Perception is Everything - Or So Some Think

It has taken me considerable time to find on the web a readable copy of the full, 80-page, public, court document related to the scandal in the Senate & PMO (Information to Obtain Production Orders). 

This, notwithstanding that many political commentators have suggested that every Canadian adult ought to read the contents.  Better to get the information first-hand.

It strikes me that this document is interesting to read while pretending to be the judge whose role it is to decide whether the contents of this report seem sufficient to grant the RCMP a warrant to do further searching. 

I finished reading the 80 pages....... whew. 

At points, quite mind numbing. This is not because it is uninteresting, but it is challenging to keep all the characters straight over such an extended time line.

Three initial observations from me:

1. One can hardly overstate the importance to democracy of independent news media.
2. An absolutely astonishing amount of very high-priced political staff and legislator time has been expended on attempting to manage this mess. And yet the purposes are unclear.
3. It seems clear to me that there would have been much, much less of a mess had the current Federal government, and in particular the office of the prime minister, been less interested in attempting to control political perceptions and more interested in ensuring moral, ethical and legal conduct and accountability.

I have many other observations, but those are the ones that came immediately to mind.

Certainly, if I were the reviewing judge, I would see the need for more information in order to determine if criminal offences had been committed.

It also seems clear that regardless of the original intentions for the bicameral system of federal government in Canada, the members of the current Federal government really believe that the structures ought to function administratively much more like a corporation than a democratic institution with intentionally-distinct powers.  At the very least, this is a sad commentary on the level of civics and historical education among those we have elected, and perhaps among Canadians in general.

Canada's Petroleum Potential in a Time Warp

In the Vancouver Sun newspaper (November 23, 2013), I  read with interest the Weekend Extra, Edmonton Journal article about the oil/tar sands in a global 'marketplace'.  It was an interesting and detailed analysis of macro economic issues related to oil production across the globe and implications for Canada as a petroleum producer.

Unfortunately, the analysis only tells us part of the story, and frankly, the item seems to have been written using and analytical framework from the 1950s, rather than from the 21st century.  The unbridled enthusiasm for petrochemical exploitation seems curiously out of date.

The forgotten part of the analysis relates to consideration of the marketplace implications of expanded exploitation and consumption without any considerations of the costs -- economic, social and climate -- of further expansion.  Not a whiff of a mention. The analysis is presented as if there are no global economic costs attached to being aggressive petroleum producing competitors on the global stage.

Curious.