizer to kick in. Angry moose = dangerous as all hell.

General_Win

I don't understand why they didn't try to tazer it first.

horseman85

Protein Shakes wrote: »

I don't understand - why did they not shoot the moose with a tranquilizer?

They actually ran out of tranquilizer darts. Moose moved everytime a dart was fired at it.

hippofant

General_Win wrote: »

I don't understand why they didn't try to tazer it first.

Size of the animal requires different quantities of electrical energy to bring down.

Also, why we don't tazer little children.

Azio

General_Win wrote: »

Are there not loopholes for this kind of thing?

Like we're allowed to backup our media.

But we can't circumvent protection.

So who do we call to backup our stuff?

Would I call, for example, HMV asking that they send me a free of charge backup of my CD/DVD?
Do I ask the lobbyists?
Do I ask the government?
Do I ask Sony or Disney or whoever made it originally?

just download a crack and back it up yourself and rest easy knowing that nobody will ever know, let alone bother to fine you thousands of dollars for something so trivial

hippofant

General_Win wrote: »

Are there not loopholes for this kind of thing?

Like we're allowed to backup our media.

But we can't circumvent protection.

So who do we call to backup our stuff?

Would I call, for example, HMV asking that they send me a free of charge backup of my CD/DVD?
Do I ask the lobbyists?
Do I ask the government?
Do I ask Sony or Disney or whoever made it originally?

Sheldon Burshtein, Toronto-based copyright lawyer wrote:

"If I lock my door and I say 'Go in and use the fridge,' the moment you break my lock, you're breaking and entering, even if I say 'Once you're in the house, you can use my fridge.'

Tony Clement, Industry Minster wrote:

There will be lots of content that is not locked and for those areas where content is locked I'm sure there will be lots of consumer pressure to provide other alternatives. We're not imposing locks on anyone.

Seems like this bill basically relies on businesses not to be total dicks. Hey guys, you remember when you could only get Windows Vista when you bought a new computer because Microsoft pushed computer manufacturers to sell Vista only even when consumers clearly preferred XP? And remember how companies will file frivolous lawsuits that they're bound to lose just to defend their trademarks because trademark laws demand that companies defend them? And remember how the RIAA was intentionally losing money suing individual file-sharers for ridiculous amounts of money that they couldn't pay in a "Let's everybody go to hell together" strategy?

General_Win

Azio wrote: »

General_Win wrote: »

Are there not loopholes for this kind of thing?

Like we're allowed to backup our media.

But we can't circumvent protection.

So who do we call to backup our stuff?

Would I call, for example, HMV asking that they send me a free of charge backup of my CD/DVD?
Do I ask the lobbyists?
Do I ask the government?
Do I ask Sony or Disney or whoever made it originally?

just download a crack and back it up yourself and rest easy knowing that nobody will ever know, let alone bother to fine you thousands of dollars for something so trivial

Well obviously no one will ever come to your house, so you can continue to backup your data whatever way.

Could you imagine you're in a police interrogation room and they have a copy of Celine Dion's Greatest hits and the burnt cd you have of it.

The Greatest hits CD has copy protection and they want to know how you burnt a copy.

Sipex

Azio wrote: »

General_Win wrote: »

Are there not loopholes for this kind of thing?

Like we're allowed to backup our media.

But we can't circumvent protection.

So who do we call to backup our stuff?

Would I call, for example, HMV asking that they send me a free of charge backup of my CD/DVD?
Do I ask the lobbyists?
Do I ask the government?
Do I ask Sony or Disney or whoever made it originally?

just download a crack and back it up yourself and rest easy knowing that nobody will ever know, let alone bother to fine you thousands of dollars for something so trivial

Metallica would like to have a word with you.

Phisti

The real issue with the moose shooting (and I say "issue" lightly because it's really peanuts in the scheme of things) is that the City of Ottawa has no contract with any authority to deal with wildlife issues. City management let the contract with the NCC expire and as a result the police need to deal with all wildlife situations.

- the city police called the Ministry of Natural Resources who said "hey we don't have jurisdiction within municipal boundaries, have fun"
- they called the National Capital Commission (NCC) who said "um... you let our contract expire 2 years ago"
- so they called in some animal control contractor (zoo personnel maybe - unclear on this one) who, after having a moose corralled and agitated tried to tranquilize it...

In the end the moose was shot about 7 hours after it was first called in to the police. Sad for the moose, sad for the city that it took 7 hours to do something that half the population of the Ottawa Valley could have done in 30 seconds. But hey...

So yeah, Ottawa has tons of green space, and I'm honestly surprised this stuff doesn't happen more. Maybe people just see big animals and let them be, who knows. But good work on the City of Ottawa to keep on top of it's management duties (/sarcasm off)

Imperfect

This is why we neat a CLEAR PROCEDURE.

Oats

shryke wrote: »

The Ender wrote: »

I support rolling back or repealing the GST because sales taxes are regressive and are most burdensome on the lower and working classes, who spend most of their income on goods. The problem is a GST rollback would need to be accompanied by an increase in corporate, income, and/or capital gains taxes and increased regulation of offshoring and tax shelters, which the Conservatives and Liberals have no interest in doing.

That's a good point; I hadn't thought about that.

Instead we got a GST rollback followed by a new sales tax on essentials like food and children's clothing. When you add everything up it amounts to a massive tax hike on the working class to pay for the middle and upper classes' economically disastrous behaviour and rampant tax cheating.

...I must be living under a rock or something. When did this new tax on essentials get put into place? That should've pissed-off Harper's base over here, but I haven't heard a whisper of dissent.

I think he's talking about the HST.

Which, as I understand it, taxes some stuff more because certain provincial sales taxes (I think it's the provincial ones) don't target certain items that the GST does.


So, for example, before now if you bought a stereo and baby food you'd pay GST at X% on both but only pay PST at Y% on the stereo.
With the HST, you'd pay HST at (X + Y)% on both items.

So essentially, by implementing the HST, you've raised the price of baby food by Y%.


I could be completely mad though and totally off base.

That's pretty much the jist of it.

Except, on a bunch of items, there will be an instant rebate on the item for the value of what was the PST.

So you pay (X+Y-Y)% on those items.

CanadianWolverine

I would like it if stores listed the price of the item on the shelf with the tax already added in. And if we stopped making pennies if their value is less than what it costs to mint them. And is anyone really fooled by $0.99 is much of a deal compared to $1.00, thinking that item is a dollar less?

Oh well, all I know at the end of the day is my paycheck is taken up by necessary bills like rent, heat(electricity), and food with little left over for anything else. I think it was Azio who had the right of things in a post at the end of the last thread, IIRC.

Edit: Didn't recall correctly where the post was, it was just on the first page of this thread.

Azio wrote: »

The Ender wrote: »

Yeah. CPC cutting back the GST was an idiotic move; the average person can't possibly save that much on goods, while the government lost a huge chunk of change.

I'm not sure how home & income tax are currently doing, but I imagine we need to take a second look at those too.

I support rolling back or repealing the GST because sales taxes are regressive and are most burdensome on the lower and working classes, who spend most of their income on goods. The problem is a GST rollback would need to be accompanied by an increase in corporate, income, and/or capital gains taxes and increased regulation of offshoring and tax shelters, which the Conservatives and Liberals have no interest in doing. Instead we got a GST rollback followed by a new sales tax on essentials like food and children's clothing. When you add everything up it amounts to a massive tax hike on the working class to pay for the middle and upper classes' economically disastrous behaviour and rampant tax cheating.

Azio

Well I didn't go into great detail I just said "This is bad mmkay"

I just sort of expect people to tacitly agree with me because I'm always right about everything

hippofant

CanadianWolverine wrote: »

I would like it if stores listed the price of the item on the shelf with the tax already added in. And if we stopped making pennies if their value is less than what it costs to mint them. And is anyone really fooled by $0.99 is much of a deal compared to $1.00, thinking that item is a dollar less?

Oh well, all I know at the end of the day is my paycheck is taken up by necessary bills like rent, heat(electricity), and food with little left over for anything else. I think it was Azio who had the right of things in a post at the end of the last thread, IIRC.

Wait, did you mean this one:

I just drove home from Quincy, WA in the middle of the night and I honestly think anyone who drives a tall vehicle with bright headlights for non-commercial purposes should be locked into said vehicle while it is crushed by a cubing machine.

Or this one?

Like every other petrostate, to preserve the veneer of democracy Alberta needs to replace its big-oil junta government every couple of decades. This is usually accomplished by some "business leaders" or whatever riding a wave of right wing populism into power. I don't think a hypothetical Wild Rose government would actually try to separate. And if they did, they certainly would not succeed if the "security and prosperity" plutocrats who basically run this continent and are the main federal/international political force behind oil sands expansion had anything to do with it.

Also, re. the HST, there are a number of things that were being taxed under PST that aren't going to be under the HST too, but we just don't talk about those.

CanadianWolverine

Whoops, I did not recall correctly. It wasn't just last thread, it was just last page.

Azio wrote: »

The Ender wrote: »

Yeah. CPC cutting back the GST was an idiotic move; the average person can't possibly save that much on goods, while the government lost a huge chunk of change.

I'm not sure how home & income tax are currently doing, but I imagine we need to take a second look at those too.

I support rolling back or repealing the GST because sales taxes are regressive and are most burdensome on the lower and working classes, who spend most of their income on goods. The problem is a GST rollback would need to be accompanied by an increase in corporate, income, and/or capital gains taxes and increased regulation of offshoring and tax shelters, which the Conservatives and Liberals have no interest in doing. Instead we got a GST rollback followed by a new sales tax on essentials like food and children's clothing. When you add everything up it amounts to a massive tax hike on the working class to pay for the middle and upper classes' economically disastrous behaviour and rampant tax cheating.

There was a really interesting post by yourself, Hippofant, just last thread that for some reason was getting mixed up in my head with Azio's post.

hippofant wrote: »

So on the one hand, our health care costs have been growing at an unsustainable rate - 8% annually this decade in Ontario while government revenue has been growing at less than 4%.

On the other, medicare spending has been hovering around 4-5% of our GDP since 1975.

Having read both of these opinion pieces in the Toronto Star this week, I am very confused as to what the hell's going on then. If medicare spending has been hovering at the same % of our GDP, but has somehow been growing faster than our tax revenues... then the only conclusion is that our tax revenues haven't been keeping up with our GDP growth and we should raise taxes?