Election 2015

[Valhrafn]

One take on last night's debate: Is it just me or Mulcair's forced smiles on camera at both debates so far were just plain creepy?
:blotto:

Reuters

Not just you...

 

[The Bread Guy]

Wayne Gretzky:  Vote for Stephen Harper (even if I can't vote)!

 

[Old Sweat]

Not just you...

I got the impression he was on the verge of exploding a couple of times. The muscles in his face looked tight and the smile was forced. Trudeau may have been trying to provoke him.

 

[Kilo_302]

Another damning report on our government's quest to rid itself of the burden of accurate data. I get physically ill reading this stuff. The effects of these policies extend into the environment, social services, the economy, research and development, just about every silo you can think of. In a time of "big data" equating to big advantages, Canada is shedding as much data as it can, and we're less competitive because of it. I would hope even Conservative Party supporters can see the insanity here.

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/vanishing-canada-why-were-all-losers-in-ottawas-war-on-data/

Economic considerations are cited routinely to justify cutbacks in collecting, analyzing and digitizing information. A closer look at recent data erasure, however, suggests it runs counter to sound economic strategy. The glaring example is the elimination of the mandatory long-form census, a detailed survey of Canadians taken every five years. Its replacement, the voluntary National Household Survey, added $22 million to the cost of the 2011 census; the response rate dropped from 94 per cent in 2006 to 69 per cent, which makes the data totally unreliable. “A response rate of 75 per cent is the minimum required for sample accuracy,” says StatsCan’s former chief statistician, Munir Sheikh, who famously resigned in 2010 after Tony Clement, then industry minister, stated publicly that the decision to cut the long-form census came from within StatsCan. “The federal government misrepresented my advice,” Sheikh told Maclean’s, adding that ongoing cuts to the agency have undermined its credibility. StatsCan stands by the data: “The results for the 2011 census are of very high quality, as in previous censuses,” says Peter Frayne of StatsCan.

Five years later, we are seeing the effects. Without the baseline provided by the long-form census, says statistician Doug Elliott, who runs Regina consultancy QED Information Systems, “when an employment rate or CPI [consumer price index] doesn’t make any sense, your immediate suspicion now is that the number is wrong, rather than trying to figure out why.” Voluntary surveys also create biased data, says Sheikh: Response rates from the very rich, the very poor, rural areas, immigrants and Aboriginal communities tend to be far lower—so these groups are not well-represented. “People who do not respond well to a voluntary survey are the very people social policy tries to help,” he says. “So if you were to base policy on data received, you’d say, ‘Gee, we don’t have a poverty problem in this country.’ ”

“You see this continual silencing of people who are not ‘winners,’ for lack of a better word,” says Armine Yalnizyan, a senior economist with the Ottawa-based Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “The result is that the government can pretend they’re not there. It’s like, ‘If you’ve got any needs, we can’t hear you, we can’t see you, la la la.’”

Sheikh believes we’d be better off with no census data than what we have now: “Then you do the best you can using reasoning, logic, and whatever other stats may be available [on which] to base your decision. But when you have wrong information, chances are, it will put you on the wrong path to policy development.”

Environics Analytics’ Kestle agrees, noting that the neighbourhood-level data provided by the census was vital for businesses looking to understand local markets, to decide where to locate or how to direct marketing. Businesses, including his own, have been hard-hit, says Elliott: “We’re in a labour-market crunch in Saskatchewan,” he says. “Businesses come to me and ask where they’re going to get employees; we’re stuck with poor-quality data to help them.”

Government, too, is operating in the dark, as evidenced last year when StatsCan was unable to provide auditor general Michael Ferguson with job data during the contentious debate over proposed reforms of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The Department of Finance was relying on data from the online classified service Kijiji to back its position.

As a result, economic decision-making is compromised, as a July ScotiaBank report points out. It claimed it would be “ill-advised” for the Bank of Canada to make rate-cut decisions based on StatsCan data, because it’s “stale”: “Canadian data might be following a similar trajectory to that which we have observed in the U.S., but, unfortunately, the problem here is that the Canadian data notoriously lags the U.S.,” it said. The report also noted that much of Canada’s trade data on resources, especially energy, “is inferred, because it is not available on a timely basis.”

Lack of tracking capacity also blinds us to whether there have been improvements in the inadequate housing and overcrowded conditions in the North, exposed in the 2006 census, says Yalnizyan: “We’ll never know whether that is improved or not.”


When it comes to data, Canada has become “a cautionary tale,” says Phil Sparks, a former associate director of the U.S. Census Bureau who is co-director of the Washington-based Census Project, a group fighting to maintain the U.S. equivalent of a mandatory long-term census in the face of Republican calls for its elimination. He calls the Canadian experience “an unmitigated disaster.” The census’s elimination damaged Canada’s international reputation, says John Henstridge, president of the Statistical Society of Australia. “Prior to that, Statistics Canada was regarded as possibly the best government statistical body in the world.”

But the census is far from the only issue; less discussed is the 2012 elimination of four key longitudinal studies, some dating to the 1970s, which tracked health, youth, income and employment. Economist Miles Corak, a professor at University of Ottawa who studies income inequality and poverty, calls this a major informational loss, as well as “money down the drain.” “Longitudinal studies are very expensive,” Corak says, “but their value increases exponentially with time.” He compares the loss to stopping watching a movie halfway: “Only after you follow a group of children for 12 or 15 years, and they’re on the cusp of entering the labour market, do you have the capacity to see how adult success is foreshadowed by their family origins.” Statistics tell a human story, Corak says: “We think of statistics as cold, but they are the real lives of people embedded in bits and bytes. They live and breathe.”

Cutting the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, a longitudinal study tracking economic well-being since the mid-’90s, left the country unable to measure changes in income over the longer term, says economist Stephen Gordon, a professor at Université Laval. It was replaced by the Canadian Income Survey, which uses a different methodology; now, old income data can’t be connected with new income data, he says. The upshot? Comprehensive Canadian income-data history currently begins in 2012.

Gordon expresses alarm that 20 years of data history between 1960 and 1980 vanished in 2012 due to changes in the way national accounts, GDP and other data were compiled: “It’s now impossible to have a clear picture of the Canadian economy since the Second World War,” he says. And that’s a huge problem for analysts who need to look at pressing concerns, such as the current oil price crash in context. “You want to look at data about oil prices rising in the ’70s, but you can’t.”

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Physically ill?

:

Do you realize that I have never read one, not one positive post out the hundreds you have written on this site?

Is your life so devoid of meaning that all you can do is to hate things?

Hell- even when Chrétien was PM (an believe me, I am no fan of him or his party), I found plenty that I could St least live with, if not like?

You do realize that when you treat every single subject equally as the end of civilization as we know it (if not the end of the world itself), most of us here just think you lack perspective, judgement and maturity?

 

[dimsum]

Physically ill?

:

Do you realize that I have never read one, not one positive post out the hundreds you have written on this site?

Is your life so devoid of meaning that all you can do is to hate things?

Hell- even when Chrétien was PM (an believe me, I am no fan of him or his party), I found plenty that I could St least live with, if not like?

You do realize that when you treat every single subject equally as the end of civilization as we know it (if not the end of the world itself), most of us here just think you lack perspective, judgement and maturity?

For the love of Allah/God/Xenu/Flying Spaghetti Monster, thank you.  I was going to say just that. 

There are many things we as private citizens (or government/military folks) can't control.  Firing up the outrage bus for everything will a) get you a hernia and b) make you seem crazy to others. 

 

[Kirkhill]

Is he still nattering?

I'll check back in next Friday.    ???

 

[Kilo_302]

Physically ill?

:

Do you realize that I have never read one, not one positive post out the hundreds you have written on this site?

Is your life so devoid of meaning that all you can do is to hate things?

Hell- even when Chrétien was PM (an believe me, I am no fan of him or his party), I found plenty that I could St least live with, if not like?

You do realize that when you treat every single subject equally as the end of civilization as we know it (if not the end of the world itself), most of us here just think you lack perspective, judgement and maturity?

For the love of Allah/God/Xenu/Flying Spaghetti Monster, thank you.  I was going to say just that. 

There are many things we as private citizens (or government/military folks) can't control.  Firing up the outrage bus for everything will a) get you a hernia and b) make you seem crazy to others. 

Is he still nattering?

I'll check back in next Friday.    ???

So rather than addressing the issue, you're accusing me of being overly negative. This is a new one. Because I don't want to offend a bunch of positive-thinking Oprah devotees, here are some things I like. I like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings. Oh and I LOVE Trudeau's hair. AbFab. :nod:

Back to the matter hand, yes this policy of trashing data upsets me. It should upset anyone who is concerned with how our economy is performing, concerned with the efficacy of public programs, concerned with municipal budgets, concerned with our basic understanding of world, the list goes on.

Now, back to the vacuum.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The BQ is also going after the NDP in this TV/internet ad (in French).

According to iPolitics the ad, "literally turns a black drop of oil into a niqab to drive the point home [and, then] the ad goes after the NDP for their support of both the Energy East pipeline, which is actually very much undecided, and Muslim womens’ right to wear the niqab when they testify, swear the oath of citizenship and vote."

 

[Good2Golf]

So rather than addressing the issue, you're accusing me of being overly negative. This is a new one. Because I don't want to offend a bunch of positive-thinking Oprah devotees, here are some things I like. I like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings. Oh and I LOVE Trudeau's hair. AbFab. :nod:

Back to the matter hand, yes this policy of trashing data upsets me. It should upset anyone who is concerned with how our economy is performing, concerned with the efficacy of public programs, concerned with municipal budgets, concerned with our basic understanding of world, the list goes on.

Now, back to the vacuum.

So just because some journalist wrote that the Government is destroying records, you believe them?  All the records go to the archives.  As well, anyone who suggest that a new algorithm had made all the old data useless clearly has no understanding of data processing.  The knowledge of the 70's/80's hasn't been lost, we're just using a new algorithm on the data we collect from this point forward.

Hey, on some of your earlier posts you provided op ed pieces on how Harper's religion is leading to Canada's downfall in the international community.  How about you put of some publicly-available references to even who that to be the case?

À vous...

 

[GAP]

Gee, I hope they didn't wipe out the Creataeuos period too..... so much depended on that....

 

[Scott]

So rather than addressing the issue, you're accusing me of being overly negative. This is a new one. Because I don't want to offend a bunch of positive-thinking Oprah devotees, here are some things I like. I like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings. Oh and I LOVE Trudeau's hair. AbFab. :nod:

Back to the matter hand, yes this policy of trashing data upsets me. It should upset anyone who is concerned with how our economy is performing, concerned with the efficacy of public programs, concerned with municipal budgets, concerned with our basic understanding of world, the list goes on.

Now, back to the vacuum.

Hatred ain't healthy, bubs.

 

[Good2Golf]

Gee, I hope they didn't wipe out the Creataeuos period too..... so much depended on that....

They were responsible for eliminating the entire Mesozoic Era, not just the Cretaceous Period.  Furthermore, as though to add insult to injury, they continue to make light of the dinosaur's demise by bringing its multi-million year-old life blood up from beneath the ground where they have rested in peace for so long.  They just don't respect others.  :nod:

 

[Edward Campbell]

They were responsible for eliminating the entire Mesozoic Era, not just the Cretaceous Period.  Furthermore, as though to ad insult to injury, they continue to make light of the dinosaur's demise by bringing its multi-million year-old life blood up from beneath the ground where they have rested in peace for so long.  They just don't respect others.  :nod:

You mean the original "old stock Canadian" ...

             

              Albertosaurus was an earlier relative to the better-known Tyrannosaurus. Both are examples of large, late Tyrannosauridae family separated
              on two groups during the early Creataceous period - Albertosaurinae and Tyrannosaurinae. As you can see from its name, Albertosaurus was
              one of basal and most common Albertosaurines. Albertosaurinae had much more gracile and aerodynamic body design than Tyrannosaurinae.
              Also, their skulls are far more thin and flexibile, so their bite force was a little bit weaker. [size=14pt]Albertosaurus lived in Canada during the
              Maastrichtian, 71-65 mya.[/size]

A real "red meat" Conservative, that one ...

 

[Rocky Mountains]

Killo - So all of Canada's problems were caused by eliminating the long form census.  And I thought it was all about the liberal concern about privacy of individual information.  Why are the Conservatives now small government liberal and the lefties are goose-stepping fascists who want to control every aspect of our lives?  Something is bass ackwards.

 

[Kilo_302]

So just because some journalist wrote that the Government is destroying records, you believe them?  All the records go to the archives.  As well, anyone who suggest that a new algorithm had made all the old data useless clearly has no understanding of data processing.  The knowledge of the 70's/80's hasn't been lost, we're just using a new algorithm on the data we collect from this point forward.

Hey, on some of your earlier posts you provided op ed pieces on how Harper's religion is leading to Canada's downfall in the international community.  How about you put of some publicly-available references to even who that to be the case?

À vous...

I'm not sure how to address this outside of asking if you read the article. It's well sourced and many of the citations are in link format (so you can read those too). I'm not going to argue the point the author is making, you can read it for yourself (and the sources) and decide if your point about algorithms still makes any sense.

A months-long Maclean’s investigation, which includes interviews with dozens of academics, scientists, statisticians, economists and librarians, has found that the federal government’s “austerity” program, which resulted in staff cuts and library closures (16 libraries since 2012)—as well as arbitrary changes to policy, when it comes to data—has led to a systematic erosion of government records far deeper than most realize, with the data and data-gathering capability we do have severely compromised as a result.

To your second point, that author wasn't explaining our downfall in international standing so much as trying to explain some of the stranger policies from this government (including the hostility to science and the purging of records and data). What's so curious about these policies in particular is that they don't reflect traditional conservative values. Conservative governments in the past have championed research and science etc as tools to help us economically. I've made this point several times, but is it not strange that our government wants LESS information rather than more upon which to base policy? It follows that such a government will make BAD policy. The problem here is that the Conservatives have gone so far, they're also hobbling future governments in their attempts to make sound policy based on sound data.

You mean the original "old stock Canadian" ...

             

              Albertosaurus was an earlier relative to the better-known Tyrannosaurus. Both are examples of large, late Tyrannosauridae family separated
              on two groups during the early Creataceous period - Albertosaurinae and Tyrannosaurinae. As you can see from its name, Albertosaurus was
              one of basal and most common Albertosaurines. Albertosaurinae had much more gracile and aerodynamic body design than Tyrannosaurinae.
              Also, their skulls are far more thin and flexibile, so their bite force was a little bit weaker. [size=14pt]Albertosaurus lived in Canada during the
              Maastrichtian, 71-65 mya.[/size]

A real "red meat" Conservative, that one ...

I think we're seeing the presence of Lynton Crosby and his "dog whistle" politics here. If you look at the strategies he's used in Australia and elsewhere (with no small degree of success), this fits the bill. I don't think however, that Harper expected such a reaction.

Interesting to see the "internationalization" of election campaigns. The NDP and Liberals have used strategists that worked with Obama, and of course the Republican strategists have made their presence felt in Canada as well. I for one don't think this is a good development, regardless of who wins a given election. A cookie cutter approach, be it on the left or right only serves to dumb down a campaign and make it less likely issues will be addressed in any meaningful way. Strategies and tactics should always take a back seat to debate, but alas this is politics.

 

[Kilo_302]

Killo - So all of Canada's problems were caused by eliminating the long form census.  And I thought it was all about the liberal concern about privacy of individual information.  Why are the Conservatives now small government liberal and the lefties are goose-stepping fascists who want to control every aspect of our lives?  Something is bass ackwards.

Where did I say all of our problems stem from the elimination of the long form census? You're putting words in my mouth. I think it's definitely a very serious problem and it shouldn't be a partisan issue. Facts are not partisan. Wouldn't you agree it's better to understand more about our economy, demographics, health of Canadians etc etc ? The long form census helps our government make effective policy in just about every arena.

Some do argue that the census is an invasion of privacy. This makes little sense to me, as the government has no way to track who has given the answers. Ironically, supporters of the termination of the census point to Sweden and Denmark as the way to go. In fact these nations have far more intrusive practices to replace their census. Everyone in those countries gets a personal ID code that is used to track all of the information previously gathered in our anonymous long form census.

Now if you want to talk invasion of privacy, look no further than big data being used to profile consumers. We seem to be ok with so far, and big box stores now know more about us than our own goverment ever will.

Unless...what about Bill C-51? This allows government security agencies to share and track data on any Canadian (including tax information sourced from the CRA). C-51 does far more to erode Canadians' privacy rights than anything found in our (once again) anonymous census.  The trend of government security agencies working with the likes of Google and Amazon is also concerning, as it amounts to an outsourcing of big data analysis. Combine this with greater powers for our security agencies and it's not hard to see how this is again far more intrusive than the census.

If you're actually worried about government intrusion into our lives, you won't vote Conservative or Liberal as they passed it. So yes, something is definitely "bass ackwards."

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Gee....if I can't vote Conservative or Liberal, who would that leave left? Let me think....

 

[George Wallace]

Another damning report on our government's quest to rid itself of the burden of accurate data. I get physically ill reading this stuff. The effects of these policies extend into the environment, social services, the economy, research and development, just about every silo you can think of. In a time of "big data" equating to big advantages, Canada is shedding as much data as it can, and we're less competitive because of it. I would hope even Conservative Party supporters can see the insanity here.

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/vanishing-canada-why-were-all-losers-in-ottawas-war-on-data/

Yup!  Sure!  It is all Harper's fault that all these people DID NOT follow the direction to digitize all their libraries, to become more efficient, cost effective and save space.  It is all Harper's fault the the various organizations feared for jobs, so they sat on their asses and did not follow direction.  It is all Harper's fault that "dinosaurs" in the Government scientific community rebelled in an organized fashion to ignore or sabotage the digitizing of said libraries.  Of course, it is all Harper's fault the they did not follow the directive given. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/09/parker-donham-response/405067/

People have gone pretty far over the cliff when they can believe that an update to modern technology constitutes a war on science. The truth of the matter was less far-fetched and more squalid. Demand for materials-on-paper from the Lethbridge library had plunged by more than 80 percent over recent years. Digitization of the library threatened public-sector jobs. What was at issue here was not know-nothingism. It was unionized Luddism.

But....the ABC crowd don't want the TRUTH. 

 

[Kilo_302]

Yup!  Sure!  It is all Harper's fault that all these people DID NOT follow the direction to digitize all their libraries, to become more efficient, cost effective and save space.  It is all Harper's fault the the various organizations feared for jobs, so they sat on their asses and did not follow direction.  It is all Harper's fault that "dinosaurs" in the Government scientific community rebelled in an organized fashion to ignore or sabotage the digitizing of said libraries.  Of course, it is all Harper's fault the they did not follow the directive given. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/09/parker-donham-response/405067/

But....the ABC crowd don't want the TRUTH.

George you do understand who David Frum is right? Did he interview the dozens and dozens of academics, scientists, statisticians, librarians for this opinion piece?