Author: Doug Rutherford

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An open letter to Yukon MP, Ryan Leef

Here’s an e-mail I sent to Ryan Leef regarding the clauses of the budget bill relating to oversight of crown corporations. If you live in Yukon and feel the same way, please ensure you contact him and point out the promise he made in the election. His e-mail is ryan.leef@parl.gc.ca.

 

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Hon. Ryan Leef, MP
House of Commons

By E-Mail

Dear Mr. Leef:

I am writing to express my displeasure and curiosity regarding portions of the budget bill regarding Treasury Board oversight of collective bargaining for CBC, Via Rail and Canada Post. I am deeply perplexed over what these budget provisions hope to accomplish.

Crown Corporations have historically functioned as arm’s length extensions of the government. They provide specific services that cannot be adequately or appropriately met by private industry. As such, to prevent both their abuse as a political, rather than federal, enterprise and to reduce the potential for government interference in the free market, direct government oversight is inappropriate and undesirable.

The explanation provided for these provisions makes little sense. The reason given is controlling wages within the public sector. Such a response indicates absolute incompetence in understanding how funding works. Crown corporations receive a set budget as part of the federal budget and the distribution of this funding, whether for salaries and benefits, facilities, etc., are the responsibility of the federally-appointed boards of directors of the corporations. I am hoping that the response given was made in error and is not a reflection that Treasury Board has not conception of introductory accounting and economics. I am hoping, however, that the reason given was the actual one and no other, unnamed, motives exist.

You stated during the election that you would vote against the government if asked to do so by your constituents.  Therefore, as one of your constituents, I am requesting that you push to amend the legislation to remove these clauses, and if this is not successful, to vote against the budget completely. I am aware that other constituents also intend to contact you regarding this matter requesting the same.  Also, as a constituent, I request a reply providing your intentions. Should you be voting in favour of this, please provide a count and list of the names of all of your constituents who have contacted you and which way they have asked you to vote in this matter to ensure that you are willing to fulfill your campaign promise.

Yours truly

Douglas Rutherford
Whitehorse, Yukon

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The lesser of two evils

While I have not been as good about it the last few days, since I’ve been laid low with the flu, I’ve been experimenting with electronic cigarettes lately. These are someone misnamed, as they aren’t cigarettes and you don’t really smoke them.

An e-cigarette is actually an atomizer, which atomizes a liquid into tiny particles that behave like cigarette smoke. The liquid can contain a variety of different items, although the main constituents are glycerine and distilled water. They emulate the habit of smoking, including coming with a taste. For example, I’ve developed a preference for the ones that supposedly taste like Canadian cigarettes. Since this is a food grade product, the full ingredients have to be listed. The magic ingredient that emulated Canadian cigarettes, by the way, is vanilla extract.

There are two parts: the taste cartridge and the battery. The battery came with two chargers. One plugs into the wall and one runs off a USB port. This leads to a rather interesting situation:

charging image
Using the USB charger.

One of the support staff said he was sending my picture to Dell and raising a trouble ticket… seems one of the computers at work is smoking.  I said that, if he got a response, I want to see it.

Needless to say, there are certain health implications that are absent in using one of these vs. smoking. First of all, there is no nicotine or tar. While you can get ones containing nicotine in the US, Health Canada does not permit this and US companies will not ship them to Canada. Also, since there’s no smoke, there’s no second hand smoke so many areas allow their use indoors. Only two US airlines, for example, have banned their use in flight. Air Canada permits them to be brought aboard but not their use.

Now, given this this represents a pretty decent tool in the arsenal of quitting smoking, you would think Health Canada would be happy about this. Unfortunately, they seem to have adopted the holier than thou attitude that anything that emulates smoking is just as bad. I sometimes wonder what it takes to work in a department that thinks quitting smoking aids are bad but gives drug approvals based on the manufacturers’ word of how the testing went.

There is one health hazard I do have to worry about, though. I’m trying to keep on a one-for-one schedule with a real cigarette only every second one. Now, my fear is that I’ll go out, fire up a real one, take three or four drags, and then throw it into my shirt pocket without thinking. Oh well, that’s a mistake I’d only make once…

 

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Fracture Zone update

A quick update on what’s happening with a play I’m producing…

I’ve been asked what’s the future for Fracture Zone. The answer is that I’m looking at doing two more rewrites. The first is before booking a theatre and doing a two-week short run to workshop it out in March of next year. I’m also looking at submitting it for a theatre festival in Vancouver for next May.

If you are a local actor, note that a call for auditions will be going out in a few months. I’ll post it in the usual place (round up the usual suspects?) and so you should keep your eyes open. There are 3 characters, a male in his 40s or 50s, a male in his 30s and and female in her 30s to 40s.

At the moment, I’m still working on timeline and budget things, so I’m not ready to do the call yet…

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The Boston bombing

I should start this with a bit of a disclaimer. Being of Northern Irish descent, I have a great dislike of bombings. Go figure.

With the two suspects, and no one has been convicted yet so “suspects” is the appropriate word, dealt with in one way or another, we now wait to get the important questions answered. The first of these is, “Why?”

Terrorism is a political tool. It serves to compel people to alter their way of life enough that governments will give in to the political aim or aims of the terrorists.

While religious extremism is often given as a “cause” of terrorist activity, there are not many examples of terrorism being based on strictly religious grounds. Northern Ireland, for example, is often shown as an example of Catholic vs. Protestant terrorism, yet the main aim of terrorist acts on either side was to aid or prevent the separation of Northern Ireland from Britain. To this you can add the fact that there were Catholic Loyalists and Protestant Republicans. The actions of the Palestine Liberation Organization were presented as “Islamic terrorism,” yet the aim of the PLO was the destabilization and destruction of the state of Israel, a political rather than religious aim.

What is not immediately obvious in this case is what they hoped to accomplish. While the suspects were originally Chechans, both of whom lived for some time in their early lives in Dagostan, it seems that the US makes an odd target. Russia would have been a more logical target, if Checan separatism was their cause. Hopefully, the remaining suspect can provide some insight on the reason for the attack. Note that there is no guarantee that the reason he provides will be the actual one, although I suspect that anyone willing enough to make such a public statement as bombing the Boston Marathon will be equally willing to have the chance to air his grievances in a public forum.

Perhaps the second most important question is, “Why terrorism at all?” Terrorism almost never achieves its end. There are very few examples of terror resulting as the sole cause of its stated aims.

Only two from the last century come to mind, and terrorism itself was not the main cause of the success of the movements in question. The eventual withdrawal of Britain from Palestine and the formation of the state of Israel was aided by terrorist bombings, but the weakness of the British armed forces after World War II and the guilt of failure to act to end the Holocaust were probably far greater factors.

The separation of the Irish Republic from the UK was a foregone conclusion. The first attempt by Britain to divest itself of a troubling colony was the first Home Rule Act in 1886 (which fell in the Commons), followed by the Second Home Rule Act of 1893 (passed the Commons but defeated in the House of Lords), and the Third in 1914, which passed and received Royal Assent, but was not implemented due to the beginning of World War I. Efforts to give Ireland Home Rule predate the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, who later became the Irish Republican Army in 1917, so they were not the only factor in the formation  of the Republic of Ireland.

Will we learn anything from this? That remains to be seen, and, hopefully, what we do learn will eventually reduce the chances of it happening again. I don’t hold much hope, since it is obvious is that the negligible chances of success for terrorism seems to have no deterrent for those willing to employ it…

“And those who give the orders they are not the ones who die…” – Tommy Sands

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The offshore conundrum

The uproar over the Royal Bank of Canada’s outsourcing IT jobs last week brings to mind the tremendous problem that appears in the industry. The bank, as well as the many other companies that outsource IT jobs to countries which historically lower average wages, claims that the practice allows them to be more competitive.

This has raised the complaint that Canadian IT workers, who earned an average of just over $68,000 annually (Statistics Canada, 2011 figures), should be more competitive. And, here is where the problem lies.

Look at the requirements for your standard worker in the Information and Communications Technologies industry sector. I have a favourite first assignment in two of my courses, where students check the job market to determine what employers are looking for. Some trends are quite evident.

Employers are looking for workers with a minimum of a two-year IT diploma, or a bachelor’s degree in Computing and Information Systems. Frequently, positions require additional industry certifications pertinent to their specific job requirements. Most jobs above the introductory level have minimum experience requirements as well, and the last time my classes went through this exercise in January, these jobs were calling for a three to five- year period of experience for a mid-level job.

Consider these requirements. These workers have invested a minimum of two years in school getting an IT diploma or four for a bachelor’s degree. On top of the costs and time, industry certifications involve experience and the examinations are often costly. For example, the Microsoft Certified System Engineer exams, of which there are 7, cost about $185 Cdn each. Further, these are usually applied exams, where the people taking them are expected to be able to answer questions based upon real life situations rather than simply regurgitate information and people are recommended not to attempt the exams until after at least a year of experience with the product.

On top of this, the average IT program prerequisites call for higher math and problem-solving skills and strong communications skills. The field calls for an above average student to meet the heavy requirements of a position with a high level of technological knowledge and the ability to meet the very flexible requirements of the position. In short, this is usually a field for the “best and the brightest,” who have very good academic skills and has invested a great deal of time and money to obtain a mid- to higher level position.

So, here’s the conundrum. We expect substantial requirements for workers in the field, yet are unwilling to pay them an appropriate salary. We have certainly seen the effects, with all of the major banks in Canada outsourcing many of their IT positions in recent years. Given this trend, we can only assume the trend will continue, with the loss of both jobs and capital from the country…

 

 

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The counter top refinished

Clara is out of town, which leaves me in the house without adult supervision. This immediately prompts me to conduct myself in such a fashion as I cannot when she is around.

Now, before you start planning the wild parties, I should mention that much of this centres on Clara being allergic to “fumy” substances and fish. Of particular note is polyurethane, since it can level people who aren’t that sensitive, too.

Our countertops in the kitchen were a stop gap measure to allow for the plumbers to finish. I ordered the cabinets from Ikea, and were quite content with them. However, when I went to order the counter top, they were backlogged and it would require about 2 to 3 weeks before they could be finished. At the same time, Gary, my plumber, wanted me to get this finished so he could install the kitchen sink and finish up the plumbing for the new house.

Two of the things that came with the cabinets were several large cover plates. These are the finish pieces that cover the white cabinet carcasses and match the doors. However, the cabinets, like the doors, were also pine finished and I didn’t need them. Sending them back would have cost more than it was worth and I was wondering what to do with them. Now, I had a plan.

I ran them through the table saw to cut them to size, and cut off backers. Then, I used them as counter tops that actually matched the cabinets. This would hold me until the real counter tops could be delivered and installed and I would just have to reinstall the sink afterwards. However, when we put them in, they looked so nice that we held off on ordering the proper counter tops. That was in the spring of 2005, and they have been in place since then.

counter image
The refinished counter top.

The one downfall of this is, despite looking nice, they are made out of laminated particle board and dent and mark easily. However, a couple of coats of polyurethane every two years keeps them reasonably well protected.

They are showing their age, and I don’t think I’ll refinish them again. Instead, I’m kind of thinking a nice oak plywood counter top in a few years, with a slightly darker stain for contrast. But, that should be about two more years down the line, given the length of time refinishing them lasts.

Of course, with Clara gone, the first meal prepared on them involved scallops…

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St. Patrick’s Day

You would think that being of Irish descent, although Northern Irish Protestant descent, you’d get St. Patrick’s Day as a bit of a holiday.

However, being a musician who plays mostly Celtic music, the possibility of a holiday is a bit out of reach. I’m popping over to the Airport Chalet Hotel tomorrow night, the United Church Sunday afternoon, and playing in the lobby to open for Maeve Mackinnon at the Yukon Arts Centre Sunday night.

Holiday? That ain’t happening…

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The Tōhoku earthquake: Two years later

Today, March 11th, marks the second anniversary of the Tōhoku megathrust earthquake and tsunami that struck the east coast of northern Japan, killing an estimated 20,000 people and destroying or damaging over 1,000,000 buildings. The earthquake, with a magnitude of 9.03 M, took place on the seabed 70 km offshore, generating a tsunami that reached a height of 15 m in some locations. This was the largest recorded earthquake to hit Japan, and the fifth largest instrumentally recorded earthquake in history. The quake actually moved the earth’s axis about 7 cm, resulting in shortening the length of a day by 1.8 microseconds. The World Bank estimates the costs of damages at US $235 billion, the most costly natural disaster in human history.

Two years later, many residents of the affected areas have experienced great difficulty beyond the immediate tragedy. Many are still in temporary housing and the rate of recovery operations have been complicated by issues such as failure to allow people to rebuild in some of the affected areas and the clearing of others. Many people are experiencing the difficulty of needing to rebuild their homes, while still being stuck with the burden of needing to pay the mortgages on the destroyed ones. It is difficult to even consider when the lives of many will ever revert to some semblance of “normal.” For many, it never will. Of particular issue is the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant complex and its future ramifications for resettling the immediate area.

People have, by nature, an inability to accept the scope of such a disaster. It is difficult to conceive of such consequences from a single act of nature. Perhaps we should consider the human cost in one way that may let us appreciate its effects.

The median age of the population of Japan is 44.6 years. While this is strictly a rounding figure and may not be totally accurate for our considerations, it could be considered that each of the victims may have ab0ut 44 years of friends, family, loves, fears, and all of the other things that make up a lifetime. In this view,  the death of 20,000 people reflects a loss of 892,000 years of cumulative human experience, and maybe this is a perspective that makes such a disaster more easy to comprehend, and mourn…

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Remiss

I’ve been remiss. As you can see, it has been a bit since I put up my last blog post.

I have been busy, with work, writing a play, coming to some arrangements on my What’s Up Yukon column (now regularly scheduled for every two weeks), emceeing an interactive murder mystery, and now, prepping playing for St. Patrick’s Day.

That being said, I’ve decided to be somewhat more dedicated. Honest. I promise…

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Christmas Eve

Another Christmas Eve is here and, since I know many who do not celebrate Christmas, I will simply pass on my standard sentiment. But to preface that, on December 24, 1968, Wlliam Anders took what is probably my favourite, and in my view, the most important Christmas picture.

earthrise, Dec. 24, 1968

Peace on earth, goodwill towards all.