Insight is an illegal shooting gallery

They break the law in there. CLOSE IT DOWN! Even the UN says it should be closed for flaunting drug laws.

Everything you can do to make it more difficult, dangerous or deadly to do an action will result in less of that action. SO WHY MAKE IT EASY TO INJECT DRUGS? You just make it worse. In economic terms, it is called moral hazard. Look it up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

Despite what the above article says, there is overwhelming evidence that the safe injection site makes the overall problem of addiction worse.

We should also stop making it easier to get clean needles. That way the addicts will reuse what they have and not disgard them in the street. Lets not externalize the addiction problem to innocents by flooding the street with clean needles.

Addiction is a choice. They are victims by choice. Let's not forget that. It is not a disease, like cancer or diabetes, it is a lifestyle choice. Let's not make that choice a little more painful by closing the safe injection site.

Our health care system is focused on addicts

St. Pauls seems to be a hospital for addicts. Shocking it seems to be like Kandahar there at night with the lock down. Our whole health care system seems to be focused on addicts, a morally repugnant and disgusting bunch of people. Thieving and prostituting themselves for a fix. Uggh. Pity the middle class person, who can't afford to go to a private clinic really getting sick. So hard to get an MRI or real treatment until you are so sick it is too late. Go into the hospital with an OD or a drug abuse related illness and you get treated immediately. The poverty and drug lobby is so strong that the burecrats are terrified.

These addicts are on deaths door. I would argue it is better to put them on the fast track to hell than on the slow track, which is what insight does.

Out health care system should not be so focused on helping people who chose what amounts to a slow form of suicide like addicts do. IT ONLY ENCOURAGES MORE ADDICTION.

Numbers

James - You can draw almost any conclusions you want from the statistics that Insite reveals including the ones drawn from the many studies in support of the program. That doesn’t mean that the program is effective, useful or offer value for money…

Garffy

Chill out. It’s not about whether you should quantify the value of lives vs. dollars but whether the money that’s been spent, and that many people are advocating spending more of, is the most cost effective solution. A kinder, gentler Tyee indeed…..sheesh.

More Study Needed

Checking out the writers links and three refer to the same study. What? The title of this piece is starkly misleading and the only evidence I could glean that would suggest recommending continuing this experiment is, "the capacity to prevent new cases of HIV through enhanced prevention messages and interventions at the SIF has great potential." Great. Potential. Hardly convincing though.

Having worked for an institute that did 'studies' there were many time that all the staff did was look for funding, to do more, you guessed it, studies!

As for the Harper and conservative snipes, they are unwarranted. It was no better down there under a socialist COPE municipal government, neither was better under an NDP provincial government, nor under a Liberal Federal Government.

As for the suggestion that if it were a relative or family member in the drug demi-monde, most people know that what's needed is medically monitored cold-turkey treatment, quick. The last thing you want to do is give them money, they spend it on you know what. You also have to get them away from their contemporaries because otherwise they will relapse, quickly.

The idea that they should be roaming the junkie-hooker-booze soaked disastrous quagmire of the downtown, to commit crimes or prostitute their bodies to finance their self-destructive tragedy is condemning them to a probable continuation of their misery, at the very least. Some people seem to be deluding themselves into imagining that all we need to do is build tons of free residences, give anyone who wants it a 'decent' welfare cheque and freedom to shoot up heavy dope at will and then the downtown east side of Vancouver will become quite a nice little neighbourhood. Pollyanna just OD'd, again.

I'd say give them free heroin but they have to take it orally. No more needles. Needles illegal. Free smack but you have to drink it under supervision. Might be more attractive than stealing or hooking for cash for the illegal stuff. Crack down hard on the crime. Save our City!

My view.

Flattax

There is no mixup. We are talking about allocation of resources. Why were un-airconditioned tanks sent to Afghanistan in the first place? Was the decision made in the middle of an Ottawa winter? Or by people who just don't give a damn?

The religious right needs insite ...

Harper and co. need detox as religion is the opium of the people! And so is money. They need insite. These people need to see reality. They hold extreme views just like the Talibans. They are no better! Why don't they understand that holding these extreme views actually harm people more? I sometimes think that they are themselves in the drug business because I cannot possibly understand how people cannot see that they are harming people more than they are helping. Maybe they all want us to pray .. or prey!

Hurting and how to FIX it

“But are they homeless because they have drug problems? Or do they have drug problems because they are homeless........?”

Neither. They fell out of the bottom, because there were one or more big parameters in their life which went bad. We in our society are under enormous pressure to live up to a set of standards, which are largely imposed so that we will spend our resources on consumer goods which will show everybody our achievements and so make us look good, and make the manufaturers and the distributors rich. Acquisition has become the overarching accomplishment. I do not need to go into, what happens when the shining surface falls apart. It only takes a pivotal person getting ill or dying, the loss of a job or some other economicalor human disaster, etc. One weak link in the family chain, drinking may happen, abuse may happen, etc., etc. Our own hard-as-nails premier has that kind of fall from grace in the family sense behind him, so his drinking and driving is just as profound a result of life going wrong somewhere, as the fortunes of the people on skid row. Mr. Campbell has a better sense of self-preservation and doesn’t go all the way to the bottom, plus he has more money to help him deal with the rough spots. People with less in the way of socio-economic fortifications had better either be lucky or strong, to quote Janis Joplin, who didn’t make it to old age either.

As for the availability of drugs, that is quite another story. I think about that every year, when I get the little package of four Tylenols put into my hand after the flu-shot. I usually end up finding them after some months and throwing them away. This society has a behavioural code, extremely ingrained, of if it hurts, take a pill; or gulp down a drink, see a shrink, go on a cruise, etc., etc. Never deal with the pain of real transition, work through it and come out on the other side a stronger person. Why is this? Because you becoming a stronger person on your own, does not put money into anyone else’s pocket. We are totally built on commoditizing life and everything in it. We buy our children on the other side of the globe; we buy finished roll-out ‘gardens in a blanket’, just add water. we buy, as a wise man said, not health, happiness, and love, but some damn good-looking substitutes.

here we must break due to restrictions. Butchering my comment and giving you the remainder in next post

Still hurting....

When we have grown up, or almost grown up, mired in this false, shiny surface kind of thinking, and we fall and hurt some part of ourselves, for which no pill exists, and the truth hits us in the face, that the world is not a friendly place, it is not unfriendly either, it just IS, and it doesn’t really care about us personally, when that big truth stares us in the face, it does not set us free, it makes us scared shitless, and we try to run for cover. We take a pill; or a drink; or a shot of something, anything to help us regain a sense of control and feel-good for the moment. And we may get hooked. There, but for the grace of…

We do not have any real will to see drug availability gone. Go figure. Like we couldn’t have done it if we really wanted to. Think what else we can do, but not that. Make sense? No. This also is a consumer good, which some people make tremendous money on. After laundering, some of that money finds its way into mainstream economy (read: tax revenue). Some of the importers and distributors are likely well placed and do not even touch the dirty end. As long as the whole thing only costs a few lives outside the immediate families of people who count, we let sleeping dogs lie. Don’t get me wrong. I am not aiming this arrow at any set of people in particular. We are all, with a few shining exceptions, complicit in the complacency of not really giving a damn. Any other questions??

dorothy

Hmmm.....wonder how many people who have "fallen", would be able to lift themselves back up, were they able to vote themselves more moolah.....?

Yeah, but...

RickW:

While I am always happy to see life out there, I had sort of hoped that people would not latch onto the most peripheral aspects of my letter. I would have wished for somebody to respond to my proposed model for 'falling', and how we can try to create fewer 'nobodies' in our community.

However, it is a good question. I think my answer is, that we would end up in a circular argument, since it is seldom the fragile people who end up in politics and with voting powers of that nature. I believe the sense of self-preservation is a far more powerful influence. I simply meant to illustrate, that we are none of us able to say 'that could never hit me.'
Even the predators on top of the pyramid are ultimately driven to go in their direction, because they are afraid on some deep level. Truer words were never said than these: we only have one thing to fear: fear itself.

If you've read anything

If you've read anything posted by Ed Deak (aka Fiat Lux), he fairly well sums it up in that wealth can only be accumulated by taking it from others (and that includes future generations, or from the environment). Because there are wealthy people, it means there are people born into this society in a deficit position, and not even knowing it. And this has been ging on for so long, that we look at it as "normal" -- adherents of wealth creation (aka "economists") have reams of explanations of how "natural" wealth disparity is. But none of them even come close to the truth of the matter -- and that simple truth is, 'way back at the beginning of things, wealth accumulation began by one guy taking something away from another guy. And we are the end product (to date) of umpteen thousand generations of "wealth" accumulation....

THAT is what has to be addressed and fixed. Otherwise, every approach is only a bandaid (or as you say it, "peripheral"). One way or another, when GC gave himself a raise, he doomed yet more to the Downtown East Side......

PS

So here I am, walking along the Galloping Goose Trail in Victoria, and come across this historical marker regarding the origins of the water supply to the City of Victoria.
It seems that, in the beginning of the city's history, settlers simply went out into the backyard and gathered up spring water, and mainly from one major spring source. So one bright soul figures, if he buys up this source, he can make a fortune selling this water. Which he did. But the people who formerly got the water for the simple effort of getting it themselves, complained, to the point where the government told him he couldn't do that anymore. Emminent public domain kind of thing.

So my question is: how did he acquire this public land (with spring) in the first place? The answer: He didn't! It was an illegal sale, made by those who didn't own it in the first place. He certainly didn't go to the settlers of the area and buy it from them (who all had equal access, hence equal "ownership" of this resource).

Now imagine if you will, the thousands, the millions, of illegal sales that have been made over the centuries, which no one contested.......or contested futilely.

Our society has its roots in and continues to practice, the "might is right" axiom. Simply put, those with the biggest stick, get more. You can gussy it up with all the pretty words you want, but the only way you can own anything, is by taking it away from someone else. And if someone takes it away from you, it only shows that you weren't the big dog after all.

Please?

RickW

If Mr. A plants ten thousand seeds and nurtures the plants and resulting fruits and trades them to Mr. & Mrs. B & C, and then Mr. A becomes wealthy from his fruits, is that bad? What about Mr. C who's very good at building structures for people to live in. He makes a few of them and trades one to Mr. A, the fruit man, then a few more to Mr. A's family members. Mr. C becomes wealthy too.

Are these people nasty big dogs, Rickie?

The problem is not the activity

The problem is:
(a) Whether or not all the costs are properly recognized and allocated, and;
(b) Whether or not some segments of a market economy are unfairly taking advantage of public 'goods' for which they do not pay the appropriate cost. This is particularly true for segments of the economy that rely upon 'public' assets like mineral deposits; forests resources on public lands; lakes, rivers and streams; the ocean and its "bounty"; agricultural land and general proximity to certain other public goods and services such as public transportation, bridges, roads and other infrastructure paid for with public funds and managed out of the public purse.

The role that each and every such thing plays toward the success of an enterprise is a consideration which ought to go into the planning decisions and the taxation policies that determine whether or not your hypothetical operator will be successful or even in business. Currently we have a system which vests all of the advantages in a small group of selfish individuals and fails to charge them the necessary costs of their success.

Which is, as we've pointed out before, why more and more so-called 'wealth' is becoming concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

A good illustration of this is the mining industry. Huge fortunes are made by shareholders and speculators while the public purse is later called upon to correct, remediate and otherwise clean up after corporate entities which - once the ore is high graded - are either long gone or in bankruptcy.

Extrapolations of this same principle are available in construction, agriculture, manufacturing property speculation and the like.

The first and most essential way to address these kinds of irresponsible high-grading is through changes to corporation law and the tax system. Such changes are relatively simple and would, in my opinion, be extremely successful in creating a fairer and less conflicted society here in Canada. Of course the oxen being gored would squeal, they did the same at the turn of the 19th Century when the last rot of a golden age was forcibly addressed by public policy and rational (instead of bought and paid for) thought.

No one should decry a worker, agricultural or otherwise, a FAIR return on his labour.

The key of course is the word 'fair'.

However, truth to tell, this is a long way from the nominal subject matter of this story.

I Guess you Read this

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070601.wrreynolds01/BNStory/Business/columnists

Corporate Taxes MUST come down.

More Neil Reynolds stuff

Tax every dollar, no matter how earned. Why should corporate earings and share dividends, not to mention capital gains, get a special break?

Stop the special deals for entities that walk away from the messes they create.

c/f Royal Oak Mines.

Perhaps you could get Neil Reynolds to do a column on this:

http://www.abandoned-mines.org/pdfs/royaloaks.pdf

Corporate taxes need to go up - and if the oligarchs don't like it - let them go to Russia where they'll find a more congenial atmosphere. As a matter of fact, the whole provincial cabinet would probably be a lot more comfortable there. 110 minutes of question period and 63 minutes of silence:
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=8edcf12e-43d8-433d-ac11-f7f8b2712451&p=2

Some leadership!

it's in there somewhere...

“No one should decry a worker, agricultural or otherwise, a FAIR return on his labour.”

I think it becomes difficult, when we say this and then try to read some set of moral values into the idea of ‘fair’. This really has nothing to do with fairness, but simply with balance, which is either maintained or not.

I do not think anyone starts out in life with either a deficit or a surplus in ownership. Ownership is such a strange parameter. If you have even the merest stamp-sized yard in a severely urban setting, then you will know what I mean. You don’t own land, it owns you. You are holding a position of stewardship, which must be re-earned continuously through a steady effort. The ‘real cost’ of things has meaning here…

You do not have a right of ownership, simply because you exist. You earn it. You can also forfeit it through abuse. In the old tribal setting, where land was held in common ownership, the failure to hold up your end and earn your keep was swiftly dealt with. We got in trouble as soon as there were classes of people, who were not tied to the land and had no contract with it, nothing to lose, so to speak. If things became unpalatable, they could and can simply move. I do not know how we restore the good order of things. There was the idea of housing co-ops some years back, but it was not done right; people still just paid rent to a landlord, the crown, they would never be the owners. We have discarded the idea that voting rights are tied to landownership as ‘discriminatory’. I am not so sure. People who have invested in land and live on it and interact with it have stacked their chips. They are not in the same swift-moving boat as those who can shop around for habitat at a month’s notice, or those who hold licenses to exploit the land and then dump the sad remains back on the rest of us, with all the newly created liabilities.

I realize I am not being stunningly lucid, but I think that somehow these are fundamental issues, and without addressing them, we will not ever go forward in any profound way. Maybe others can pick this up and manage to express it more clearly than I have. I hope so.

dorothy

My remarks were specifically in respect of how public resources are used - but frequently neither evaluated, nor paid for in an appropriate fashion and how that - given current tax structures and attitudes innures to the personal corporatist benefit in a very "unbalanced" way relative to the public good and to the depletion of scarce 'public' resources or the use and abuse of public financed infrastructure.

I don't have a problem with corporations or business - I do have a problem with those who think that we are and have been improving things by catering to them and not ensuring that they pay the measurable public costs of their enterprises.

Realisticman - here's the information I promised the other day:
http://webmail.aol.com/27618/aim/en-us/Mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=1.16658887&folder=Inbox&partId=2&saveAs=viewMediaRelease.htm

realistic, man

How did Mr. A get the land to plant the seeds?

I am saying the only way he could do that is the same way that fellow in Victoria tried to "corner the market" on drinking water -- through an illegal transaction, either directly or indirectly.

So Who Owns the Land, Rick..

only The State?

Here's another analogy question then? Mr. X makes beautiful sculptures from found scrap and sells them for big bucks and becomes wealthy. Is this OK or his wealth bad too?

By the way, West, when you say, as you often do;

"Tax every dollar, no matter how earned. Why should corporate earnings and share dividends, not to mention capital gains, get a special break?" (I corrected your typo) Sounds to me like an extortion racket but let me ask you; if you want to tax every dollar earned then I suppose that you also support tax-deductions for any dollars lost. By the way, how should we expect corporations to continue to be based within one jurisdiction if the taxes of that jurisdiction are much higher than another? Hollowing out of Canada, etc.

realistic, man

How is the ownership of this "scrap" determined? Again, I refer to the spring water, where all are "owners". Likewise, the "scrap" is of equal interest to all, unless Mr. A can get everyone to "sign off". In other words, no one can actually own anything unless the rest of society gives it's permission -- and even then, how is it determined that this "eminent public domain" may in fact be given away in the first place?

Can you in fact, name a single instance in which so-called "ownership" does not have it's origins in the "might is right" axiom?

Tax deductions for dollars lost

You must be joking! Corporations currently consolidate earnings to write off losses of many subsidiaries created for exactly that purpose. That's extortion in my view and another reason for the necessary reform of corporate governance. As far as current losses are concerned, if you know anything at all about the tax system you must understand that income taxes are on profits NOT LOSSES. No one pays tax on losses now

I wonder if you're familiar with a little business and investment scam called the small Business investment loss strategy.

The simple fact is that business generally in this country has had a 30 year holiday and it has become way too expensive for the vast majority of tax payers to continue to finance the party.

A great many corporate folks who're behind these scams are in jail and a lot more of them should be. Period.

I can't believe you don't agree with fairness. Some of my clients even play fast and loose with tax withholdings from their employees until year-end every fiscal year as well. They seem to think it's their 'right' - how about that for extortion?

Corporations that make their money in Canada should pay Canadian tax on those earnings. I could care less if the profits aren't high enough for them and they vacate the country. Good riddance to anyone who cares more about profits than about the good and the development of this country.

In fact, good riddance generally. If a corporate entity wants our resources - and believe me they do - then that's the price they should have to pay. Instead, as I pointed out earlier, they just high-grade the resources and run off with the profits. When it comes time to clean up the mess or pay for the environmental costs - where do you suppose all your corporate heroes will be? Perhaps we could ask the Queen to give all of them a baronetcy.

G.West

However, truth to tell, this is a long way from the nominal subject matter of this story.

I would disagree here. This IS germane to the story. While there may be many reasons for the down 'n' out to be so, one fundamental reason is the disparity in resource allocation. If this is not addressed in some rational manner, everything we try to accomplish is a mere patina covering the substance of the problem.

So while we cannot reasonably hope to re-arrange social structure first in our quest to alleviate the plight of the disadvantaged, we must never the less institute policies which take us in that direction, for the "fixes" to take hold.

But as has been observed, those we rely on to make such changes, do not have an incentive or interest in doing so. More and more of what we see is royalty trodding among the peasants, scattering coins as they go (and the peasants scrabbling, fighting amongst each other, for some small part of this "largesse").

G.West

I would disagree here. This IS germane to the story. While there may be many reasons for the down 'n' out to be so, one fundamental reason is the disparity in resource allocation. If this is not addressed in some rational manner, everything we try to accomplish is a mere patina covering the substance of the problem.

So while we cannot reasonably hope to re-arrange social structure first in our quest to alleviate the plight of the disadvantaged, we must never the less institute policies which take us in that direction, for the "fixes" to take hold.

But as has been observed, those we rely on to make such changes, do not have an incentive or interest in doing so. More and more of what we see is royalty trodding among the peasants, scattering coins as they go (and the peasants scrabbling, fighting amongst each other, for some small part of this "largesse").

RM

The State is incapable of owning the land. It can at best, be a custodian of land and resources. In fact, it is questionable that land and resources can be owned at all, in any sense other than the "might-is-right" one.

Again I will get back to my spring water analogy. The man who would have cornered the market on drinking water, illegally bought the land from the state (or the Crown if you would), because it was not the state's to sell. And he was forced to relinquish this "purchase" when the citizens realized what he was up to. Eminent Public Domain. This is the basic fallacy of the system we have in place today, especially in the resource sector. Mines and timberlands are bought from the state by individuals, and the state has no right to sell them, even if it bothered to get permission from the people of the society. The reason that a resource is not the public's to give or sell, is because the public cannot poll future generations, who have as great a right to such as the present one.

RM & GWest

The only "fair" taxation system is a flat-rate application to gross income. It is no one's business what it takes to make said income, and individuals and businesses are free to pursue whatever means (within the bounds of legality) to do so.

Sing for Your Supper..

RickW

What if Mr. X is a songster, a singer that people flock to hear and then becomes wealthy. Is this OK or his wealth bad too? While I do agree with you that illegal land ownership is wrong and should be taken back, I have a problem with your statement, "wealth can only be accumulated by taking it from others". Only?

As for resources, should they never be touched?

As I've said before

I have some difficulties with a flat tax regime. I agree that the rates should be lower and generally there should be fewer income levels; however, given the fact that I'll accede to your other point - concerning how we've got to the current inequitable state and that that is a result of an elitist system designed to protect the rich and enhance their power at the expense of the majority (and the fall out of which is endemic poverty and problems for children, families and a lack of suitable and affordable housing) I think we may have to be a little harder on corporations and shareholders for a while. They’ve done little enough lately to earn anything but opprobrium anyway. By the way, you should both stop over at Mary’s blog – the decision is in from Courtroom 54 and it is very bad news for the Campbell Liberals.

They have had it their own way for too long. It's time for another innings.

Here's the link

http://bctrialofbasi-virk.blogspot.com/

RM

- Gloria Swanson

But if a resource (which is many different things to many different people) is to be "touched", it must necessarily be by concensus - and if it must be consumed, extirpated as it were, then consideration must be given as to whether this will impoverish the coming generations, and suitable provision set aside for this.

The classic "argument" against this notion is that, were these conditions to be implemented, "nothing would ever get done". Translated into someting rational, it means, "Who we gonna screw, for our own comfort?" And there is that ol' "might is right" thing at work again.........

G West

The corporation is an abomination, the sole purpose of which is to shunt responsibility away from the owners - the ultimate in "externalizing costs"
http://www.friedkitten.com/archive/2005/04/externalizing_c.html
The only acceptable business association would be the co-operative, which is in fact what marriage is, with the responsibilities assumed by all the members thereof.

The Corporation is (again) another incarnation of "might is right"........

Mary's blog

Oh my! I can hear the spin doctors revving up in the Liberal machine. Will it be the NDP's fault (0nce again), ya think?

Back to Safe Injection.......?

Implement the Four Pillars:
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/fourpillars/
and scrap the Gateway Project, if there are funds required. The only thing Gateway is good for is putting money in contractors' pockets (or is it Cayman bank accounts?)
4 Pillars would be a good start. And make it so it can no longer be a political football, subject to the whims of deluded zealots. Addictions of all kinds are endemic to this society. For every "winner", there are many "losers" (it's only a matter of degree). And as such, there should be permanent services to treat them (us). You wanna get rid of the service, then get rid of the problem....

Well argued...

...RickW. Very coherent.

R/man

You may want to do a little of your own reading instead of having RickW hand you your brains on a platter all the time. Every question you've asked so far has been covered in the initial arguments made up to two centuries ago by Utilitarians such as Bentham and Mill, and more recently by Libertarians seeking to justify their arguments using Utilitarianism.

Ultimately, all analogies fail, but your examples to RickW show that some fail more quickly than others.

There are indeed reasons to assume the private use equals ownership of property on some occasions, but corporate evasion of responsibility, corporate ownership (by a non-person, no matter what the courts may say) and corporate tax rates are none of these. They're just lunacy promulgated by a select group of bandits who have learned to work the system, and have learned to keep the rest of the world quiet by throwing a few bones at us every quarter and calling it a "dividend".

Dorothy

Sweetly said. Let's hear more.

Thanks, Zalm

I just want to say to G. West that "picking" on the corporations will not achieve the desired goals. Rather, "decommission" the body corporate, so that it is no longer recognized as an entity, separate from the shareholders. It ultimately is an exercise in "the buck stops here", rather than "there", and not "here".....

http://www.answers.com/corporation

Perhaps (just maybe), when people are required to assume a responsibility (Harper's "accountability"?), we'll be less likely to hold our neighbours in disdain...........more apt to recognize John Donne's "No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main."

RickW

Don't think for a moment I disagree with you.

But, I think we have a chance at getting real tax reform - which would help a lot and almost no chance of deep-sixing corporations entirely without a violent revolution.

These guys and gals - (the top 5 - 8 % of the plutocrats who run things) aren't going to give up without spilling blood. And a lot of that blood is going to be flowing from the veins of the 92 - 95 percent of the people who do all the work now.

I just want to start by chipping away slowly at the 'shaky credibility' of a system that no longer has any useful purpose in terms of the good of the whole population. I think we could sell real tax reform to a majority of Canadians in a democratic forum. I don't think we could convince a majority that they should support doing away with corporations altogether.

At least not yet. I see someone like Realisticman as a guy who's unsure of where he stands. He still believes in such myths as the benefits of foreign investment and the value of corporate leadership.

In the end, it is a question of working toward the possible and not letting the good and the perfect get into a big fight. My first step is tax reform – that’s all.

My first step is tax reform – that’s all.

Difficult enough in itself, considering that, for those we rely on to do the reforming, it would be like requiring them to cut off their own foot.

General rule of thumb: When legislators legislate, they do so for others, and not for themselves.....

But this is getting away from the immediate topic. Care to discuss this in another venue?

As regards the Safe Injection Site, we are (again) asking those who have never "been there" for the alms it takes to make such programs effective. Considering that Canada has consistently reneged on its promise to provide 1 or 2 percentiles of its GDP to help the developing world, how can we expect our current crop of "leaders" to even take notice of our own disadvantaged?