History of Canadian Senate Reform (with comparisons to Australia)

After reading today that the Australian senate has blocked a gov't bill on implementing a "Cap and Trade" system, here is an excellent paper I stumbled upon that I strongly recommend about the detailed history of Canadian senate reform with comparisons to the Australian model.

As a proud Albertan, Canadian senate reform has always been one of my most contentious issues and so I am always interested in hearing and reading people's opinions about it.


The paper was written by Hon. Dr. Ted Morton, a former professor of political science, senate candidate in Alberta, former Alberta PC leadership candidate (whom I voted for), and current Alberta government Minister for Sustainable Resource Development. 

The paper provides a thorough understanding of the Australian parliamentary system, notably their senate, and outlines the several attempts at senate reform in Canada, and the reasons for it--usually spurred on by Western alienation in Canada, but halted by the need to appease Quebec. 

Dr. Morton also mentions that because of the lack of an elected Canadian senate, the voice of minority rights  are heard through challenges in the Supreme Court referring to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Whereas in Australia, with their lack of such a Charter, minority rights are heard through their elected regional senators as members of minor political parties can be elected through their proportional representative single-transferrable ballot system. 


I learned a lot from the paper and Dr. Morton's opinions on and reasons for senate reform in Canada exactly match with my own.  I'm not a big fan of the P.R. system in voting for the lower house as popular as it is with minor parties like the NDP and Greens, but applying it to the upper house as Australia does now interests me.

So with that, I believe Canadians should look strongly at the Australian system as a model for our own. 

Australian Senate
Number of states, territories:  6, 2
Senators per state, territory:  12, 2
Total senators:  76
Half of state senators elected every 6 years
All territory senators elected every 3 years
Senators can hold cabinet positions in gov't.


Read more on the Australian system here.

Defects in key climate data are uncovered (published BEFORE hacked emails)

I'm posting this article in its entirety as published in the National Post, dated October 1, 2009 by Ross McKitrick, a professor of environmental economics at the University of Guelph.  Also note that this was over a month before the Mann et al. emails were hacked.

Ross McKitrick: Defects in key climate data are uncovered

Posted: October 01, 2009, 9:03 PM by NP Editor

climate change, hockey stick, Ross McKitrick

Only by playing with data can scientists come up with the infamous ‘hockey stick’ graph of global warming

By Ross McKitrick

B
eginning in 2003, I worked with Stephen McIntyre to replicate a famous result in paleoclimatology known as the Hockey Stick graph. Developed by a U.S. climatologist named Michael Mann, it was a statistical compilation of tree ring data supposedly proving that air temperatures had been stable for 900 years, then soared off the charts in the 20th century. Prior to the publication of the Hockey Stick, scientists had held that the medieval-era was warmer than the present, making the scale of 20th century global warming seem relatively unimportant. The dramatic revision to this view occasioned by the Hockey Stick’s publication made it the poster child of the global warming movement. It was featured prominently in a 2001 report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as government websites and countless review reports.

Steve and I showed that the mathematics behind the Mann Hockey Stick were badly flawed, such that its shape was determined by suspect bristlecone tree ring data. Controversies quickly piled up: Two expert panels involving the U.S. National Academy of Sciences were asked to investigate, the U.S. Congress held a hearing, and the media followed the story around the world.

The expert reports upheld all of our criticisms of the Mann Hockey Stick, both of the mathematics and of its reliance on flawed bristlecone pine data. One of the panels, however, argued that while the Mann Hockey Stick itself was flawed, a series of other studies published since 1998 had similar shapes, thus providing support for the view that the late 20th century is unusually warm. The IPCC also made this argument in its 2007 report. But the second expert panel, led by statistician Edward Wegman, pointed out that the other studies are not independent. They are written by the same small circle of authors, only the names are in different orders, and they reuse the same few data climate proxy series over and over.

Most of the proxy data does not show anything unusual about the 20th century. But two data series have reappeared over and over that do have a hockey stick shape. One was the flawed bristlecone data that the National Academy of Sciences panel said should not be used, so the studies using it can be set aside. The second was a tree ring curve from the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, compiled by UK scientist Keith Briffa.

Briffa had published a paper in 1995 claiming that the medieval period actually contained the coldest year of the millennium. But this claim depended on just three tree ring records (called cores) from the Polar Urals. Later, a colleague of his named F. H. Schweingruber produced a much larger sample from the Polar Urals, but it told a very different story: The medieval era was actually quite warm and the late 20th century was unexceptional. Briffa and Schweingruber never published those data, instead they dropped the Polar Urals altogether from their climate reconstruction papers.

In its place they used a new series that Briffa had calculated from tree ring data from the nearby Yamal Peninsula that had a pronounced Hockey Stick shape: relatively flat for 900 years then sharply rising in the 20th century. This Yamal series was a composite of an undisclosed number of individual tree cores. In order to check the steps involved in producing the composite, it would be necessary to have the individual tree ring measurements themselves. But Briffa didn’t release his raw data.

Over the next nine years, at least one paper per year appeared in prominent journals using Briffa’s Yamal composite to support a hockey stick-like result. The IPCC relied on these studies to defend the Hockey Stick view, and since it had appointed Briffa himself to be the IPCC Lead Author for this topic, there was no chance it would question the Yamal data.

Despite the fact that these papers appeared in top journals like Nature and Science, none of the journal reviewers or editors ever required Briffa to release his Yamal data. Steve McIntyre’s repeated requests for them to uphold their own data disclosure rules were ignored.

Then in 2008 Briffa, Schweingruber and some colleagues published a paper using the Yamal series (again) in a journal called the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, which has very strict data-sharing rules. Steve sent in his customary request for the data, and this time an editor stepped up to the plate, ordering the authors to release their data. A short while ago the data appeared on the Internet. Steve could finally begin to unpack the Yamal composite.

It turns out that many of the samples were taken from dead (partially fossilized) trees and they have no particular trend. The sharp uptrend in the late 20th century came from cores of 10 living trees alive as of 1990, and five living trees alive as of 1995. Based on scientific standards, this is too small a sample on which to produce a publication-grade proxy composite. The 18th and 19th century portion of the sample, for instance, contains at least 30 trees per year. But that portion doesn’t show a warming spike. The only segment that does is the late 20th century, where the sample size collapses. Once again a dramatic hockey stick shape turns out to depend on the least reliable portion of a dataset. 

But an even more disquieting discovery soon came to light. Steve searched a paleoclimate data archive to see if there were other tree ring cores from at or near the Yamal site that could have been used to increase the sample size. He quickly found a large set of 34 up-to-date core samples, taken from living trees in Yamal by none other than Schweingruber himself! Had these been added to Briffa’s small group the 20th century would simply be flat. It would appear completely unexceptional compared to the rest of the millennium.

Combining data from different samples would not have been an unusual step. Briffa added data from another Schweingruber site to a different composite, from the Taimyr Peninsula. The additional data were gathered more than 400 km away from the primary site. And in that case the primary site had three or four times as many cores to begin with as the Yamal site. Why did he not fill out the Yamal data with the readily-available data from his own coauthor? Why did Briffa seek out additional data for the already well-represented Taimyr site and not for the inadequate Yamal site?

Thus the key ingredient in most of the studies that have been invoked to support the Hockey Stick, namely the Briffa Yamal series, depends on the influence of a woefully thin subsample of trees and the exclusion of readily-available data for the same area. Whatever is going on here, it is not science.

I have been probing the arguments for global warming for well over a decade. In collaboration with a lot of excellent coauthors I have consistently found that when the layers get peeled back, what lies at the core is either flawed, misleading or simply non-existent. The surface temperature data is a contaminated mess with a significant warm bias, and as I have detailed elsewhere the IPCC fabricated evidence in its 2007 report to cover up the problem. Climate models are in gross disagreement with observations, and the discrepancy is growing with each passing year. The often-hyped claim that the modern climate has departed from natural variability depended on flawed statistical methods and low-quality data. The IPCC review process, of which I was a member last time, is nothing at all like what the public has been told: Conflicts of interest are endemic, critical evidence is systematically ignored and there are no effective checks and balances against bias or distortion.

I get exasperated with fellow academics, and others who ought to know better, who pile on to the supposed global warming consensus without bothering to investigate any of the glaring scientific discrepancies and procedural flaws. Over the coming few years, as the costs of global warming policies mount and the evidence of a crisis continues to collapse, perhaps it will become socially permissible for people to start thinking for themselves again. In the meantime I am grateful for those few independent thinkers, like Steve McIntyre, who continue to ask the right questions and insist on scientific standards of openness and transparency.

Financial Post
Ross McKitrick is a professor of environmental economics at the University of Guelph, and coauthor of Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/10/01/ross-mckitrick-defects-in-key-climate-data-are-uncovered.aspx#ixzz0YNATa9A7

Climate Change Fraud: When Science is Subverted by Idealism

From Steve Janke at "Angry In The Great White North", this is one of the most politically enlightening blog posts I have ever read. Enjoy!

Climate Change Fraud: When Science is Subverted by Idealism

"A proper scientist does not believe in man-made global warming. It is a theory that may or may not be supported by evidence. If not, it is rejected. It is as simple as that."

Why Liberals love China

Ezra tells it like it is.

PowerCorp again.  Guess who else has sat on the board?  Maurice Strong (Kofi Annan's and Paul Martin's buddy).  Bob Rae et al.  That's the company that's supposedly been running the country from behind the scenes for the past long while. If there's been any party in Canada that has been in the pocket of big business, it's the Liberals.

Global Warming Conspiracy

There has been a recent leak by a hacker into a Russian FTP site exposing the so-called leading climate scientists and their man-made global warming theory.

The most notable name is Michael E. Mann, one of the leading people behind the infamous IPCC (UN) carbon-temperature hockey stick graph.

Seriously folks, this is real and unbelievable. Well, I had a feeling about it all along, ever since Maurice Strong has been involved.

Read it all here.

Rappin Rasputin...

By-Elections

Hatrock here, reporting live from Kansas... but on last night's Canadian federal by-elections.

Well, the Conservative won 2 out of 4 federal by-elections with the NDP and Bloc taking the other two. Liberals? Nil.

But the only surprise was the Conservatives taking Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup (Quebec) beating out the Bloc. It was no surprise that they took former Conservative MP Bill Casey's riding being that they've held that Nova Scotia riding for the most part since the beginning of time.

The Liberals have sent out a release basically saying that this was a referendum on the government and because the Conservatives didn't take all four ridings that this was bad for the Conservatives. Is this a joke? Does anyone take what the Liberals say seriously anymore? Do Liberals?

Anyway, the Conservatives have gained two seats bringing their seat total to 145 which means they only need 9 votes from the opposition to pass bills (as the speaker traditionally votes with the gov't in the case of a tie).

Southpark Alliance

Danielle Smith, leader, Wildrose Alliance Party

whose now polling higher in Calgary than this guy's party ...

	Alberta	Calgary	Edmonton	Rural
PC	34	30	33	38
WA	30	34	17	32
Lib	20	20	27	15
ND	9	8	13	n/a

The Environics survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 95 times out of 100. In the regional breakdowns, the margin of error is 6.2 percentage points in the major cities and 5.6 for elsewhere.

Liberals cry wolf ... again

With their low poll numbers, these friggin' Liberals look desperate making up scandals where there aren't any.

With H1N1, they blame the Conservatives for not doing a good job in getting the vaccine out there and being secretive with the pharmaceutical company but the contract with them was signed under Chretien's Liberal gov't in the first place.

So now they've been called out on it, they come up with another really pathetic attempt of a non-scandal.

As the Olympic Torch makes its way to Vancouver for the start of next year's games, there will be more torch relay ceremonies held in Conservative ridings than in the ridings of opposition members.

CTV News has obtained a list that shows that torch relay ceremonies will be held in 91 Conservative ridings, compared to 20 Liberal ridings and 17 ridings for both the NDP and Bloc Quebecois.

"It is absolutely shameful to politicize and to make partisan something such as (the) Olympics," Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh told CTV.

However, both the federal government and the head of the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee (VANOC) say that there is no plan in place to keep the torch out of opposition ridings.

"This is not political, this is what I'm stressing," Minister of State for Sport Gary Lunn said Wednesday, hours before sending a letter to all opposition MPs, assuring them that they could take part in torch events even if they are being held in Conservative ridings.

The head of VANOC also denies any Conservative involvement.

"At no time did anybody in any government, or any political party offer one iota of counsel or influence about that," John Furlong said.

"We did our jobs the way we should have done them."

This is their strategy though... they're trying continually to smear the gov't of Action-Plan pork in mostly Conservative ridings, and an inability to deal with the swine-flu, but all they come up with is B.S. on all counts and waste your money in doing so, instead of holding the gov't properly accountable, opposing where it's necessary, and offering alternative solutions.

And Canadians knows the Liberals have NO credibility on anything when EVERYONE still knows about the ultimate kick-back scheme they played. It's why their poll numbers are so darn low.





h/t The Raging Tory

Long Gun Done Gone

At tonight's vote in the House of Commons, the Canadian government's long-gun registry program, could see its demise.

Introduced by a Conservative MP as a private-member's bill, the proposal has the support of up to 8 opposition MPs, making it 143 (Conservative MPs) + 8 (opposition MPs) = 151. Four more votes are required, but if everyone doesn't show up on the opposition benches, then it could pass, and the long-gun registry would be fini. All of the Bloc MPs are voting against it.

Apparently it was introduced as a private member's bill because the Conservatives knew that the Liberals and NDP, by tradition, would have a free vote on the issue.

Keep in mind, this is on long-guns and not hand-guns. I can't stand getting into the whole gun control debate. This issue has seen innocent farmers jailed for no bloody reason other than keeping a novelty rifle in a display locker.

This law has flown in the face of property rights (which we still don't have in Canada, by the way).

Despite that, I don't like guns. I don't like hunting. They're only used for killing and I don't like killing (yeah, I eat meat, but let's not go down there, k? ..lol..) If a criminal was going to get a rifle or shotgun, do you think he's going to buy and register it in the first place?

And even despite all that, what the implementation of the registry showed was that it was overblown in costs and inefficiencies ($2 billion!!!), proving once again that gov't bureaucracy just plain sucks.

So scrapping this registry was long overdue.

Read more here.

UPDATE:

Just as I published my post, I received word that the bill to scrap the long-gun registry was APPROVED in the House of Commons by a vote of 164-137.