Property rights to reserves

I'll do him one better:

Some native chiefs are worried that the government’s goal is to bring property rights to the native reserves. So far the limited amount of property rights that has been introduced to some reserves has led to marked improvements in the reserve’s economy and standard of living. So why on Earth would the native leadership oppose something that is improving the lives of their people?

Their publicized reasoning is that property rights would ultimately lead to assimilation. They are keen to protect their ‘traditional way of life,’ but a tradition is only as good as it is beneficial to the people. A tradition that impoverishes is a tradition that is better off being gotten rid of.

To be quite frank, it's not that their "traditional way of life" impoverishes, although that is a point in favour of abolishing it. No, the traditional way of life that they are expounding doesn't exist in the current world.

Don't get me wrong, hunting and fishing for meat is very much a way of life on reserve, and something that helps alleviate the poverty found there. Pow-wows and other cultural activities are also alive and well on reserve.

What isn't alive and well is the concept of communal ownership. The reason for this is simple - that may have been the way of life when the various bands were nomadic, moving their villages on a regular basis and believing that no one person can own the land, however that way of life was abandoned when the reserves were set up and the various bands laid claim (and ultimately, ownership) to the land on which they occupied.

In short, the day the chiefs signed their respective treaties with The Grandmother, meanwhile smirking at the white man for giving up something of value for something that the bands did not feel they owned, that was the day that their "communal" way of life began dying a slow death. May the current government put it out of it's misery.

Canadian experts reject MS trials

Canadian experts reject MS trials

"Given the lack of scientific basis, it is not scientifically advisable or ethically acceptable to conduct clinical trials at this time," Beaudet said. He added the decision to hold off on trials until more evidence was found was unanimous among everyone who took part in the meeting, including internationally recognized researchers and scientists of MS.

I may not be a genius, but I DO know one thing - the only way that there will be "more evidence" that the so-called "liberation treatment" for MS works is if clinical trials are actually performed.

Now, I'm sure that it makes all of these "researchers and scientists of MS" good to know that they are trying to protect those people from harm by their doctors, but what it comes down to is one thing:

THE PEOPLE WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO TRY THE TREATMENT

Given this, doesn't it behoove these scientists to actually study the treatment being performed to great success and give all those ailing patients a really good reason why the treatment is universally harmful to them, not just dismiss it out of hand for fear that their research grants may dry up and they may have to admit a failure to recognize that MS isn't a disease, it's a condition.

Of course, I could be wrong here, but how do we find out until someone actually proves it? We give money for a treatment clinic where people actively do something that harms them... the least we could do is help people who did nothing to deserve their condition and want to try everything they can to be freed of it.

Private Regina surgical clinic now booking dental and knee surgeries

Private Regina surgical clinic now booking dental and knee surgeries

Of course, the ideological opponents to any form of private health service provision believe that this is the sign of the Beast, and that this will lead to privatization, but I have a really good question for those people:

If the public is still footing the bill for the whole amount, what's the difference?

One of the things that caught my eye when I was reading about the opening of this private surgical clinic is this:

So far, the surgical initiative appears it will result in lower per-procedure costs for the health region.

Knee surgeries at Omni run approximately $1,500 each, representing a savings of $179, or 11 per cent, from the in-hospital cost. Dental surgeries cost $965, $76 less than at a hospital.

What caught my eye? The fact that it costs LESS to the provincial treasury to have a private service provider do the surgery than it costs in the health region's hospital.

Why does it cost less, you might ask? It's because a private clinic has a self-interest in reducing costs and minimizing overhead. There are no layers of bureaucracy, there is no promotion of the incompetent. The owners of the clinic have a direct interest in the clinic succeeding through controlled costs and working more efficiently, and the only constraint the owners have when determining how much money to invest is what their return on investment will be - a concept that public health care providers never have to be concerned with.

In the end, the only reason why private clinics might be considered a bad thing is because it would reduce the massive government health bureaucracy to one simple process - receive requests for payment and write cheques. One can only hope it gets that far.

Omar Khadr Was Not Tortured

Omar Khadr Was Not Tortured

In the end, because Khadr would not testify concerning the affidavit’s contents, it was rebutted by virtually all of the evidence that was provided to the Commission, and since the defense did not explain how the affidavit came into existence in the first place, the judge gave little weight to Khadr’s torture claims.

One of Khadr’s claims involved a routine weighing session. U.S. servicemen are required to weigh the detainees held at Gitmo and other detention facilities regularly for various health-related reasons. Khadr did not cooperate, and he later claimed that he was abused while having his weight taken. Unfortunately for the defense, the session was recorded. Judge Parrish found:

The accused alleged in his affidavit that he was mistreated while he was being weighed. The videotape of the accused being weighed…clearly shows the accused was not abused or mistreated in any way by any of the guards.

Huh.

Potash belongs to Sask., says prof

Potash belongs to Sask., says prof

With all due respect to the professor, this statement:

"We the people own the potash. The Potash Corporation does not own the potash, it's ours," he said from his campus office. "It is appropriate for us to use the instruments that are available to make sure that those resources are used for what is best for us." It's up to the government of Saskatchewan, he added, to ensure Saskatonians benefit from the mining and processing of the potash that lies beneath our feet.

Isn't entirely correct.

You see, in economic terms, the resources which are still in the ground and untapped, don't really belong to anyone. They aren't the government's. They aren't the possession of anyone by accident of their birthplace or migration patterns.

The resources, in a realistic sense, belongs only to those people who put up the capital, whether human, intellectual or monetary in order to extract the minerals and make them useful. Any unit of resource represents the effort required to extract the resource. If nobody makes the effort to extract the resources, then they are of no benefit to anyone.

That's why I discount the words of anyone who says that the "people" should get their fair share of the resources. So let's illustrate what happens when someone decides they want to extract minerals.

First, they go to the government and give it money for the option to explore an area for minerals. This is done via auction so as to extract the maximum money for "the people". Then the company must pay rent to the actual owners of the property in order to explore on the land. The land is studied and explored to determine whether there are minerals in sufficient quantity to extract to make the extraction feasible. If the company determines that they aren't in sufficient quantity, then this is where it stops, with the company having to outlay money for no gain. If the resources ARE in sufficient quantity, then the company permanently leases the land from the land owner (depending on the resource and the method of extraction, possibly purchasing the land from the owner), and gets to work setting up a mine or extraction site. It, of course, must get the permission of the government to set up the site, and get the proper environmental permissions to ensure that not only does the extraction get done in as environmentally friendly a manner as possible, but that the costs of restoring the site after the extraction is done is covered off.

After this comes the easy part - the extraction begins, and all the company has to do is tell the government how much they took out, and send the government a percentage (before expenses, mind you) of whatever gross revenue the extraction generates. The government then, not content with receiving these royalties, also takes a chunk of the wages paid to maintain the site or extract the minerals, as well as a percentage of the net income of the project as well.

So to make a long story short, the government in the resource game takes money to allow you to look for the minerals. Then it takes money for each dollar of resource that is extracted (without doing anything to earn that money, mind you, merely for the privilege of pulling the resource out of the ground), then it takes money from the business for actually earning a profit.

Add all that up, and resource companies may end up sending close to 50% of the gross revenue from the project to the government.

So the question I have to ask those people who want "the people" to get a fair share is, "Is that enough of a share for you, really?"

After all, a resource is only valuable if it is extracted and used. The oil companies over the past 5 decades (and especially over the last 3 years in Saskatchewan and Alberta) that if "the people" want more than what is fair, they always have the option of leaving it in the ground.

Hopefully this is remembered after the PCS offering is resolved.

In other news... the sky is falling!!!!!

'Massive job losses' at FNUC disappointing: U of R faculty association

While one might not like the CBC, at least they put some things in perspective:

Major job cuts were announced at First Nations University of Canada on Thursday, bringing to 46 the total number of staff and faculty positions eliminated in recent months.

The total includes 29 people who were laid off Thursday morning. Another 17 positions have been eliminated over the past few months through vacancies, retirements and resignations, FNUC officials said.

Although officials wouldn't say what percentage of staff and faculty were cut, the 46 positions represent about 22 per cent of the 210 employees that were on the FNUC payroll in February.

Now, let's put things in BETTER perspective:

Approximately 20 per cent of university's 500 students are expected to be affected by the changes.

Even if you take the CBC's number of 824 students, that means that there are still approximately 1 employee of FNUC left for every 5 students.

Now I don't know much about university management, and I'm rather cynical about most things government related, but having a ratio such as this is absolutely excessive. Even if one took the enrollment numbers of 1500 students (this was the estimate in May that I heard), we're still talking about 1 employee for every 10 students.

Now let's be real, I know that it's important for First Nations to educate themselves so that they can be productive members of society. I know that FNUC is a way to achieve that goal (although if truth were known, FNUC only represents 20% of First Nations students - the rest are enrolled in real programs at U of S, U of R, Siast and SIIT). I do have to object to the sense of entitlement that objects to the cutting of fat and the loss of jobs on an institution so poorly run in the past as this one.

I applaud the university's president and support this decision as well as many other decisions that make the university run like a real institution.

Opponents of Stronach payout launch appeal

Opponents of Stronach payout launch appeal

So let's see if I have this right. Magna International reaches an agreement with Frank Stronach to collapse his multi-vote shares which includes his picking up cash and normal shares. A super majority (75%) of the shareholders approve as do the markets (which ultimately increased the share price after the deal was hammered out). A Judge has now also approved, based on these two assertions, and yet some institutional investors (see previous post) still don't agree and want to appeal the judge's decision.

Just a thought - earth to the institutional investors - it doesn't matter how hard you fight, you're STILL going to lose on the basis that it doesn't matter how "fair" you believe this deal to be, there is going to be a premium attached to getting Mr. Stronach to walk away from his company.

Or would you prefer that the company get into a bidding war for the shares which ultimately control the company? I'm sure that Mr. Stronach would be happy to see what he can get on the open market for those shares.