Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Common sense #1 (politics)

Common sense is a complex topic

By John Twigg

I've been working on a column about common sense in politics, governance and some Island issues for about five months and now it has finally come together, at least part one of what hopefully will soon be two parts.

What took so long? Well it turns out that "common sense" is a complex topic and it is perhaps widely misunderstood too.

But I can explain that with a litany of examples involving common sense in democracy, politics, media, society and social order (i.e. courts).

First, common sense would say something like this: "If it can't be explained in 100 words or less then it's probably not worth saying," or not worth being written and read, and that pseudo aphorism probably is correct about 90 per cent of the time - but our complex society often requires certainty and accuracy 100 per cent of the time such as in judicial decisions, audited finances, medical diagnoses and even claims in legislatures, so we see that while most generalities about common sense may be true, some are still false.

So how should we handle those 10 per cent of cases in which common sense is wrong, based on wrong assumptions or at least inadequate or inappropriate in the circumstances? Pretend they don't exist?? Or should we revise our thinking about them a bit.

The answer depends on the situation and there are many variations but any rush to judgement is dangerous and especially so in complex cases with big risks at stake and especially when there are conflicting versions of what the truth is, which is quite often the actual situation.

While more than a few politicians worship common sense as if it is a sort of Holy Grail ideal, the reality is that sometimes common sense - also known as public opinion - can become badly wrong, especially when it is based on false assumptions and is colored by emotions.

Ghomeshi decision provoked protesters

In Canada we just witnessed a prime example of that in the Jian Ghomeshi trial in which the former high-profile CBC broadcaster was acquitted on allegations of sexual abuse brought by three women after the judge found the testimony of the three accusers to have been flawed in numerous ways. So even though it's quite clear that Ghomeshi was guilty of some weird sexual behaviours with them the presumption of innocence and the benefit of reasonable doubt (i.e. that there may have been some consent, and that the allegations may have been exaggerated or flawed) meant that Ghomeshi had to be acquitted.

(Note Ghomeshi also was not required to testify against himself, the appeal period is still pending at time of writing, and a separate trial looms with a fourth accuser.)

Nonetheless that acquittal didn't stop throngs of feminist demonstrators and many others such as federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair from making comments suggesting that Ghomeshi was guilty and should have been convicted - allegations that suggest common sense should have taken precedence over the rule of law!

That debate raged on for several days, with various voices calling for changes in favour of women making sexual assault allegations, until Ghomeshi's lawyer, Marie Henein, did a great interview (preliminary excerpt here ) with the CBC-TV's Peter Mansbridge to explain how the rule of law should take precedence over such common public opinions.

"We have one of the greatest legal systems in the world," said Henein, a 25-year veteran, noting the accusers bear the burden of proof and the accused get the presumption of innocence so that wrongful convictions are minimized, but that defence lawyers face the over-resourced weight of the state and the finger of blame.


Henein defended the right of people to hold opposing views and advocate a re-assessment of the presumption of innocence in sexual assault cases but she also said that conversation should be measured, informed and genuinely helpful to the community, not mere pandering for votes without having read the case documents or court transcripts.

"We don't want to go straight to convictions (with) slam-dunk results," she said, noting decisions should be  based on the balance of probabilities, the credibility of witnesses and the benefit of the doubt going to defendants - which runs counter to the views of many "common-sense" observers (my wording).

After that Mulcair slightly backtracked in this Tweet, which is followed by two other related posts:

2h2 hours ago
I believe strongly in the presumption of innocence and the right to a strong defence but I also believe survivors.

10m10 minutes ago
Ghomeshi Judge's Son Works for Marie Henein's Brother judge shld have recused himself

17m17 minutes ago
Jian case continues to attract public interest via

Trump rides tides of "common sense"

A similar example is evident now in the highly-charged campaigns to become the next President of the United States, with several candidates in both parties exploiting various tides of public opinion, especially Republican hopeful Donald Trump riding the widespread antipathies towards America's financial and political elites; he says he "loves the poorly-educated" and blatantly panders to public opinion such as by promising to build a fence all along the Mexican border to try to keep out criminals and illegal immigrants which many ethnic immigrants welcome as a means of eliminating unfair competition for jobs.

The mainstream media and establishment pols have tried to derail Trump's train but they have barely dented his momentum in delegate-selection contests and public-opinion polls even when he has committed various verbal and tactical errors, the latest being some comments against abortion which he quickly amended.

Indeed Trump's momentum has been so strong and his policy pronouncements so extreme that left-wing demonstrators have begun trying to invade and disrupt his rallies, with the demonstrators seemingly unaware that their actions are highly undemocratic and hypocritical, as if free speech is available only to those whose policy recipes are politically correct.

So again we see some common sensibilities rushing to judgements even before the party members get a chance to vote, which is similar to the backlash against the Ghomeshi decision.

Can any of the lefties consider how they would feel if gangs of right-wing bullies were to invade their meetings, try to take over microphones and generally suppress their movements? They'd be outraged, but of course common sense fits differently when it's on the other foot!

Apparently Mulcair, who is facing a leadership review in a week or so, is one of those because he has been outspoken against Trump's campaign, even here calling him a fascist who should be banned from Canada!

What a contrast that is from Justin Trudeau, who wisely worked hard to leave open a door in case Trump does win a mandate from American voters.

But which stance is "common sense"? Maybe both of them!

Tyee columnist accuses Trump of "sewage"

Meanwhile there's no doubt what Steve Burgess, a hyperbolic columnist for The Tyee, thinks of Trump in this post on March 30:

"Enter Donald Trump. Whatever else he might be -- blowhard, buffoon, Berlusconi West -- Trump has become a measuring stick. More than any previous Republican fear monger, Trump has revealed that trafficking in the very worst traditions of political debate can be a winning strategy, at least in the primary stage of the election. In the process Trump has raised the question of whether the Internet is truly a different world than the one we live in. Could that constant flow of online sewage in fact be an accurate gauge of American public opinion?"

Online sewage??

But Burgess continued:

"Consider the Washington Post/ABC News poll from earlier this month. While Hillary Clinton led by nine points overall, Trump held a 49 to 40 lead among white voters, a lead built largely from the support of white men. Among those without college degrees Donald "I love the poorly educated" Trump led by 24 points.
Think about that a moment. Everything Trump has done, everything he has said -- it all runs together into a bubbling cesspool of hatred, idiocy and implied violence -- has left him with a near majority of support among white American voters. Is it really possible now to claim that the average online comment thread is an aberration? Hasn't Trump demonstrated that the hateful, the misogynistic, the racist, the willfully ignorant are in fact a winning coalition in Republican politics? "

Willfully ignorant?? By whose test?

In other words, right-wing common sense is terrible, but centre-left common sense apparently is okay. Oh?

Really what it teaches is that the common sense of Trump's supporters needs to be checked just as much as the common sense of his lefty opponents does, maybe moreso.

And if you believe Hillary Clinton is a paragon of truth-telling and practical progressive wisdom you just haven't done enough research, you haven't read the transcripts, you've simply believed her when she claimed her campaign for the Democratic nomination "depends on small donations". Riiiight....

In other words, the rising incidence of intolerance is on both left and right and in all genders and orientations and those politicians who try to ride the waves of what appears to them to be "common sense" should be cautious about doing so because it's quite possible that some of the underlying assumptions are flawed and some facts inside them may be simply wrong.

Another "sunny days" error

A small but local example of how important fact-checking can be in politics and public affairs is seen in the Harry Sterling op-ed column that appeared March 30 in the Victoria Times-Colonist under the erroneous headline "Trudeau begins to face contentious issues".

That headline must have been written by someone at the end of a shift or someone who hasn't been watching Canadian politics for the last six months or few years because it's obvious from the recent federal budget that the new Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has been addressing the whole range of tough issues for about five months now and even is already acting on many of them (see the many tweaks to tax policies, many of which are detailed in the previous issue of The Daily Twigg blog viewable here .) 

Many other issues (such as what to do with the National Energy Board) are being subjected to studies before they're tinkered with, and that's wise too, even common-sensical.

But more puzzling was why the T-C editors decided to publish a column containing three somewhat derogatory references to Trudeau's espousal of "sunny days" when anyone with a modicum of knowledge about Canadian political history will know that the correct phrase is "sunny ways" with a "w" and that that is a quote from former Liberal Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier which young Trudeau pointedly cited on the night of his election win.

For a more fulsome explanation of that "sunny ways" history see the first edition this year of The Daily Twigg viewable at http://thedailytwigg.blogspot.ca/2016/01/paradigm-shifts-needed-in-canadian.html .

There is a big difference between "sunny days" (which is most widely known now as a song title and lyric by the Canadian rock group Lighthouse) and "sunny ways", which is about a political strategy in which people with divergent interests and opinions can still find common ground on which to move forward - a quintessentially Canadian trait that more people should try to emulate.

But it appears Mr. Sterling is following the examples of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and business commentator Michael Campbell in unknowingly but still wrongly using the wrong phrase to try to score some cheap political points at Mr. Trudeau's expense, who fortunately and deservedly has so much positive momentum going for him now that such smears probably won't slow him down one whit.

Mr. Sterling's gist is that Trudeau's naive philosophy of optimism will be unable to deal with "complex and sensitive" foreign policy issues such as disputes in the Middle East or with environmental disputes about greenhouse gas emissions from proposed energy projects in B.C., but that sounds more like verbiage to fill space than a serious contribution to the serious policy challenges facing Canada.

In a democracy like Canada's everyone is free to expound such opinions but my question is why would the reputable Times-Colonist waste space on it?

Did they think they were catering to "common sense" readers?

Online bullies attack columnists

A similar example appeared March 30 in Vancouver's 24hours publication in which a column by its managing editor Chris Campbell about efforts to help house homeless people in Maple Ridge was quickly attacked by online bullies described here which Campbell labelled "insanity".

The common thread is that some people who disagreed with some opinions felt they had a right to make nasty personal aspersions about him on his facebook page - another example of public opinion run amok.

Should politicians feel entitled to pander to such base morals? Apparently some do.

Indeed my online friend Laila Yuile recently had her whole website hacked and and all content destroyed, apparently because she dared to publish information about how some big-ticket public-sector construction projects and some other public projects have had a habit of running over budget and struggling with design flaws, and when she dared to complain about it to the RCMP she received a death threat, which you can read more about in another issue of The Daily Twigg here . Her content is now being recovered by WordPress tech and should be reposted soon.

Apparently tolerance of dissent amongst both left and right activists is diminishing in this age of online media.

B.C. gov't steers public opinion

Unfortunately the challenge of truth-telling by the media seems to be becoming more difficult as the decline of budgets in the mainstream media outlets reduces voices there, which in turn puts more pressure on the new media to fill the voids, and goodness knows there seems to be ever more of that needed.

An example of that is the B.C. government's claim that public consultations have found "strong support for the George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project" as Transportation Minister Todd Stone claimed in a Tweet coinciding with a public meeting in Richmond accompanied by this news release .

Well the consultations have been rushed, the multi-billion-dollar project is still contentious and its claimed purpose, to improve traffic flow by replacing the old Deas Island tunnel, is misleading because the real objective is to open the south arm of the Fraser River to new shipping docks for Port Metro Vancouver. Analysis by Vaughn Palmer viewable here .

That little information capsule is only a small part of a much larger propaganda strategy in which the B.C. government essentially is using taxpayer-funded information to steer public opinion into a position wherein the B.C. Liberal Party will have a much-improved prospect for re-election in May 2017 thanks to steering public opinion into a place that sounds like the common-sense solution.

A prime example of that campaign is taxpayer-paid advertising now running in high rotation during major televised sporting events and newscasts claiming that B.C. has "the strongest economy in Canada" - which is true but only because the economies of all other provinces are quite weak right now and not because B.C. is booming due to provincial stimulus and great leadership.

Indeed the B.C. Liberals under Premier Christy Clark seem well on their way to winning another mandate mainly because they're raising buckets of campaigns funds by selling special access to the Premier and they've structured the budget so they'll have oodles of cash to spend on buying votes in the pre-election period, which you can read more about in previous issues of The Daily Twigg here and here . 

Is that how common sense works? Letting the government of the day use taxpayer-funded propaganda to manufacture consent?? Apparently so.

I'll have more to say soon about common sense involving climate and environment issues in general and on Vancouver Island in particular, including Greater Victoria's sewage challenge (which features common sense versus science and facts), Greater Victoria's problems with wildlife (too many feral creatures), and others.

Meanwhile here are some Tweets and links to more information on this general theme:


2h2 hours ago
The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. - Michael Crichton

  15m15 minutes ago
    1. New AMS survey busts the 97% climate consensus claim via
      View summary

U of T students tyranny versus fossil fuel investments
22m22 minutes ago
University of rejects calls to dump holdings in industry


2h2 hours ago
“We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.” ― Richard P. Feynman

19m19 minutes ago
Instead of regarding each other as rivals, we should embrace each other as allies:

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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Federal Budget 2016 Analysis #2


Trudeau hiked deficit rather than tax the rich


By John Twigg


One of the more interesting features of the Federal Budget 2016 is that a week after it was presented there was still a lively debate going on in mainstream and social media about just what is or isn't in it and whether those things are good or bad.

One of the first insiders to analyze the budget was Quebec-based journalist Chantal Hebert in a special spot on CBC-TV with Peter Mansbridge and Andrew Coyne and she surmised that it was "one of those budgets that won't be able to be properly evaluated until years afterwards" and that has already proven to be quite true.

Coyne's analysis was somewhat more political, quipping that it was/is a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s when of course Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's father Pierre Trudeau was in power and beginning a spending spree on liberal Liberal programs like Opportunities for Youth (a job creation and work experience program that in that day was seen as radical and even a bit profligate - though it did yield some surprising benefits).

As my first blog on this budget noted here , the leaders of the two main Opposition parties both gave somewhat extremist and exaggeratedly-negative views of it, while Green Party leader Elizabeth May generally liked it, and since then the debate has raged on in headlines, op-ed pieces, social media, academia, business, lobby and policy groups and apparently quite a few other venues.

Is there a consensus now? Was the budget good or bad? Too much wasteful spending such as on First Nations? Not enough on municipal infrastructure? More style and hype than numbers and substance??

Budget defended itself

The answer is seen in the reaction of Trudeau: he's not having to run around defending his first budget and putting out fires against it in boardrooms and editorial offices.

It's a bit like how he said before and during the election campaign (the latter in Tory ads) that economic growth will enable the budget to "balance itself"; now we're seeing that the budget can defend itself too!

Thus Trudeau instead has been busy on international relations and today (Tuesday March 29) he is making time to attend a conference in Calgary on Employment Insurance reforms. No sign of panic anywhere.

First, it's clear now that the uptick in spending of about 1.5% is not going to bankrupt the government and over time will be quite manageable; that was the initial claim of rookie Finance Minister Bill Morneau and it was supported in a new analysis for Maclean's magazine by well-regarded Vancouver economist Kevin Milligan, viewable  here.

"So, the 2016 budget does not put us on the road to 1995. We are not on the road. We are not in the car. We have not even put on our shoes, had breakfast, or gotten out of bed," wrote Milligan, offering long-term graphs to make his point that eventually growth will surpass the added debt and the ratio will flatten out.


Deficit misread jeopardizes Mulcair's job


Though the deficit of about $30 billion is about three times larger than what Trudeau promised during the election campaign it still is not outlandish and that is one reason why federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair is now leader of the third party in Parliament and is fighting for his political life at a leadership convention in Edmonton starting April 8, an excellent analysis of which by Bill Tieleman is on The Tyee here . (It's now widely seen that Mulcair blew it when he took a Harper-like fiscal-conservative approach against Trudeau's campaign promise of some deficit spending, with Trudeau revealing that he told his wife within hours of that event that they were going to win the election because of it.)

Indeed the real flaw in Trudeau's budget may be that the increased spending will not be enough to stimulate growth and that even more new spending, especially on municipal infrastructure, may be needed in years ahead, and hopefully Trudeau's interest in employment reforms is a signal that more brave programs will ensue in years ahead, maybe even a new-century version of OFY, Katimavik and other "Trudeaupian" innovations (to borrow a cute label made up by Mark Steyn at http://www.steynonline.com/).

That view - of insufficient funding for infrastructure - is advanced in a column by the Ottawa Citizen's Tom Parkin that was retweeted Monday by Andrew Coyne and viewable here and of course that view is shared by big-city mayors such as Gregor Robertson of Vancouver who want more federal money for transit, and if they have to label that as an investment in green initiatives then they will do so and won't quibble.

Feds boost share of public projects to 50%

Certainly one of the key things that emerged after a week of cogitation is that the Trudeau government's move to cost-share such projects up to 50% (raised from 33% under Conservative Stephen Harper) is a major psychological shift that also has real financial benefits too, maybe better enabling iffy projects such as Surrey's transit dreams, Port Metro Vancouver's wishes for a huge bridge to replace the Massey Tunnel and Robertson's hopes for a subway line towards the University of B.C., probably among many others possibly even Greater Victoria's long-troubled efforts to build a better sewage treatment system.

I tend to agree that young Trudeau's first budget really was only a sort of opening statement that was amazingly well done in many ways, with new benefits here and there for almost all interest groups from young families with kids to seniors on pensions (who see the OAS start returned to age 65), and lots of shifts into better directions (see the many tweaks in the tax system, below), many more symbolic than substantive, but overall really well done for such a young regime full of novice politicians. Let's hope it continues!

However numerous items were omitted too, such as lifetime pensions for injured military veterans, higher health transfers for provinces, action on housing (there's a study coming), and notably how there will not be adequate supervision of the approximately $8.4 billion dedicated over several years to improving water systems, housing and education on Indian Reserves where the Trudeau Liberals apparently will also back away from the Harper regime's requirement of transparency on all First Nations finances (which in my opinion probably is a mistake on Trudeau's part).

There were several moves targetted at upper-income taxpayers, such as removing the income-splitting useful to high-income families, removing a tax exemption on properties donated to charities, and other moves reported here by the Financial Post and others by Business in Vancouver below.

But what they didn't do was close a supposed loophole in which corporate executives can avoid some income taxes by taking some pay as stock options instead of cash. And nor did they make money available to hire a whole bunch more tax auditors to clamp down on evasions.

One report suggested that the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers will see their taxes go up about 30% but that sounds like a bit too much of a generality, it doesn't say whether the starting base is large or small, and it may not account for the wealthier taxpayers' disproportionate abilities to purchase tax-avoidance schemes available only to sophisticated investors (e.g. flowing income through a life insurance filter).

Trudeau hiked deficit instead of taxing the rich

In fact my research indicates that what Justin Trudeau really did in his first budget was decide to NOT tax the rich right away and instead to run up the deficit!

Politically and administratively that probably was a smart move by Trudeau which will tend to keep taxpayers at home (apart from guys like billionaire Calgarian Murray Edwards who just evac'd to London here ), it avoids wars with forces he couldn't win against (old-money moguls, many based in London) and instead it shifts the policy debates towards where they really belong: how to grow the economy, boost the middle class and raise overall quality of life.

And it shouldn't go unmentioned that Trudeau did a major restoration of funding to the CBC, he allocated $2 billion to lowering carbon emissions, he found new money for social infrastructure, he spoke in support of Bombardier (which is seeking another billion-dollar bailout), he restored tax credits for labour-sponsored investment funds, and he let Morneau tweak the tax treatment (tariffs) on foreign-made ferries that will save B.C. Ferries about $50 million.

Trudeau regime are moderate centrists

There are many more such details that of course could be mentioned too but the key gist is that the Justin Trudeau Liberals have staked out the ground of moderate centrists trying to appeal to almost all corners, and after the Harper Conservatives' pandering to special slices of society that's a welcome change.

Now we will see studies of complex topics such as abuses by foreign flippers in Vancouver's over-heated housing market, what should be done with the National Energy Board, how Canada's retirement policies could be improved and how the tax code could be - how shall we say it? - updated?

I'm hoping that the new openness towards policy debates will open up issues such as redefining the money supply and the GDP to include unpaid work and underground industries, reviewing whether too much government work is being outsourced to private-sector consultants at inflated prices, and what better things could be done to increase work-experience and employment opportunities for low-income and low-skilled workers - especially on and for First Nations.

The billions of new dollars going towards First Nations is a prime example: goodness knows the water, housing and education improvements are badly needed and overdue but how can that be done to maximum advantage when obviously writing blank cheques without accountability and transparency has been disastrous in the past, so is there a better way? Maybe with private-sector contractors required to also turn the projects into work-experience and skills-training opportunities for First Nations people?

In other words, can good reforms be implemented in ways that work better and provide lasting dividends? We'll soon see.

That's especially the case with marijuana policy, which was very present during the campaign (in which Trudeau again was more progressive and populist and brave than Mulcair) but it was absent from the Throne Speech and absent from the budget even though as a new industry it could generate billions of dollars in economic activity and tax remittances that formerly were underground and criminalized.

But there is lots more like that which is yet to come too, e.g. energy policy, environment policy, water exports policy, science, governance, technology, food . . .  but stylistically young Trudeau has made a brilliant start, much to the surprise of his many detractors.

Now if we can just keep him out of the clutches of the old-money global monopolists and Wall Street sharks and get him to revive the Bank of Canada's power to issue its own money instead of buying it from the global banking cartel then we as a nation could really start becoming a great beacon to the world.

Meanwhile here's the propaganda video from the Liberal Party of Canada: Liberal Party video
and then several items and links from Business in Vancouver regarding tax changes:

feedback welcome in comments or by email to john@johntwigg.com

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Federal budget closes a tax loophole popular with high-net-worth Canadians

Canadians will no longer be able to hold investment income, taxed at the small business rate, in a private corporation - BiV

 loophole

The Liberal budget will close a loophole many high-net-worth Canadians had been using to get a much lower tax rate on investment income.
Canadian controlled private corporations (CCPCs) are often set up by doctors, lawyers and other professionals. Under current rules, income inside a CCPC is taxed at the small business tax rate of $10.5%. The budget commits to "ensure that investment income derived from an associated corporation’s active business is ineligible for the small business deduction (and taxed at the general corporate income tax rate) in certain circumstances."
“Active versus passive [investment] income is an important area to clamp down on,” said Lindsay Tedds, an economics professor at the University of Victoria who studies taxation.
“We should have been doing it a long time ago.”
Tedds said it is unknown how common the practice of shielding investment income inside CCPCs is, but “we know it’s significant enough that it’s a budget item.”
Another loophole that was not addressed in the budget is the practice of designating spouses as shareholders, which means they are able to receive funds they themselves didn’t generate, said Kevin Milligan, a professor of economics at the University of British Columbia.
“Doctors and dentists will make their spouse a shareholder, you can pay them dividends of $40,000 a year before you pay taxes on it,” he said. “There’s an estimate that it costs the government $500 million a year.”
The budget also promises to get rid of loopholes currently in the system that allow CCPC owners to get the lower small business tax rate on separate $500,000 batches of money (the revenue limit for the small business rate), and another loophole that allows “private corporations to use a life insurance policy to distribute amounts tax-free that would otherwise be taxable.”
Cracking down on taxation compliance goes along with the budget’s emphasis on reducing income inequality. The restructured Child Tax Benefit — which is estimated will lift a third of low-income families with children out of poverty — and higher income tax rate for earners who make over $200,000 are important planks in that strategy, Milligan said.
But as income inequality has risen across developed economies over the past three decades, corporations and wealthy people have also become increasingly adept at shielding income from taxation.
The budget earmarks $444 million over five years for the CRA’s compliance and enforcement efforts.
Tedds said there is more to be done in recovering tax revenues. Increasing third-party reporting — for instance, when a workers’ employer reports how much that worker makes to Canada Revenue Agency — could be extended to areas like tips and rental income.
She noted that there used to be a tax credit for renters, which required the renter to state their address and the name of their landlord, effectively letting CRA cross-check who should be reporting rental income.
“The [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] has been saying this for a long time that Canada lags the world in the amount of income subject to third party reporting and withholding,” she said.
The government backed off a previous pledge to tax stock options higher out of fear it would hurt the tech industry. But Milligan said most stock options go to executives at large companies, not employees who take a pay cut to work at a scrappy tech startup.
“I don’t understand why you couldn't separate out the tech industry guys from the big established executive guys,” he said.
Many economists have called for the removal of “boutique” tax credits, often used to target specific consituents, but Tedds said the budget doesn’t do very well on this front. While the Liberals have removed the Children’s Fitness and Art Tax Credits, it introduced another for teachers who buy school supplies.
While the Liberals have promised a parliamentary review of the tax system, Tedds said a complete overhaul done by an independent commission is needed.
“It’s 2016 – we have not overhauled our tax system in 60 years,” she said. “The world is different, our economy is different.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that income in a CCPC would be taxed at the small business rate, compared to the income tax rate. The budget states that the government will: "ensure that investment income derived from an associated corporation’s active business is ineligible for the small business deduction (and taxed at the general corporate income tax rate) in certain circumstances."
jstdenis@biv.com


Budget 2016: Deficit comes in just shy of $30 billion for 2016

Budget 2016: Broken tax-cut promise hurts small business

Steady economic growth forecast for Canada in 2016: TD



BiV budget bits

Growing Canada's middle class, improving living standards on First Nations reserves and investing in the clean economy are the main pillars of the Justin Trudeau Liberal government’s first budget, which was unveiled on March 22.

Highlights that will affect B.C. and its business community

Targeted funding
•$32 million over two years for the Vancouver-based Centre for Drug Research and Development, a drug development and commercialization centre that helps biotechs and universities commercialize new drug discoveries.
•$212 million toward Metro Vancouver’s $700 million Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant. The 50-year-old primary treatment plant will be upgraded to provide secondary treatment.
•$460 million for public transit infrastructure in B.C.
•$73 million for 57 community infrastructure projects in the province, including drinking water and waste-water treatment, recreation and culture projects, roads and bridges and upgrades to the Smithers Regional Airport.
Other spending that could trickle down to B.C.
•$1 billion over four years, starting in 2017, to foster investment in clean technology in the forestry, fisheries, mining, energy and agriculture sectors.
•$87 million over two years to support research in forestry, mining, earth sciences, mapping and energy technologies.
•$62.5 million over two years in funding to Natural Resources Canada (NRC) to build more electric vehicle, hydrogen and natural gas fuelling stations.
•$50 million to NRC for technology investments that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector.
•$2.9 billion over five years to address climate change and pollution, including emissions reduction initiatives in the energy sector and transportation.
•$237 million to Genome Canada, an umbrella group for seven provincial centres, including Genome BC, which provides genomics-based research funding.
•$130 million over five years to support clean-technology research development.
•$14 million over two years for Mitacs’ Globalink program. Mitacs links business with universities, allowing them to tap the scientific expertise of graduates. Globalink provides
funding allowing researchers to travel and conduct research in other countries.
Resource sector
The federal budget provides a one-year extension of the mineral exploration tax credit, which was slated to end this year. The tax credit allows exploration companies to pass tax credits onto shareholders through flow-through shares.
Tax reforms scrapped and restored
The 2015 Conservative budget included a new income tax exemption on capital gains when the proceeds from the sale of real estate or shares were donated to charity. That exemption has been scrapped.
A 15% tax credit for investment in labour-sponsored venture capital corporations that allows small and medium-sized business to access venture capital was to be phased out in 2016. The 2016 budget restores the tax credit. •

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Reversing Conservative changes regarding citizenship for investor immigrants to make it easier for them again

immigrant investors

Easier rules for family reunification will add about 80,000 people to Canada's population

more immigrants

seems fair given Canada's open arms to 25,000 Syrian refugees

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Changes needed inside National Energy Board

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/03/24/news/bad-morale-rocked-canadas-pipeline-watchdog-then-came-murder

NEB morale


NEB media plan

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Friday, March 25, 2016

What's good about "Good Friday"?

Death threat illustrates need for Good Friday


By John Twigg


So it's Good Friday eh, but what's "good" about it? It seems it brings a lot of distress.

The first email message I received this morning was from my online friend Laila Yuile replying to my overnight query about her well-being after her website got hacked yesterday, but her news was bad: she's now become the subject of a death threat!

Though the threat was made openly on Twitter, it is still serious and thus is being investigated by the RCMP who were already looking into the hack of her website, which could cause the loss of all of Yuile's work to date, and now her life is at stake too.

I have never met Laila, and I've talked with her by phone only once or maybe twice, but over the last few years we have traded more than a few emails and become somewhat fellow-travellers with our online blogs and other independent journalism in #bcpoli and B.C. public affairs in which we are fellow travellers in an unformed club of about two dozen independent professional practitioners, with Laila being one of the most prominent with her former stint as a columnist for the Vancouver street paper 24 hours and with her long-running online commentaries in which she regularly questioned authority on a range of issues and especially regarding the too-frequent cost over-runs and design deficiencies in billion-dollar public-sector construction projects, far too many of which errors end up being paid for by B.C. taxpayers.

So I not only like and respect Laila Yuile's work, I also like and admire her personally too because she's a strong and brave soul working hard to make a positive difference in an increasingly-troubled world. But now all her work may have been wiped out and she personally could be next!

Is Canada part of the Third World now? In which Big Money interests run roughshod over citizen and community interests and make moves regardless of laws in place in order to further enrich themselves and entrench their hegemonies?

Which is what Good Friday is supposed to be all about: getting rid of all the corruption in the world so we can have a fair chance to build a new and better society.

Or as Premier Christy Clark worded it in a message sent out as a news release this morning:

"This weekend, Christians throughout B.C. and the world will celebrate 
Easter alongside their friends, family, and congregations.

"For many, Easter is a time to commemorate and reflect on the 
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians believe God 
sent His only son to Earth to redeem humanity's sins, but also to 
deliver a message of hope - that acts of kindness and love have the 
power to make the world a better place.

"No matter what your personal beliefs or faith may be, Easter weekend 
is an opportunity to spend more time with friends and loved ones.

"I wish all British Columbians a happy Easter Weekend."

Indeed, and though personally I observe Passover and thus I work on Good Fridays and Easters I still respect why people like Premier Clark and hundreds of millions of others take a pause to give thanks to God and Jesus for delivering a plan by which humanity can be saved and society restructured and everyone who ever lived be given a second chance - thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus - to learn to live according to God's original intentions and instructions and thereby gain immortality.

Easter vs. Passover explained

And by the way that practise of observing Passover instead of Easter is done not only by Jews but also by millions of other good Christians and of course yes it IS Bible-based too: see Luke 21:17-20 in which Jesus said "this do in remembrance of me" and thereby He changed the sacrifice of a lamb in the original Passover (Exodus 12) to the sharing of wine and bread symbolic of Jesus's sacrifice of his blood and body as a substitute atonement for the sins of all mankind (or at least for those who choose to accept His sacrifice).

But I also understand why so many more Christians now believe it is acceptable to re-interpret that instruction into the quite different symbology that blended into the Christian church about 190 AD and was formalized by the Roman Catholic Church after the Council of Nicea in 325 AD even though its origins trace back to a pagan Babylonian spring festival of fertility. (There are many sources for that history, a very detailed one of which can be found here .)

The rationale for the liberalization of such instructions is found in scriptures such as Romans 7:6 that says "...now we are delivered from the law, that being dead (and now) we should serve in the newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter."

That however was about how the New Testament modified the Old Testament and it was not about giving humans a right to further modify what Jesus instructed, though that IS what has happened.

Similarly there is Romans 8:2 which says "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." And Romans 8:14 "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." - which suggests that good intent is more important than following rituals, but again it does not say we have gained the right to also change what Jesus taught.

And finally (at least for this short exegesis) there is Colossians 2 in which there is a debate between literalism versus liberalism which apparently concludes in verse 16 that we should not let any man judge us in matters of food, drink, holy days, sabbath days, equinoxes and lunar days, but which actually concludes in verse 17 which (in the KJV) contains a bad mistranslation: " ... but the body is of Christ" in which the word "is" has been erroneously added and when it is removed the meaning becomes clear: that matters such as holy days (i.e. holidays) should be decided only by the body of Christ, i.e. the church, i.e. the church leaders/elders.

World problems worsening

Anyway, the key point is that for better or worse the vast majority of Christians and thus many other people around the world today are observing Good Friday as a key part of the Easter holidays, and the key gist of that holiday is to give thanks for Jesus sacrificing Himself for humanity's sake and for God and Jesus having a plan in which humanity will be saved from exterminating itself due to its ever-mounting wars and other evils.

But meanwhile we are beset by worsening evils, some of which are striking rather too close to home and some of which - such as the latest bombings in Belgium - echo of Bible prophecies that say terrorism and wars will be worldwide shortly before the return of Jesus (Matthew 24:37 cites Genesis 6:11; also Leviticus 26:16 in which God threatens to send terrorists against sinful nations, and Daniel 11, amongst many others.)

Sadly we also are beset by widespread incompetence and corruption in governments and economies all around the world, most especially now in the United States in which the very corrupt hegemony of Big Money is so desperate to maintain control of the government and its global system of central banks that it is intervening directly in the U.S. Presidential election by backing Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton against socialist candidate Bernie Sanders while Republican wild card candidate Donald Trump muddies the waters with over-the-top rhetoric attacking the establishment while himself being part of it.

Bombs in Belgium linked to 9/11

And the second email message I got this morning also was quite disturbing; it was a new posting from David Hawkins of http://www.AbelDanger.net in which they allege that the U.K.-based public service contracting giant Serco may have been behind the bombings in Belgium:

"Abel Danger (AD) alleges that Serco’s European External Action Service coordinated the 22 March 2016 bomb attacks in Brussels as part of the UK's Brexit protection racket where EU leaders will be forced to outsource EU security to Serco and the UK Cabinet Office even if British voters decide to leave the EU."

It's bad enough that radical Muslims bent on exporting their theology are now engaging in war and terrorist acts in various countries all around the world but the notion that some or much of that is being aided by Western capitalist interests is even more troubling, yet it has become obvious that there were some such false-flag interests behind the planning and execution of the massive 9/11 attack and several other subsequent ones, such as the 7/7 bombing of the London subway.

Though it has not yet been widely reported by the mainstream media, the Belgium bomb nearest the offices of the European Union went off at exactly 9:11 a.m. local time, which probably was some kind of psychological warfare message as well as a sweet payoff for someone betting on it in the spot-fixing betting games alleged by Abel Danger.  

Canadian budget needs second look

Here in Canada we have a new government that seems to have a lot of good intentions but deeper inspections of its new budget raise a lot of questions not only about a rising string of deficit budgets but also about the deliverability on rising expectations, and maybe a counterproductive attack on high-income taxpayers. We'll see.

The next issue of The Daily Twigg hopefully will take a second look at the new Canadian budget, which had so many tweaks in it that it demands a deeper analysis, such as giving a billion-dollar bailout to Bombardier.

Certainly the new style and tone of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are still looking good but some of the substance or lack thereof may be questionable.

B.C. faces corruption too

And here in B.C. we see that the Christy Clark regime is doing a great job of covering up the messes and scandals left by former Liberal Party premier Gordon Campbell, who departed before he was ousted for similar corruption and incompetence (e.g. the big project over-runs exposed by Yuile and others) and so was rewarded with the position as Canada's High Commissioner in London where he probably is now yet another minion servant of the old elite big money and the global cabal of central bankers.

Still the link between donations to the B.C. Liberal Party and subsequent awards of government contracts to donors is becoming increasingly clear as in this recent column by Dermod Travis of Integrity B.C., which I reprinted in this blog recently, and my Tweet saying Travis deserves a Webster Award [a B.C. journalism thing] for it was widely retweeted including by @RealLailaYuile including a link to a facebook posting of it by fellow independent blogger Norm Farrell of http://northerninsights.blogspot.ca/ .

Even B.C. NDP leader John Horgan seems to be belatedly joining the fray by posting a Tweet from @jjhorgan alleging that the Clark government has been lax in failing to clamp down on extensive money-laundering in B.C. real estate:

‏"Christy Clark's govt ignores money laundering from same industries that provide them billions in revenue. http://bit.ly/1UlgnFB  #bcpoli "

So while British Columbia thankfully is still a rare outpost of sanity, peace and sort-of-okay government, it's also not immune to corruption and crime and yes even some terrorism (such as the attempted bombing of the B.C. Legislature on Canada Day 2013 by John Nuttall, a recovering drug addict, simpleton and novice Muslim who was both aided and then thwarted by agents of the RCMP and possibly Canada's CSIS).

Planet X threatens Earth?

What is the world coming to? Well in recent days a friend introduced me to the Planet X scare, in which a giant rogue planet named Nibiru is believed to be on a collision course with Earth as early as April or May this year or no later than next year, and there are theories that that was spoken of in the Third Secret of Fatima. But supposedly it is part of God's plan, which I for one highly doubt.

Nonetheless a Google search will turn up oodles of theories about extraterrestrial races using dozens of names and whether you like it or not we must admit that the Bible also speaks of things like "war in space" in Daniel 10:12-14 and aliens or giants breeding with the daughters of men in Genesis 6:4 so the concept of alien life forms wanting to harm us should not be as strange as it now seems to most people.

But an invisible planet suddenly wiping out Earth? No. No way.

Exegesis offers clues to time of Second Coming


I can say that because it has become apparent to me after about 40 years of intensive Bible studies that a great many Bible prophecies have already come true exactly as predicted (e.g. Isaiah 7:14 predicting the coming of Jesus and Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 predicting his death, and Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream accurately predicting a series of world empires in Daniel 2, and the return of the Jews and other Israelites to the land of Israel in Isaiah 11, Jeremiah 16:15, Ezekiel 20, 36 and 37, and Zechariah 12, 13 and 14).

So the unerring record of those prophecies makes me confident that the remaining unfulfilled ones will come true soon too, notably the rebuilding of the Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem which is a necessary precursor to the prophesied war of Armageddon (in Daniel, Revelation and several other books).

How can the future King of the North occupy the temple as in Dan. 11:31 and commit the abomination of desolation spoken of by Jesus the Prophet in Matthew 24:15 unless it is first re-built? The plans for it exist, and the site for it is sitting vacant only a stone's throw away from the Islamic Dome of the Rock, but the political will is not yet in place.

The sudden rebirth of the nation of Israel, described as God's fig tree in Matthew 24:32 and several other places, happened suddenly in 1948 and right on the schedule in Daniel 9, for example, so it should follow that the rest of prophecy will be fulfilled on schedule too. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by hostile armies but occupied by a supposedly friendly foreign army you can know the return of Jesus is near.

And to make a long story short, and though no man knows the day or hour, I have come to believe that the return of Jesus will happen 2,000 years or two prophetic days after either the baptism or crucifixion of Jesus Yeshua in about 32 AD, plus or minus about 4 years (for Herod's pogrom).

Yes previous predictions by others of the return of Jesus have been quite wrong but I'm not daunted by that because it's so increasingly obvious now that the universe is unfolding exactly as it should and world affairs are unravelling exactly as warned of and predicted in The Holy Bible, so He will come on time and thereby save mankind from annihilating itself.

God has given all of us free will so you are not required to agree with me on that or anything but if you do wish to earn an eternal soul then you probably do need to heed the instructions for attitudes towards others and towards God that are provided in detail in the Bible, though they do require some work to discern.

Meanwhile, have a Happy Easter, and if you decide to do Passover too, just to be safe, its date this year is on April 22. 

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Federal Budget 2016

Trudeau Liberals chart a new direction

 

By John Twigg


With its new budget the Canadian federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has clearly embarked on a new direction that is sharply different from its predecessor's in many important policy areas.

While it's sometimes dangerous to rely heavily on second-hand reports, it's clear from media coverage that the Trudeau Liberals really are charting significant new changes in taxes, spending and many other areas of governance including deficits and debt but perhaps most important of all is the new style, tone and focus - such as boosting the federal share of funding infrastructure projects to 50% from 33%.

Opposition reactions to the budget were predictably negative, such as Conservative leader Rona Ambrose calling it a nightmare and NDP leader Tom Mulcair saying "it's not what they promised" [though it IS what Mulcair should have promised!] - but the gist of the budget moves seemed to have been widely welcomed by most observers and the complaints were mainly of the "more should be done sooner" variety.

Major new money for First Nations


Indeed several of the new Liberal directions were long overdue such as allocating $8.4 billion over five years to upgrade First Nations water, housing and infrastructure systems, which is one of the largest single allocations amongst a fairly long list of new initiatives in the budget and really illustrates how numerous policies of the former Conservative regime of Stephan Harper are now being completely reversed.

While some commentators such as leading columnist and pundit Andrew Coyne focussed on such things as broken election promises and dubious fiscal and economic forecasts, most people welcomed what Trudeau called "smart investments" in areas where it's most needed and can do the most good, and I for one think that is a positive and timely approach.


"My promise to middle class families, and all families working hard to join the middle class, is that I will invest now in long-term economic growth that helps you build a better future," Trudeau said in a party statement that also summarized what they seem to think are the main themes in the budget (text follows below).

Thus the boutique tax credits from Harper for child fitness and education are gone and income-splitting for parents is gone but replacing them are a new means-tested Child Benefit, higher GIS payments for seniors and all sorts of other tweaks such as reducing the waiting-time to receive Employment Insurance benefits, returning the retirement age to 65 from 67 and deferring student-loan paybacks until the payee is earning at least $25,000 a year.

There's also $11.9 billion over five years for investments in infrastructure including green energy, social and affordable housing, and transit, some of which is back-ended in the five-year plan and thus probably not of much help for B.C.'s several urgent transportation projects waiting in a queue (and that may be a blessing too because the proposed Massey Bridge and West Broadway subway are dubious in my opinion and could benefit from some better planning before shovels hit any dirt).

So though it's all only a start, it's a good start, and a lot better than what many expected.

Green leader May supportive

One of the smarter responses came from Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who welcomed the major investments in First Nations needs and was "thrilled" to see the reopening of the Kitsilano Coast Guard base but was "sad" to see the absence of green measures such as home retrofits and "heartbroken" by what she said was a weakening of the federal environmental assessment process and generally disappointed with various energy-related matters.

"We'll see how they do (in the years ahead on these and other issues)," she told GlobalTV Vancouver, noting she also had voted for the Liberals' Throne Speech because she supports the general direction of the new government.

I have a similar feeling about it all too, welcoming the many good first steps in new directions but realizing that in coming years the details will be challenging on many issues, such as the environmental review three months from now on the $36-billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project proposed near Prince Rupert, when and how recreational marijuana will be legalized and taxed (the budget was silent on it), how climate, energy and transit issues will be handled, how the restoration of science and tourism promotion efforts will work in practice, how health transfers will be handled, how the economy will perform and whether new measures will be needed next year to boost job creation, whether the tax hikes on upper incomes will spark a flight of capital, and so on. Like electoral reform, federal-provincial relations and water - especially water, which is a provincial jurisdiction seen wrongly as a national treasure.

If I had to give it all a grade I'd say high B or even low A. Pretty good, in other words, and in any case really a welcome turnaround from the bad old days of tyrant Harper.

----

The summary below was circulated by the Liberal Party of Canada and appears here for information and not as a carte-blanche endorsement.

Federal Liberals summary of 2016 Budget

A LONG-TERM PLAN FOR GROWTH

Help for the middle class
A strong economy starts with a strong middle class. Budget 2016 introduces the new, fairer, tax-free Canada Child Benefit, eliminates unfair tax breaks for the wealthy and creates the student grant boost. These measures, combined with the new tax cut for the middle class and a new tax bracket for those earning more than $200,000 per year, will give Canada’s middle class the help it needs to grow and prosper.
Growth for the middle class
To strengthen the middle class and deliver more inclusive growth for more Canadians, Budget 2016 makes historic investments in infrastructure and innovation. These investments will provide both immediate help to Canada’s middle class and help expand opportunities for those working hard to join it.
Historic investments in infrastructure
Budget 2016 proposes to invest more than $120 billion in public transit, green infrastructure and social infrastructure over 10 years. These investments will transform Canadian communities and revitalize Canada’s economy. To help Canadian families and communities right away, Phase 1 of the Government’s infrastructure plan will invest $11.9 billion over five years, to modernize and upgrade public transit, improve water and wastewater systems, expand affordable housing, and protect infrastructure systems from the effects of climate change.
Help for young Canadians
Budget 2016 will ensure no student graduating from college or university has to start paying back their student loans until they make at least $25,000 in annual income. Grants to low and middle-income college and university students will be boosted by as much as $1000 per year, putting more money in the pockets of 360,000 students a year. Our plan also invests over $300 million (over three years) in the Canada Summer Jobs program, creating 35,000 additional youth jobs each year.
A better future for Indigenous peoples
It is time for a renewed relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples, one based on trust, respect and a true spirit of cooperation. The investments in education, infrastructure, training, and other programs contained in Budget 2016 will help to secure a better quality of life for Indigenous peoples – and build a stronger, more unified, and more prosperous Canada.
A clean growth economy
A clean environment and a strong economy go hand in hand. Budget 2016 recognizes this, making strategic investments in clean technology and taking concrete steps to address the causes and effects of climate change.
An inclusive and fair Canada
Canada is at its best and most prosperous when all Canadians have a real and fair chance at success. The investments in Budget 2016 help to extend opportunities to more Canadians, and will help to build a healthier, more creative, more generous and more just Canada. Canadians understand that a country can’t cut its way to prosperity. A new approach – one that includes smart investments and fair choices – is needed.

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Monday, March 21, 2016

Quo Vadis MMXVI

A Look Behind the Malaise of the World


Bu John Twigg


This morning as I began my workday the Latin phrase Quo Vadis came to mind but I wasn't quite sure what it meant so I looked it up on Google.

I knew the phrase was a title on a book in my father's collection but if I had read it as a kid 50 years ago or so I had long since forgotten its details (welcome to aging, eh) but of course Google came through brilliantly: the book is a classic novel written in 1896 by Henryk Sienkiewicz and it was made into an epic American movie in 1951 by MGM, which cost $7.6 million to make and earned $21 million in box office sales.

So what does it mean, and what was its appeal? It means "where are you going?" and according to Christian apocrypha it was spoken by the risen Jesus to Saint Peter as he was leaving Rome and who afterwards decided to return to Rome and thus be crucified upside down for the cause of Christ - but the rest of the Quo Vadis story is fascinating and quite probably contains some important lessons for the world today.

The gist (since people want me to write shorter blogs) is that Roman Emperor Nero was campaigning against the rising tide of Christians then in Rome and so to make them look bad he started fires around the city and tried to make it look like the Christians had started them, leading to the crucifixion of Peter and many others.

Did Nero invent false-flagging?

How does that relate to today's world? Well that arsoning of Rome surely was one of the earliest examples of what we now call "false flag events" in which some interests - usually wealthy, powerful and privileged people like Nero was in his day - engineer catastrophes and mass-casualty events for financial and political gain and usually try to make it look like someone else did it, or certainly not the actual perpetrators.

Another of the older examples came with the founding of insurance companies in the Middle Ages in London when start-up insurance firms began torching their rivals' insured properties to try to bankrupt them and give the remaining companies an oligopoly.

Perpetraitors, maybe?

Conspiracy theorists of course can cite dozens of false-flag events in recent years, of which the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 is the most obvious because there is no way a small group of rag-tag quasi terrorists could have gained the flying skills needed to get three large jets to so precisely hit the targets where and when they did (so obviously they were aided by homing beacons and/or remote control of the planes' uninterruptible auto-pilots - probably both, according to the in-depth research published on the Abel Danger website over the years, one summary of which theory can be seen here ). [They also allege that the passenger planes were flown out to sea and replaced for the hits by droned dummy planes, which is maybe.]

Financial gains behind 9/11?

The objectives of the 9/11 attack apparently included a variety of gains for the perps including insurance payouts (some double insurance had been placed on the Twin Towers shortly before they were torched), elimination of competition (e.g. removing the CO2e carbon-trading system being developed by Carlton Bartels in the Cantor Fitzgerald offices atop the north tower, which greatly benefited a rival carbon trading system based in Chicago), elimination of troublesome litigation (e.g. U.S. government versus Enron and many others lost when WTC 7 was "pulled down"), and causing stock-market gyrations that insiders could benefit from (e.g. 4,000 put options placed on two airline stocks in days before 9/11 here ).

Even Donald Trump recently acknowledged in a media interview and later a campaign rally at Bluffton, South Carolina that the real perpetrators of 9/11 have yet to be identified and he further alleged that the Saudis may have been behind it all, which is a bit ironic insofar as the Abel Danger group recently alleged in several  postings  that Trump and/or some his companies may have been involved with the actual 9/11 perps!

 "Abel Danger (AD) alleges that Trump Shuttle Inc. used scabbed-up unions in the Boeing supply chain to launch a death-pool service in 1988 where high rollers could bet on the times of death of Boeing passengers and pilots while Trump's scabs destroyed evidence of murder for hire," they said in a new column not yet posted on their website.

" AD claims that Trump Shuttle's bankers led by Citibank, hired Serco’s 8(a) companies to pimp children to Five Eyes' cabinet officials and extort the development of the mission-critical FADEC software needed to support long-range death-pool services with modified Boeing aircraft," they alleged (as Abel Danger have been doing for many years now without a legal challenge).

Engineered attacks increasing?

But 9/11 was only one of many such events, some of which may involve insurance company interests sabotaging big accounts of their rival firms, such as alleged in the Deepwater Horizon well blow-out described by Abel Danger in a video interview and previous postings , and such events seem to be continuing, such as Malaysian Airways losing two planes only four months apart, amongst many others.

Alas there are a growing number of social and political upheavals around now, such as the terrorist attack on a rock concert at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, killing 130 people, which may have been organized by so-far-unknown third parties, and the shootings in San Bernardino on Dec. 2, 2015 which killed 14 people and wounded 22, which reportedly were inspired by but not directed by foreign terrorists.

And then there are the civil and religious wars in and around Syria, which are clearly backed by outsider interests, the mob rapes and gropes of European women by various Muslims [who enabled them to be there??], the waves of corruption and economic dysfunctions in Asia [too many to list, e.g. Japan resorting to negative interest rates, China jailing journalists], the inhumane horrors in Africa, rampant criminality in Latin America and so much more such as the impending breakup of the European Union.

Yes the rather too much friends-and-insiders favours stuff is happening right here in B.C. too, not to mention the unsolved scandal of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and other First Nations problems as exposed by B.C.-based author Kevin Annett in his new book Murder By Decree  - further information on that and another new book is available here ). His gist is remarkably similar to other conspiracy theories: children and girls are kidnapped for use in various sex trades, possibly including entrapment and blackmail of influential politicians, business leaders and maybe even some church and service-group leaders.

Carbon capping a smokescreen?

Indeed all these false-flag and other cover-ups of wrongdoing by wealthy elites and their minions are probably more widespread than even most of the most zealous conspiracy theorists suppose because they may include such things as using a false alarm about the supposed urgency of global warming being caused mainly by human emissions of CO2 in order to smokescreen (i.e. false-flag) the many other far more serious and more urgent threats to human well-being, not least being the rampant corruption amongst the one-per-centers who now own about 90 per cent of the world's wealth, as Sanders alleges and even Trump somewhat acknowledges as true too.

In case my readers doubt that, please consider the pith and substance of the Carbon Disclosure Project ( CDP ), whose members include some of the largest and wealthiest people and businesses in the world, and the assets of their members make it possibly the largest pool of capital in the world.

As Wikipedia reports, the collection of self-reported data from thousands of companies is supported by 822 institutional investors with US$95 trillion under management and the CDP has obtained backing from blue chip investors including HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, American International Group, and State Street Corp.

And the CDP, which was founded in 2003 by the children and minions of the British upper class, is now growing globally by getting the investment dealers and big banks to refuse to make new placements into companies unless and until they adopt carbon mitigation strategies, i.e. more blackmail!

Yes it's ostensibly a good thing to reduce carbon pollution but carbon monoxide and methane are far worse than carbon dioxide as pollutants and GHGs and reducing carbon pollution is or should be a far less urgent priority for mankind than say reducing diseases, poverty and usury, protecting and purifying water, ending civil wars and especially less important than finding a way to avoid the nuclear war that's prophesied in the Bible to take place between the very powers now encircling Jerusalem.

Turning points loom in politics

So what is to be done? And where is the world heading? Those are two questions coming to the fore now with the Canadian federal government of rookie Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivering its first budget tomorrow, with British Columbia racing towards a provincial election in May 2017, and especially with the United States now gripped in a toxic campaign for the Presidential election in November this year.

An excellent analysis of that latter challenge was published this morning on the Tyee by Mitchell Anderson which makes the point that the old establishment cabals in both the Republican and Democratic parties are now in danger of being supplanted by outsider populists (Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders), and that could be a good thing for the American public interest. But it also reinforces my point that old-money elites have been controlling and corrupting and false-flagging our politics and economics and news media for far too long now and in far too many ways too, most of which modes are unknown to most people who disdain any and all conspiracy theories .

"(Trump) plays the long list of wedge issues like a pipe organ, rousing marginalized masses with an authentic cynicism unmatched by his compromised challengers," wrote Anderson. "The Republican establishment can only watch in horror as a machine of their own making is commandeered by an opportunistic interloper beyond their control,"  - which makes the valid point that political parties and hence governments are controlled by machines run by cabals of friends and insiders.

Control by cabals is common

Control of things like courts and cops and cabinets by cabals of pals is not illegal unless and until that control reaches the point of abusing due process and beginning to favour those same pals and political donors moreso than non-pals, or even enriching those insiders while beggaring the outsiders, which seems to happen a lot all around the world, even in Western democracies.

It's happening here in B.C. too even though it is being routinely exposed by Dermod Travis of Integrity B.C. , especially a report on political donations viewable here which links dozens of donations to project awards, and it's allegedly in some websites mounted by John Carten such as the Water War Crimes viewable here , and it's evident in several other messy court cases involving alleging misfeasance of B.C. land and resources.

Unfortunately British Columbia probably is a small and relatively clean and fair player when it comes to graft and corruption, but it still does get caught up in it, which is evident in today's news that the environmental review of the $12-billion Pacific Northwest LNG project near Prince Rupert has been unexpectedly extended for three months by the federal government, ostensibly to provide more time to assess the plant's impacts on salmon fry using nearby beds of eelgrass but perhaps also because the main proponent, Petronas, has since become mired in a massive $1 billion political corruption scandal in its home base of Malaysia which is large enough to earn a special report by the Wall Street Journal.

Dauncey book and other solutions

But there IS still some hope, such as in the optimistic vision in Guy Dauncey's newly-published book Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible, which portrays what Vancouver, the world's greenest city, could look like in 2032, and happily Dauncey's policy recipes include a lot more ideas than merely capping CO2, such as moving towards proportional representation systems so that governments will be less able to devolve decisions to handfulls of backroom operatives as is the case now.

More information about Dauncey's work is viewable at www.earthfuture.com/  and video copies of two interviews I did with him can be viewed on YouTube at first  and second

Or as a friend told me this afternoon, "We must make things work better for working people" and that includes financially-successful people who work hard to earn their higher incomes and resent it all the more when their families are taxed heavily in order to finance political vote-buying redistribution systems.

Indeed there do need to be sea changes in how people behave, from top to bottom of the social ladders, and there need to be incentives rather than penalties for those who succeed, to make the tax systems perceived by all to be fair to all.

"The solution is not class warfare," he said, disdaining the platform rhetoric of Bernie Sanders and claiming that only inflames and clouds the minds of voters.

"The middle class is being taxed out of business," my friend said, arguing there needs to be a better discussion of such issues.

Indeed. And I have dozens or even hundreds of ideas about how B.C. could grow its economy with new clean and green industries but because they are novel and in some ways radical they have not yet been embraced by any political parties.

Such as? Glad you asked: restarting the Bank of B.C. and enabling it to issue an honest home-grown currency, enabling bulk-water exports through a single-window sales agent for the Province [which BTW owns the water], legalizing and fairly taxing marijuana, adding a new green-energy ferry crossing from YVR to Gabriola, starting a full-employment program, adopting a universal income to supplant means-tested ones, and lots of other things like eliminating MSP premiums and strengthening health, settling native land claims bilaterally (without the feds) and yes - adopting some proportional-rep ideas but retaining the British Parliamentary tradition, etc etc.

It's the beginning of Spring and that's a good time for a new day in human politics.

feedback welcome to john@johntwigg.com .
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