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Canada Job Grant ads cost $2.5M for non-existent program – Politics – CBC News
Canada Job Grant ads cost $2.5M for non-existent program – Politics – CBC News.

Canada Job Grant ad 0:34
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The federal government blanketed the internet with ads and bought pricey TV spots during playoff hockey as part a $2.5-million publicity blitz to promote a skills training program that doesn’t yet exist, CBC News has learned.
TV commercials for the Canada Job Grant often ran twice per game last May during the widely watched Hockey Night in Canada NHL playoff broadcasts on CBC. There were ads on radio, as well.
“The Canada Job Grant will result in one important thing – a new or better job,” said the reassuring voice-over in the TV ads.
The problem: The program was never launched and is still on hold. The job grants were announced in the 2013 federal budget, but it called for an agreement with the provinces, which have so far refused to buy in.
Employment and Social Development Canada spent between $2.5 million and $2.6 million on the ad campaign. That figure excludes radio ads funded by the Finance Department.
“Spending millions of dollars to advertise a program that doesn’t even exist is like flushing tax dollars down the toilet,” Liberal finance critic Scott Brison said.
$11-million publicity push
CBC News has also learned that that advertising cash came from an $11-million fund set aside last year for Employment and Social Development Canada to promote the government as a job creator.
Before the Canada Job Grant TV ad went to air, the government paidEnvironics Research Group almost $70,000 to conduct market research. Focus groups saw a near-final version of the commercial.
Environics concluded: “The main message was consistently seen as positive and one that inspired hope…. In light of seeing the new ad for the Canada Job Grant, most now believe the Government of Canada is on the right track regarding skills training and the job market in Canada.”
- Government ad spending on economy balloons under Tories
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- Conservatives overspent government ad budgets by 37%
“Their own research suggests that people get a positive impression of the ads,” Queens University political science professor, Jonathan Rose said. “Whether that means they convey accurate information is another story.”
A government commissioned survey done post-campaign showed only two per cent of the 292 people polled who saw or heard the ad also caught the disclaimer that the program didn’t yet exist. It also found only 18 per cent of viewers understood tax dollars paid for the advertising.
Ads ruled misleading
After receiving numerous viewer complaints, Advertising Standards Canada, the advertising industry’s self-regulating body, ruled the TV commercial was misleading because the job grant program hadn’t been approved.
“The commercial omitted relevant information,” ASC concluded in a report. The report didn’t name the government because the ad campaign was already over.

The proposed job grants would give workers $15,000 each for training, with the provinces kicking in one-third of the cost. But provinces have yet to sign on, complaining the proposed program claws back $300 million in federal funds now used to help disadvantaged workers.
“We do not believe, the way the program is designed, that it will work,” Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne said at a premiers meeting last July.
Quebec threatened to opt out. There’s no word yet on when an agreement might be reached.
Asked to comment on the ad campaign, a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada said, “The government of Canada’s top priorities are creating jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity.”
Harper blasted Liberals over ads
In his first question as opposition leader, in 2002, Stephen Harper took the then Liberal government to task over their advertising spending and the emerging sponsorship scandal.
“Will the prime minister stop the waste and abuse right now and order a freeze of all discretionary government advertising?” he asked in the House of Commons on May 21, 2002.
During its peak, the Liberal government spent $111 million on advertising, in 2002-2003. Harper’s current Conservatives doled out $136.3 million in 2009-2010, their biggest advertising budget yet on record.
If you have more information about this story or any other tips, please email investigations@cbc.ca.
The Fascist Origin and Essence of Privatization Washington’s Blog
The Fascist Origin and Essence of Privatization Washington’s Blog.
Preface by Washington’s Blog: We documented in 2009 that fascism and our current crony capitalist economy are indistinguishable.
We noted in 2011 that America’s public resources are being raped and pillaged … just like those of small debt-saddled countries like Greece.
The following short – but important – piece by Eric Zuesse shows that looting and privatization of public resources was a hallmark of fascist Germany and Italy … and America today.
Washington’s Blog is non-partisan. We believe that the war between liberals and conservatives is a false divide-and-conquer dog-and-pony show created by the powers that be to keep the American people divided and distracted. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.
We can argue it either way, because we are ideologically neutral: allowing the private sector to own and manage resources is good … or allowing the public sector to do so is healthy.
Here’s the key: If these resources had always been in the private sector, that would be fine … that would be free market capitalism.
But if they were purchased on the people’s dime with our blood, tears, sweat and taxpayer funds – and then sold to the big boys for pennies on the dollar – that’s not capitalism … that’s looting. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the Nazis, Italian fascists, and modern American “leaders” are doing.
-By Eric Zuesse
Conservatives support privatizing schools, prisons, hospitals, and other social services. The privatization-mania is also increasingly occurring in higher education, as conservatives in Congress push measures to raise the percentage of colleges that are owned by for-profit corporations, and to decrease the percentage that are either public or nonprofit.
The argument given for such privatization is that corporations are more efficient because they are “the free market” way of serving people’s needs. However, progressives argue to the contrary, that in these parts of the economy, where “profits” for the public are hard if not impossible to measure, government does a better and less-inefficient job than corporations do. And, now, even a conservative state’s governor seems to have switched to the latter conclusion.
On 3 January 2014, the AP reported an instance in which the Republican Governor of one of the three most-Republican states in the U.S., Idaho, is doing a 180-degree turn, and he announced that “the corrections department will take over operation of the largest privately-run prison in the state,” from Corrections Corporation of America. The AP’s Rebecca Boone, in Boise, reported, that, whereas “In 2008, he floated legislation to change state laws to allow private companies to build and operate prisons in Idaho,” he now is taking over operation of this CCA prison, because of “mismanagement and other problems at the facility.” Only a few months before, on September 16th, that same reporter had headlined “CCA in contempt for prison understaffing,” and she quoted the federal judge’s order, which said that, “For CCA staff to lie on so basic a point — whether an officer is actually at a post — leaves the Court with serious concerns about compliance in other respects, such as whether every violent incident is reported.” The judge found that CCA was lying because they wanted more of their income from the state to go toward boosting their bottom line for stockholders, and less of it to go toward feeding the prisoners and protecting them from each other. The judge’s order said, “If a prospective fine leads to $2.4 million in penalties, CCA has no one to blame but itself.” CCA had been caught by the judge in persistently lying to the state while shortchanging prisoners on the prison’s obligation to provide basic services to inmates. The tension between private profits versus public services was clear in this case. CCA had incentive to cheat inmates in order to raise profits, and now a federal judge was fining CCA for doing precisely that.
Similarly, countries such as France, Sweden, UK, and the OECD generally, where health care is entirely or largely provided by the government, have better health-care outcomes and far lower healthcare costs, on a per-person basis, than does the U.S., where the profit motive in medical care is far more encouraged.
However, many Americans prefer the privatization of government services, because they believe that such a movement toward “shrinking big government” is in the direction of greater freedom, and is the only ethical direction, a direction in favor of greater democracy, in accord with the U.S. Constitution. Though the U.S. Constitution is by no means a free-market document, and concerns political issues instead of economic ones, there is a strong belief, especially among conservatives, that it is primarily about economics. There is consequently a myth about privatization.
The Myth About Privatization: Privatization was introduced by two democracies, the USA and UK, in the 1980s, not by prior fascist regimes.
The Truth About Privatization: Privatization was, in fact, a big aim of the elite fascists, right from the very start of fascism.
Explanation of the Reality: Aristocrats control the private wealth. Privatization means that they get to control also what was previously public. Privatization moreover provides corrupt politicians (their politicians) an opportunity to pay off their contributors (themselves) by offering them an inside track on public-asset sales. So, it’s not surprising that privatization is the way of fascist countries.
Documentation of the Reality: In September 2009, the European University Institute issued their RSCAS_2009_46.pdf, titled “From Public to Private: Privatization in 1920’s Fascist Italy,” (subsequently retitled “The First Privatization: Selling SOEs” in the 2011 Cambridge Journal of Economics) by Germa Bel, who said in her summary: “Privatization was an important policy in Italy in 1922-1925. The Fascist government was alone in transferring State ownership and services to private firms in the 1920s; no other country in the world would engage in such a policy until Nazi Germany did so between 1934 and 1937.” Then, in the February 2010 Economic History Review, she headlined a study specifically about the German case, “Against the Mainstream: Nazi Privatization in 1930s Germany.” Here, she reported that, though “privatizations in [fascist] Chile [under Pinochet] and the UK, which began to be implemented in the 1970s and 1980s, are usually considered the first privatization policies in modern history, … none of the contemporary economic analyses of privatization takes into account an important, earlier case: the privatization policy implemented by the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in Germany. … Although modern economic literature usually fails to notice it, the Nazi government in 1930s Germany implemented a large-scale privatization policy.” Furthermore, “Germany was alone in developing a policy of privatization in the mid-1930s,” since Italy had finished its privatizations by then.
The purposes of these privatizations, in both cases, were chiefly “receipts from selling” the assets to finance rearmament, and also “the desire to increase support from” the major aristocrats (such as, in Germany, the armaments-making firms of the Thyssens, the Krupps, and the Flicks), who received sweet deals on these assets.
Much later, of course, Russia under Boris Yeltsin also privatized, while that nation switched from being communist, to becoming fascist. (Yeltsin was no fascist himself; he wasn’t intelligent enough to be anything, ideologically. He was just confused, mistaken.) China later did the same thing, when it, too, switched from being communist to being fascist.
Connection to Privatization in the U.S: To continue with prisons as the case: Huffington Post, on 22 October 2013, headlined a major investigative news report “Private Prison Empire Rises Despite Startling Record of Juvenile Abuse,” and reporter Chris Kirkham found rampant political paybacks in the privatizations of juvenile prisons. As a typical example of the consequences: Florida’s “sweeping privatization of its juvenile incarceration system has produced some of the worst re-offending rates in the nation. More than 40 percent of youth offenders sent to one of Florida’s juvenile prisons wind up arrested and convicted of another crime within a year of their release, according to state data. In New York state, where historically no youth offenders have been held in private institutions, 25 percent are convicted again within that timeframe.” Those children in Florida are experiencing the brunt of fascism. But so are taxpayers.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
‘Liberal media’ a fundraising fiction
‘Liberal media’ a fundraising fiction.
Blaming someone for your troubles is often easier than facing the truth about yourself, and the federal Conservatives are apparently no exception.
The Citizen reported this week that the Conservative party sent fundraising solicitations to supporters saying the media have somehow teamed up with the opposition to undermine the Conservative agenda — and the Tories need to fight back.
“Here’s the bad news — the Liberal fundraising machine is in overdrive, and we need to keep up,” party president John Walsh said in an email to the faithful.
“We can’t let the Liberal attacks and the media stop us from reaching our goal.”
Using the media as the bogeyman to raise money apparently works, and Walsh’s email echoes one sent in November by Justice Minister Peter MacKay to rouse the party’s base against Justin Trudeau’s stand on legalizing marijuana.
“We need your financial support so we can fight back against Trudeau and his allies in the media — who are still making excuses for his mistakes,” MacKay pleaded.
These follow several attacks on the media by assorted Conservatives, including former Conservative Senate leader Marjory LeBreton, who noted that Ottawa is “populated by Liberal elites and their media lickspittles tut-tutting about our government …”
The notion that the media are in cahoots with the Liberals to somehow thwart Conservatives may work as a fundraiser, but it is not borne out by the facts, considering that this same media overwhelmingly backed Stephen Harper and the Conservative party in every election since 2006. In the three successive elections that the Conservative party won — 2006, 2008 and 2011 — the major Canadian newspapers, with only one exception, endorsed the Conservative party.
The Calgary Herald, Harper’s hometown newspaper, no surprise, endorsed the Conservative party in all three elections, asking Canadians in 2011 to “return the Conservatives with a majority, because their record and their platform make them the best choice for the country by far.” The Vancouver Sun was similarly inclined, picking Harper in 2006 to “clean up Ottawa,” and tipping him in 2008 as the “choice for the rough road,” and giving him the thumbs up again in 2011. Other papers such as the Vancouver Province, Winnipeg Free Press and the Edmonton Journal also wrote editorials backing Harper. But these are western newspapers, and one would expect them to back the hometown boy. What about the central Canada newspapers?
Let’s start with the Citizen. In a 2006 editorial endorsing Harper, the paper noted that “the Conservative moment has arrived.” Two years later, the paper again endorsed Harper, saying that he offered “the steadiest hand and the clearest judgment.” In 2011, when many in the country were worried about giving Harper a majority, the Citizen had no qualms, arguing that Harper deserved that majority. In the three elections, the National Post, a stable mate of the Citizen, also endorsed Harper and the Conservatives, stating in a 2008 editorial that Harper was “the best choice for the country,” and declaring two years ago that he was “the clear choice in uncertain times.”
And the Globe and Mail? The paper endorsed Harper in 2006, and in the next election backed him again, saying he was “growing into the job,” and was the “best man for the job.” In 2011, the paper picked Harper once more, saying the Liberals had failed to show how the Conservative government had failed, and why they should be the alternative. It was the same with the Montreal Gazette, which called the Conservatives “our best bet,” in backing them in 2008, and then asked Canadians to give the party a “stable majority government” in the election that followed.
Of the major newspapers in the country, the only one to buck the trend and not back the Conservative party is the Toronto Star, which endorsed the Liberals in 2006, saying their program was “best for Canada,” and stayed the course in 2008. But in 2011, the paper shifted allegiance to the New Democrats, saying the Liberals had not made a “persuasive case” to be considered the alternative to the Conservative party.
The record shows that, far from ganging up against the Conservative government, it can be said that Canadian media are actually supportive of the party and its leader. How else would one explain their overwhelming endorsement of Harper and his party in three successive elections? Which brings us to the next question: If the Conservatives have enjoyed this kind of backing from the media, why have they turned on them?
One answer is that beating up on the media raises money. Another is that the party resents criticism, and the fact that journalists were instrumental in exposing much wrongdoing this year, makes them enemies. But here’s the thing: There is division of labour in a democracy. The government governs. Parliament makes laws. The courts ensure the laws and policies are fair and just. And the media stand on guard, keeping a watchful eye on the other branches so the people’s work is done, and hold politicians accountable as they should. That’s how a democracy works, and we all better get used to it.
Mohammed Adam is a member of the Citizen’s editorial board.
Canada’s Harper pledges to seek fourth term | Canada | Reuters
Canada’s Harper pledges to seek fourth term | Canada | Reuters.
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday brushed aside any suggestion he might step down in the next couple of years, saying he would seek a fourth term in the 2015 general election.
“It is interesting to read in the papers one day that I plan to retire, and the next day to read that I intend to trigger elections immediately,” he said in a television interview with the French-language TVA Nouvelles.
“The reality is there are elections on a fixed date in 2015. I intend to lead my party (into the next election), which is the only party which has serious policy on the number one priority of the population, which is the economy.”
Only four of Canada’s 22 prime ministers, including Pierre Trudeau, father of current Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, have won more than three mandates.
The speculation of Harper’s possible departure has mounted at the end a difficult year for him and his Conservative government.
It has been marked by criminal allegations extending into his office over a Senate expense scandal, and the Conservatives are polling at their lowest level since taking power in 2006, well behind the newly resurgent Liberals under Trudeau.
Harper has denied any knowledge of what police say was corruption by his then-chief of staff, who provided money from his personal funds to a Conservative senator to help pay back expenses determined to be inappropriate. The former chief of staff denies any wrongdoing.
But the affair has tarnished the reputation of Harper, who came to power pledging accountability and avoiding even the appearance of evil after Liberal wrongdoing. The Senate expense scandal overshadowed his government’s biggest accomplishment of the year, a major trade deal with the European Union.
Asked if he would use the Christmas holidays to reflect on his political future, Harper said flatly, “No.”
“My intention for this period is to determine the next steps for the government… We have finished the most productive year of any since we took power. I hope 2014 will be like that,” he said.
“There are a lot of challenges. There are a lot of opportunities for Canada but also a lot of threats, a lot of challenges, and we must ensure a prosperous future for our children.”
Harper said the government was in the process of making fundamental economic changes, for example, launching Canada’s biggest infrastructure plan, and transforming immigration as well as research and development to better serve economic needs.
Ontario Liberals undermined own plan to control sprawl: Walkom | Toronto Star
Ontario Liberals undermined own plan to control sprawl: Walkom | Toronto Star.
Seven years ago, the Ontario Liberal government trumpeted its new law to curb urban sprawl as bold and visionary.
“People want to see action,” David Caplan, the province’s then infrastructure minister, said after announcing the province’s fully fleshed-out Places to Grow Act in 2006.
Acting in tandem with the Liberal plan to create a green belt, Places to Grow was designed to protect farmland in southern Ontario’s so-called Golden Horseshoe.
Unless something drastic was done, an earlier government study had warned, rampant urban development would result in an additional 1,000 square kilometres of mainly agricultural land — an area twice as big as the entire City of Toronto — being paved over by the year 2031.
Caplan called the new law Ontario’s “last chance to build the future we want.”
The Liberals were lionized for the new scheme by both press and public. The government even won a prestigious U.S. planning award.
But seven years later, it is as if nothing had ever happened.
A new study by the Neptis Foundation, an urban think tank, calculates that the amount of prime farmland slated for urban development by 2031 has in fact increased since the government uttered its first, dire warning.
That new total now stands at 1,071 square kilometres.
What happened? As the Star’s Susan Pigg reported this week, Neptis found that the Liberal government simply never bothered to implement its bold new law.
That law, Neptis writes in its just-released report, “has been undermined before it even had a chance to make an impact.”
At the heart of the Places to Grow Act was a requirement that municipalities in a belt running from Peterborough to Niagara Falls authorize fewer sprawling subdivisions.
Instead, most municipalities were expected to locate at least 40 per cent of any new residential development in areas that were already built up.
In practical terms, it was a requirement to concentrate on higher-density accommodation — from highrise apartment buildings to row housing.
New subdivisions wouldn’t be banned. But under the law, they had to be dense enough to support public transit.
Because the area covered by the law was so diverse (it includes both cities and cottage country), municipalities were allowed to seek exemptions.
The theory, apparently, was that while the government would grant exemptions that made sense, it wouldn’t allow the act to be subverted.
However, the reality, as Neptis researchers found, was quite different.
In effect, the Liberal government allowed every municipality that wanted to be exempted from the new standards to be exempted.
“There was very little justification given as to why exemptions were permitted,” report co-author Rian Allen told me.
“Those who asked for exemptions appeared to get them.”
This was particularly true of municipalities in the so-called outer ring of the Golden Horseshoe, in places like Simcoe County (near Barrie) and Wellington County (near Guelph).
All in all, more than half the municipalities in the outer ring have received exemptions from the density minimums.
And because those minimums are so low, even municipalities that meet provincial targets will remain subject to sprawl.
Allen points out that York Region, for instance, is expected to have only half of Toronto’s population by 2031 even though it occupies more than twice the space.
The province had predicted it would save 800 square kilometres of farmland from development. That goal won’t be met says Neptis.
That the Liberals undermined their own plan should, perhaps, come as no surprise. Land development is big business in Ontario.
Municipal governments pay a great deal of attention to developers. So do provincial political parties seeking financial contributions.
More to the point, many voters want to live in the sprawling subdivisions that these developers build.
Still, even for a government that has specialized in big talk and minimal action (nursing homes; poverty reduction), this is an astonishing failure.
Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.