Elizabeth May: Parliamentarian of the Year.

This week MPs, senators and the media gathered in the Adam Room of the The Fairmont Château Laurier for the 6th annual Parliamentarians of the Year awards ceremony.Green Leader Elizabeth May was named Parliamentarian of the Year.
In an interview with Aaron Wherry's for article in Macleans she spoke about the state of our Parliamentary Democracy, below is a small extract..

“I love parliamentary democracy. I am fascinated by procedure. I’m beside myself with the way things are slipping.” What follows then is a 524-word dissertation—stretching from the slightest breach of decorum to the profound questions of power at the heart of our system—on the state of parliamentary democracy in Ottawa.

“I know it sounds small, but you’re not supposed to have members of Parliament standing and waiting their turn because they know when they’re going to be called and they have their speech ready and they’ve got the little podium and they’ve got a written speech in front of them and they’re standing while someone else is speaking. No one is supposed to stand except the person that’s been recognized by the Speaker and until you’re recognized by the Speaker you’re not supposed to stand. I know these may seem like small points, but it’s indicative of a failure to recognize that the respect for traditions in the House of Commons may start with things like one person stands at a time and only when recognized by the Speaker. And as soon as the Speaker stands, the person who’s in full oratory flight is supposed to sit down. Those are things that when you ignore that you also can get away with having a prime minister who ignores all parliamentary tradition and prorogues—well, not all, because Sir John A. Macdonald did it once and then paid for it by losing power—but you’re not supposed to prorogue the House of Commons to avoid a political difficulty. So a failure to respect our traditions of Stephen Harper proroguing twice then launched into Dalton McGuinty proroguing. This is very unhealthy for democracy. Because we are a Westminster parliamentary democracy and tradition and if we don’t pay attention and respect Parliament, then we are allowing the Prime Minister’s Office, which doesn’t exist as an entity in our constitution, it’s not like the executive branch and the White House in the U.S. constitution—the notion of a Prime Minister’s Office as an entity in the machinery of government is simply an invention, but it’s like a cancerous growth. And as the Prime Minister’s Office grows, and this is a trend we started with Pierre Trudeau in a much more innocuous way, it’s not reached its apex, but if we don’t do anything to stop it, what else will the next prime minister do? And as the PMO grows into being the all-powerful decision-maker, leaving cabinet ministers, basically their job appears to be the primary public relations spokesperson for an area of policy they had nothing to do with developing, it’s dangerous to health of democracy. So respect for Parliament, to me, is synonymous with respect for democracy. And I respect Parliament and that’s where the work is happening. I respect … there’s very few ministers who actually, actually I can only think of one, who sit though parliamentary debate on their own bills. And that’s, and should I say for credit where credit’s due, Jason Kenney. When his bills are being debated and when I rise to criticize his legislation, he actually knows what I’m talking about and will make a reasoned defence of his own legislation. But for the most part, it’s like a ritualized form of theatre. And that’s dangerous. It’s not just a relic, sort of an anachronism, that we still have parliamentary democracy. That’s the system. And the problem is PMO, not Parliament.”
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Wind Turbine Health Report

Our own local Medical Officer of Health has been asked to do a health study on the effects of industrial wind turbines upon the predominantly rural residents that have had these part time wind driven generators built in their backyards. I doubt that she has the necessary resources to do a proper study and there has been much reluctance to previously do so by both the wind industry and government. However there is now at least one independent study that has been published that confirms what many of those affected have been saying.
The study — “Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health” — assessed two wind farm communities in Maine and whilst limited in scope does conclude that some folks are indeed negatively affected even at a distance of over 1km.

The study concludes “that the noise emissions of IWTs (industrial wind turbines) disturbed the sleep and caused daytime sleepiness and impaired mental health in residents living within 1.4 km of the two IWT installations studied. Industrial wind turbine noise is a further source of environmental noise, with the potential to harm human health. Current regulations seem to be insufficient to adequately protect the human population living close to IWTs. Our research suggests that adverse effects are observed at distances even beyond 1 km. Further research is needed to determine at what distances risks become negligible, as well as to better estimate the portion of the population suffering from adverse effects at a given distance.”

It should be noted that this study only considered noise concerns and did not address other things raised by those living near such 'wind farms'. I for one wonder why there is a moratorium of offshore wind farms that are distant from human habitation and not one on those that continue to spring up all across rural Ontario where the residents and indeed local municipal councils are helpless to stop them.
There may well be a necessity to supplement out power supply this way but until a means of storing the output from such intermittent sources of power and local residents concerns are given more weight I find it very difficult to view this technology in a positive light.

Perhaps this report will give a little more weight to rural residents concerns. Full report 800k PDF

Committee Work

Or perhaps better titled seeking consensus within a committee! I have recently become involved with a major project to rebuild & update the internet presence of a local organization that, in that it is not really a corporate entity nor really simply a 'club but rests somewhere between those two, seeks consensus via a committee. Having been involved in a number committees over the years both formal in a work setting, and informal in a club setting, as well as having been on the executive of several clubs I can say that the approach to such committee work varies considerably. Some run very formally with very structured discussions and a recorded vote upon issues where the majority rules, others may allow extensive discussion but in the end what the chairperson wants is what gets done (something like how the Harper 'government' works). In most cases the preferred option is to build consensus, where there is disagreement we should try to find middle ground, seek compromise between two opposing positions and leave everybody in a position that they can say “I can live with that”.

“A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour.” - Elbert Hubbard

In my view this is by far the best way to approach working with or for a committee, if members of a group go away disgruntled that their point of view did not get heard or was dismissed arbitrarily then they will not be receptive to your point of view in the future, and if working in a volunteer capacity may well decide to go on to other less frustrating activities. Seeking such consensus will inevitably lead to extended discussions which center around the various options available and the personal opinion of each participant at the table, such things can often go around and around interminably, it is the chairs job to decide at which point to bring such 'discussions' to a head without offending anyone. This can often be difficult when strong opinions are held.

“A committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature: it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom in their turn.” - C. Northcote Parkinson

With modern communications such 'discussions' often take place at virtual meetings by a series of emails, this is a great way to get things done without dragging folks to a central location every couple of days but it has its own set of pitfalls. The first is the tendency when replying to someone who has responsibility for one particular issue of replying to just them and not including all the group, emails should almost always have a copy to all members. This may result in some folks getting reams of emails which they have little need to reply to but they are kept 'in the loop', do not feel they are being passed by regarding the topic and can always ignore them if they wish. The second thing to beware of is how quickly and almost without thought we all hit that 'send' button, true it takes a little longer to screw up when typing than when speaking directly (at least for one finger keyboard peckers like me) but once sent your thoughts are documented and non retrievable. Having such conversations 'documented' is in the whole scheme of thing a good thing in that previous input, decisions and opinions can be reviewed without the '”but you said.....” arguments, which is why it is important to review your text before hitting send.

“To get something done a committee should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent.” - Robert Copeland

I am guilty on that score all to often, whilst articles like this one are assembled over several days and reviewed numerous times before publication I tend to treat email 'conversations' much the same as face to face conversations and reply with my immediate reaction without thinking it through. This can often result in one or more 'I forgot to say....' follow up emails which can be most disconcerting for the recipients. I find one way to avoid that is to formulate each answer to a complex and ongoing issue in a document as they emerge and then review and edit it at the end of the day before sending it off. This can slow down the 'discussion' sometimes but often clarifies the issues and certainly give one time to 'rethink' your response.

“Any committee is only as good as the most knowledgeable, determined and vigorous person on it. There must be somebody who provides the flame.” - Claudia Lady Bird Johnson

I am sure my fellow committee members will be interested to read this and it remains to be seen if I practice what I preach! If my primary goal of fostering open and honest discussion is met then I am sure they will let me know. I hope I can provide that 'Flame'! In that regard I must now 'review' this post before publication and add a brief summary how I believe a committee meeting should proceed be it face to face or online in some form.

• Foster open and honest discussions where no idea or opinion is dismissed without due consideration.
• Try to keep the discussions focused but know when to move on when consensus cannot be reached.
• Beware excluding any member from a discussion, particularly one with whom you disagree.
• Think before you speak or hit that send button, your remarks may be misconstrued by some..
• Review and summarize your discussions frequently in order to clarify the status of issue under consideration.
• Above all do not take critique as a personal attack, you SHOULD all be working towards the same goal and finding flaws in any proposal is a GOOD thing.

In this case the committee of one reached complete consensus on the text of this post!

Thousands of Lakes and Rivers left unprotected.

This from the Sixth Estate which deserves to be re-posted in full
“As I noted previously, the Navigable Waters Act is being renamed the Navigation Protection Act and the environmental protection which the federal government once extended, basically, to any body of water you could paddle a canoe on is now being restricted to a special shortlist of 62 rivers and 97 lakes (plus the three oceans). In a country that has tens of thousands of rivers and lakes, obviously this is going to involve a great deal of environmental and legislative carnage. Last post, I noted that this removed the majority of Canada’s longest rivers from protection under the navigable waters law.
Today I’d like to do the same thing for lakes. According to Wikipedia, Canada has about 32,000 lakes “larger than three square kilometres” and 561 lakes “larger than 100″ square kilometres. The first list is obviously too long to go into here: it goes without saying that 97 out of 32,000 is not very impressive. (Plus there are some that are not that large yet still are protected: for instance, the Conservatives took special care to protect a small puddle in the middle of Ottawa called Dow’s Lake, which I can’t imagine is that large, though I could be wrong.) There’s not even any point working with the list of 561 lakes, since I can already tell you without looking that more than 85% of them can’t be on the list, mathematically speaking.
What we can do, though, is look at Natural Resources Canada’s list of lakes over 400 square kilometres — that is, the very largest lakes in Canada. From there, we can see that the federal government has failed to include three of B.C.’s five largest lakes (Babine, Atlin, and Ootsa); all of Alberta’s largest lakes; and, as with the rivers, has all but written off the northern territories as free and ungoverned.
For strict comparison purposes, I decided to shorten the list even further, to just those lakes over 1000 square kilometres. Only 15 of Canada’s 43 largest lakes — lakes over 1000 square kilometres — are now protected as navigable waters. Those that didnt’ make the cut include lakes Aberdeen, Bras D’Or, Lesser Slave, Lac la Ronge, Cree Lake, the Gouin Reservoir, Lac Seul, Lac Mistassini, and the Smallwood Reservoir, Lac Manicouagan, and the Robert Bourassa reservoir.

What more can be said the attack upon the environmental protection of our Natural Heritage by the Harper Regimen continues without pause.

Rural Internet Survey Results

Survey Results.

A couple of months ago in order to try and get an idea of what reaction folks would have to a forum dedicated to Rural Affairs and how many rural folk were restricted in their internet access and thus we perhaps less inclined to use such communication methods I posted a survey on these pages. Having been very disappointed with the lack of data emerging from a more comprehensive survey by the Woman’s Institute of Ontario in their Rural Voices project I promised to share any results with my readers for all to see.

Here then are the results to date, please note that the response was understandably very small given my readership and that any online survey asking about internet use is automatically biased by both the method of data collection and by those inclined to answer such surveys. That said here are the results.

	Response Percent
Rural Respondents	57.10%
Urban Respondents	42.90%
Type of internet connection. (Choice)
	Response Percent
Cable or wireless 200k - 1m bps	35.70%
Hub or Stick 50k - 200k bps	28.60%
Greater than 1 m bps	28.60%
Dialup less than 50k bps	7.10%
No connection at home	0.00%
Internet connection limits (choice)
	Response Percent
Unlimited	35.70%
10 Mb or less without extra charge	28.60%
3 Mb or less without extra charge	21.40%
Over 10 Mb without extra charge but not unlimited	14.30%
Most used online discussion methods (multiple choice)
	Response Percent
Online forum or discussion sites	57.10%
Email 'lists' and digests	50.00%
Online bulletin boards	35.70%
Online audio conferencing	21.40%
Online video chat or conferencing	14.30%
Online chat sites	7.10%
None of the above	42.90%
Use by respondents of a Forum dedicated to Rural matters. (Choice)
	Response Percent
Perhaps, depending upon how it was used / presented	64.30%
Yes	21.40%
Yes, if it were local content	7.10%
Not probable	7.10%
No, I hate online forums.	0.00%
How respondents get information about their LOCAL community (Ranked)
Rank (only top 3 choices shown)	1	2	3
Directly from others in the community (face to face)	46.20%	23.10%	0.00%
Via the Internet	30.80%	7.70%	38.50%
By email	7.70%	30.80%	7.70%
From the local newspaper	7.70%	15.40%	7.70%
From radio or TV	7.70%	7.70%	23.10%
By phone from others in the community	0.00%	15.40%	23.10%

Some notes and comments upon the results:-

Examination of the individual responses indicate that the majority of those with high speed unlimited connections are urban residents whilst most of those with less than optimal connections are rural citizens, this is as expected and reflects the patchy availability such services in rural areas.

100% of those who did use some kind of online discussion method (excluding 'social media') visited Forums of some kind but more than 1 in 4 did not use any such methods of exchanging information. Given that this was an online survey this is a little surprising, perhaps they are enamored with facebook & twitter which I do not regard as a place for serious discussion and information sharing.

Even given the above nearly all the respondents said they WOULD use a forum dedicated to rural matters although most said it would depend upon how it was presented.

Almost half said that most of their local information was obtained by face to face communications however the internet came in a strong second, email, radio, TV & newspapers all showed up as generally the 3^rd, 4^th or 5^th choices.

All in all an interesting glimpse of something which we need a lot more information about, StatsCan does have figures on internet use but as far as I can tell no information as to the type of connection by rural / urban split. Unfortunately due to the very small sampling of this survey such information remains elusive, any pointers to more information in this regard would be greatly appreciated..

The link to the survey will remain valid for a while, feel free to add your data to it. If the results change substantially with more respondents I will update the results.

Time Flies

Its been almost a month since I have posted anything here and given my belief that even the most interested of readers will not visit a blog or web site if it has nothing new to offer that is not good. Not that my massive readership (all 5 or 6 of you) is why I write, as with most personal blogs its more to let off steam than anything else, although I must say that sharing information is also a big part of it. My posts regarding rural internet and broadcast TV continue to receive more 'hits' than almost anything else!

If you are waiting to see the results of the internet survey you will have to wait a little while longer, the response has not been exactly overwhelming so I am going to give it another month before I share the data. If you have not already done so please spend the 30 seconds or so it takes to make the thing a little more meaningful. Link to the right.

My excuse for not posting is that somehow things here in the woods got away from me, one minuite its mid summer with weather that was previously reserved for the mid US (Dry & Hot) the next thing I know October is almost upon us. It did not help that the last month has been spent putting up a sizable pole barn to store yet more 'stuff'. Mrs & Master Rural are hoping that they can get their vehicle in out of the snow and I would dearly like to get the tractor & blower in so as not to have to dig it out before blowing that white stuff that invariably fills the driveway. You can see that even without all the leftover wood (which means I DID cut enough last fall to finish the job) AND various pieces of equipment that no longer fit in the other shed there is already a space conflict!

We normally try and get back around our trails several times a month, its usually a Sunday morning stroll, but today was the first time we have been back in the bust for weeks. The canopy of green is slowly fading and disappearing and the extra light is greening up the forest floor and filling in the trails with greenery! Yet another thing that did not get done this year...... trail maintenance! It is amassing how quickly nature takes over if boots and wheels and mowers and snips are not in regular use along the forest floor. Much of that will happen shortly if we want to stay warm NEXT winter as the search for, and felling of, trees for fuel-wood must commence soon, this years supply just now having been split and tucked away in the woodshed in anticipation of colder weather.

So all in all I have a few excuses for not writing and I could no doubt find a few more, after all my brain is just as old as my arthritic knees and at times just as functional. That said I do believe in that old adage 'use it or loose it' so today’s exercise is to ramble through these pages as well as the bush trails. You may join me at either place.

Rural Internet Survey

A couple of weeks ago we posted an online survey designed to find out what type of internet connection the majority of rural folks had and how many of them used or were interested in online forums. This to promote the formation of a forum dedicated to rural communities across Ontario and / or Canada.

The readership of this blog is not exactly overwhelming, it only sees about 600 'page reads' a month and the response to the survey has been considerably less than that. Thus far 100% of the respondents have been urban residents so if you are a rural citizen and are reading this please fill out the very brief survey linked at the end of this post and in the side bar.

The results thus far indicate that those 'urban' folks who did respond nearly all have high speed unlimited internet, use online forums and email 'lists of digests' and are open to using a Rural Forum if it is formatted to their liking. They get their community information mostly from face to face meetings and the internet and less so from newspaper and radio, this is a surprise to me but I suspect that those who view my blog and filled out the survey are hardly 'typical'. As I have said before such surveys, indeed any survey, is biased by both the distribution of it and by those who are inclined to answer such things. This then is a long way form a 'scientific' poll but just a effort to gain a little more insight as to how my readers get their information and whether their internet connection affects their use of online forums and the like.

Please take a look at the survey and consider filling it out particularly if you live in rural Canada, it consists of just 6 questions and may be found here:- http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GZZYVPK

The initial results can be viewed here ,this post will be updated and the survey discontinued on or before Nov 30 2012