Harper's Arrow

It's nice the ESA wanted us to build a rover for them. Do you think they should have offered to pay for it, instead of asking us to take $100M of our funds from our existing programs? I have a counteroffer in the same spirit: since we have all this controversy over the proposed C-130J purchase, let's tell EADS we want them to build A400Ms for us and have Airbus switch money from their A380 program to pay for the A400Ms.

I can't express how much this pisses me off. Grrrrrrr.

IrC, read carefully here.
1. It would not of cost us any money we weren't already spending on our space program.
2. The people in charge of the programs we were running (Canadian space Agency) thought that this oppertunity was more important than what we were doing.
3. The only way we get to do any science in space is to hitch a ride with either the US or the EU. The EU is essentailly asking us to help pay for gas, and Harper just gave them the finger.

The only possible explanation for this behavior is that the Conservatives have targeted the CSA for massive cuts, or even possibly shutting it down completely in the next budget, which would prevent it from meeting any foreign commitments.

By refusing to help in an area were Canada has the most expertise, we are forcing the EU to develope this expertese on their own, meaning if we want to participate in the future we will have nothing of value to contribute.

This is a disaster for Canadian science, will increase the brain drain of brilliant minds fleeing to other countries, and move Canada backwards until we are completely resource based economy again, dependant on oil, gas, wood, and water for or economic survival.

Well, the Brain Drain is what the Libertories and Bay Street have been promoting for years as an excuse to lower their own personal taxes.

F*ck the banks and f*ck all the American-owned Canadian subsidiaries...

Yo IrC:

Here you and I agree:

"only possible explanation for this behavior is that the Conservatives have targeted the CSA for massive cuts, or even possibly shutting it down completely in the next budget, which would prevent it from meeting any foreign commitments."

This is such a win/win situation that there must be some more to the story. Until they put it in some sort of context, such as you suggest above, we are left scratching our heads.

croghan27

I think that was Yeti you were agreeing with, Croghan. At least I hope it was.

IrC, $100 million over 10 years (none of it new money) is cheap for the opportunity for us to do our own space science.

There must be some method to this madness. You can't just cut something like this without someone having thought about it? Can you? I mean, it's easy to cut social housing, but industry? Is encouraging brain drain part of a nefarious plot?

Unless the Cons expect to offer Canadian expertise for American projects, like militarization of space, perhaps? Harper seems to be quite happy to alienate the EU and China in order to serve US interests alone.

Or another possibility: how many of the Conservative ministers are ideologically anti-science? I believe that some, I don't know how many, are Christian fundamentalists; such people tend to believe that creationism is a science and that scientists who prefer evolution are either knaves or liars. This translates partly into a hatred of environmentalists, a belief that global climate change is not really a scientific fact, but a political plot. The further these people move away from reality, the more they will hate people who insist on describing reality. Look at what is happening in the US, with the Bush administration imposing more control over its scientists and altering scientific reports for political purposes.

Holly Stick:

The Canadian government was told by the American government that if they built this Lander for the Europeans that the Americans would be interested in it for their planned Moon colony construction to start in 2020. So the idea that this was to snub anyone other than the Americans doesn't work for this decision. I suspect it is more due to the lack of belief in the notion that government can do anything good for economic development that permeates the CPC ideological framework and possibly some of the anti-science element than anything else.

General:

I did my own post on this a few minutes ago at Saundrie linking to all the blog posts I have found so far on this issue. This contract is still salvageable if the decision gets reversed in the near future, ironically enough because no one expected Canada to refuse and therefore had no alternate supplier under consideration. This is something that needs to be made as public as possible as soon as possible to at least try and have the chance of forcing a reversal on this decision. I believe this decision is one with incredibly negative ramifications for the future of our robotics and space industries in much the same manner as the cancellation of the Arrow did for our Aerospace sector for the following couple of decades after that Western Conservative Prime Minister's screw-up.

Scotian, you may be right about the ideology. However, I still wonder if it could be a bait-and-switch, where later on they will announce a re-allocation of those resources to some other project.

>1. It would not of cost us any money we weren't already spending on our space program.

Until someone identifies what the funds were already assigned to, we can't measure what will be potentially lost. Unless the funds were just sitting in an account gathering dust, we either have to do without something else (a loss) or pony up the money later on for the "something else" (no different than paying for the lander ourselves with new money).

>2. The people in charge of the programs we were running (Canadian space Agency) thought that this oppertunity was more important than what we were doing.

Their advice should be considered, but their position at CSA is essentially the same as Rick Hillier's in the CF: to execute government policy.

>3. The only way we get to do any science in space is to hitch a ride with either the US or the EU. The EU is essentailly asking us to help pay for gas, and Harper just gave them the finger.

This is correct, and the "why" is what needs to be answered before everyone blows his stack.

>The only possible explanation

Oh, I sure didn't see that coming: the answer is easy to divine, and there's only one possible answer.

The Conservatives may have no good answer, but it would be helpful to prove that so that reason can be brought to bear against the government. If you put the facts in the hands of someone like Dion, he should be able to hand the government its head in Parliament. Or everyone can run around in circles screaming, having a nice group hate.

Tim:

Thanks for the kind words and the recommendation, it is much appreciated. I only hope this decision is reversed before it is too late, I really do believe this to be a massive blunder if not corrected and one that will haunt Canada for decades afterwards much like the Arrow did.

IrC:
I think our differences here come down to one thing, and that is the role of scientific research and the CSA in general. The CSA is NOT the armed forces, and its primary role is NOT to carry out government policy. When it does, it does so as a necessary evil to maintain funding. By helping the EU it helps itself and its own mandate for scientific reseach, which by the way is the only official reason Canada sends anything into space. Generally, the government can choose which projects to fund and which not to, but usually does so at arms length, through the Canada Research Council. International projects with long terms, big budgets, and foreign commitments need approval from the Feds. The fact that CSA was willing to give up their own projects to work on this should go a long way to convincing anyone of its importance.

I should probably have used the phrase "The only possible explantaion that I can think of.." instead of "The only possible explanation...". Still, when $100 million dollar projects involving international allies are involved, I would expect an explanation wether the government sided one way or the other. More so this way, because it flies so far into the face of our previous policy of co-operation on international space exploration.

Scince the Conservatives are not being forth coming, perhaps you could indulge in some speculation as to why the Harper Conservative would do this, when the EU wants us to, the US wants us to, our own scietific community wants us to, and I do to. Can you come up with any other reason, logical, reasonable, or otherwise, why this project would not go ahead, except that the CSA is on the Federal budget chopping block.

Maybe aliens told them not to do it.
Could happen.

The sky is definitely falling, the sky is definitiely falling.

I think IrC put it well in the first comment WRT free rides. Plus, maybe there are other things we may want to do down the road, rather than help the race to find Helium-3 on the moon to bring back to fuel fusion reactors?

Second, is everyone aware that Toronto, alone, spends more than $70,000 per annum on each "homeless" person there. And it ain't working? When do we stop and ask the question, at a million bucks per year?

Shelters on inclement days. Food. Clothes. Hospital. Volunteers running their butts off and driving around the city to service these "homeless". And taxpayers are on the hook to pay $70k/Yr so these "homeless" folks can carry on with their chosen lifestyle?

Nice deal, but there's no one forking out $70k to me per year. And I've paid taxes for over 40 years.

If POGGE wants to be a do-gooder, move to Toronto and spend your own time and money trying to service and change these "homeless" unfortunates who, BTW, don't want to change. Don't throw any more of my or other people's/taxpayer money at support schemes that don't work. Proven. Long term. Big time.

Me, I'd rather see the $70k go to working abandoned mothers, abused spouses, disabled, needy who, with help, could earn a decent wage and get back their self-respect.

Wow. Eric, with all due respect, what a complete load.

How nice of you to put quotes around homeless. Like many a right winger, you see the unfortunate as the architects of their own misfortune, and I'm sure that's the case in some instances. The reasons for their homelessness is as varied as the number of homeless.

The program did work. Big time. Did it end homelessness? For some folks, yes, but there are more homeless people being created every day. That's why shelters and programs like this exist. I would guess that very few people that "lifestyle". This ain't California. Being homeless in Canada in the winter ain't no joke.

As for the rest, I am a do-gooder. I volunteer in my own community. I pay my taxes which fund national programs like the one the Conservatives cut.

With all due respect in return, the original post was a full load and then more. If the government (us, remember, as payees) want to give the Sally Ann one-tenth of the $70k/yr, it will do worlds better than the current approach. Right now there's more people employed servicing the homeless than there are homeless.

And yes, I have contributed to the SA for well over 30 years now, in addition to paying my taxes (in Toronto too, where I lved for 50+years) and seeing NO improvement on the streets re: homeless. So don't tell me that $70k/yr per homeless person, and more in terms of donated shelter spaces at the SA, food banks, etc., is making any progress.

It is not MY problem, or my neighbour's over here in Toronto or Aylmer. It's Toronto's problem (for Toronto homeless) at its widest, and the homeless person at its narrowest, and if you want to make it your problem, fine. More power to you.

But don't ask me to pee away money on schemes that don't work. I don't know what will, but it sure isn't that.

I didn't like the Liberals peeing away $6.9 billion of taxpayer money on Kyoto and having nothing, absolutely nothing to show for it except a 34% increase in CO2 emission.

Nor did I like Martin employing advocacy groups that would advise him, surprise, surprise, that the Liberal approach to (say) childcare was the best (CCAAC, e.g.) so that their "contracts" would be renewed each year, or CCAAC outright telling readers at their publicly-funded website to not vote for the CPC, during the election.

But I took it. And now that another government with another approach is in and dealing finally with useless sacred cows, I suspect you will react as I did (for 13 years). It's called democracy, or else it would be called mind control.

But go on over and help the homeless, get them off their unfortunate situation for which they apparently bear not one shred of responsibility. It's us, society, that takes the fall for their decision, whatever precipitated it? Pull the other one. That's fraudulent thinking, and you know it.

And give us regular status updates, too, eh? I can't wait to hear that the problem has been solved, with or without money. But $70k/yr isn't cutting it now, so that's probably your starting point for drumming up private donations.

Perhaps Mr. Harper doesn't support mankind venturing into what he considers divine territory.
Slipping those surly bonds of earth puts us too close to angelic real estate, no place for us heathens and atheists.
Not that he is too tight with the purse strings when it comes to spreading the taxpayers generosity.

From the CBC report:

"Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp. said Wednesday it plans to spend $1.5 billion, including $350 million from the federal government"
"Pratt & Whitney said the project is expected to generate more than 1,500 direct and indirect jobs"

"While the government investment is repayable, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said Canadians likely won't ever see the money repaid.
The federation called Pratt & Whitney a "corporate welfare deadbeat" that has yet to repay most of the money Ottawa has given it over the past 23 years."

The company is planning to put up 1.15 billion, whether they do or not we will never know. We do know that we will be subsidizing this undertaking to the tune of about $233,333 per job and any advancements will become the patented property of a large American company.

Maybe it's time to question Harper dual loyalties.
Canada or the multinational corporate welfare queens?

Erik wrote: "Nice deal, but there's no one forking out $70k to me per year. And I've paid taxes for over 40 years." So you do not take advantage of our taxpayer funded public health care? You don't drive or ride on our public roads? You do not use any of Toronto's public facilities? You don't rely on the police, the firemen, the paramedics to keep you safe? Rest assured, at least some of your tax money is being spent on you.

So where did this $70,000 per homeless person figure come from? A credible source? And how was it accounted for? What is the breakdown of this spending?

Yo Eric:

I spent about three years living on the streets of Toronto, yes as a homeless person - of all the people I met in shelters, under overpasses and in parks I can think of only one who chose to live that way - the "working abandoned mothers, abused spouses, disabled, needy who, with help, could earn a decent wage and get back their self-respect." are the people on the street.

No child I know of says: "I wanna be a homeless person when I grow up." It IS illnesses and disabilities and various psychological problems that move them to the street and keep them on the streets.

If the City of Toronto was spending $70k a year on me - I sure would like to know where it goes. The Salvation Army does good work, some fundamentalist churches, Catholic Social Services - as do several other agencies, volunteer and otherwise (the Indians have a bus that goes around looking for people to aid). They are good ideas, one and all, but they are disjointed - probably coming from a charitable impulse to do something about what they see as a terrible situation.

Yet, this is a separate question from one of funding the Canadian Space program. If if the government, Liberal, Conservative or otherwise would cut some of its' "subsidies" to the oil patch - a fraction would of that money would pay for all the programs for the homeless in the entire country.

This is not about funding a profit making organizatiion (Exxon, Shell), it is about building upon an area of expertese that Canada happens to have and helping to expand that thrust. To bring this up as a question of homeless vs scientific funding is at best dissembling... and probably just confused thinking.

(oh, by the way, I paid $50k a year in taxes for the ten years prior to ending on the street, and now pay about $30k - if it goes to the CSA it is money well spent.)

One wonders what roads Erik drives along, or what schools he attended. I'm sure he's done great things with his life, but if he thinks the taxes I pay have had no benefit from him, then perhaps he'll give me my money back?

Quote:
"So you do not take advantage of our taxpayer funded public health care?" *** Sure I do. Like other Ontarians, I pay Ontario taxes, plus Lieberal McSquinty's infamous non-tax-increase increase ... the Health "Premium".

"You don't drive or ride on our public roads?" *** Sure I do. I even pay license fees and some of my taxes (everything's general fund these days) goes towards roads et al.

"You do not use any of Toronto's public facilities? You don't rely on the police, the firemen, the paramedics to keep you safe?" *** I pay my fare on the TTC like the rest. I pay property taxes to pay my share of police, fire, etc., services. Ditto sewers, water, electricity.

But, to make this short, what's your point? That I pay taxes? Sure I do. For more than 47 years. That Homeless people don't? You bet. That this is a failed and discredited do-gooder program? You bet!

And, James, ask your question of a person who is a net recipient of your hard-earned money, not a net payer who, for all we know, might even be/have subsidized YOU. Maybe all the folks who are homeless, druggies, and whatnot? Not me. Road question answered above, education mill rates more than amply paid for in later years (and still, via property taxes. Sorry, James, no help to you there.

As for average cost, Toronto will spend $162 million in 2006 providing shelter and services to homeless people. The official (and only count) of homeless people occured April 19th this year, and results were released in June: 5,052 were found by an army of 1,000 volunteers on the night of the survey. Average Metro Toronto direct expenditure per year per homeless person: just over $32,000.

This does not count private inputs (Sally Ann, United Way, food banks, volunteers, corporate donations, individual donations, etc). I can't find it now, but the $70k was a realistic estimate by someone knowlegeable for the all-in costs.

And as for croghan27's comment, I'd like to say two things: first, on oneupmanship, my ex-wife and I EACH paid more than $40k/yr in taxes from 1986 to 1991, so I'm not impressed with your paltry $50k (just joking, really, but my amounts are true!).

Secondly, croghan27's story, if even remotely true, hardly endorses (in fact, studiously avoids even a hint of approval of) the current "save the homeless" programs and expenditures (WHATEVER AMOUNT THEY ARE) are working, let alone optimal.

Which gets back to my theme(s):
1. If they ain't working, why do we keep doing them?

2. Why does anyone think that more/less money will change things?

3. Why is it not a personal responsibility, but a (all) Canadian taxpayer problem?

4. Isn't there better ways to spend this money?

5. If you feel so stronly about supporting the homeless in (say) Toronto, do it on your dime. Don't assuage your conscience with someone else's money. I can understand Dippers spouting "Other People's Money" mantras but are Liberals of same mind?

Over to thou (the Mongol Hordes, collectively)

Yo Erik:

1)Sorry - I did not include my wife's substantial tax rebates (wanna compaire returns?) - or even the time we spent helping set up a food bank and a shelter for battered women. I was not playing your game of 'oneupmanship' - I was trying to illustrate how you are wrong, wrong, wrong about your assessment of the homeless. Homeless is not totally helpless... the population on the street may remain constant (or grow) but the individuals are constantly changing. Some get help both physical (training) and psychological (therapy) and some just grow up and out of it. (I would not have spoken of money but for your complaint of your misspend tax dollars.)

2) Recheck your figures there .. the Salvation Army (at least the ones I stayed in - mostly Queen and Sherbourne) charge the government for each bed/night they supply. Methinks you may be double accounting there .... They also charge a fee from some rooms. There are a couple of organizations in the TO area that make that their main income source - providing rooms to the homeless in exchange for government funding. Check out "the Schoolhouse" on George Street - just above that hell hole of Seton House.

No - the programs do not work well ... especially since Premier Harris turfed all too many mentally disabled out of some institutions on to the streets - but some do work.

Given the opportunity the homeless among themselve have set up quite viable communities in Toronto ... the 'Pope Squat' was one and another at the end of Cherry Street.

This is all off topic about the the dunderheaded move to refuse funding for the CSA's involvement in the Mars/moon missions.

"But, to make this short, what's your point? That I pay taxes? Sure I do. For more than 47 years. That Homeless people don't? You bet. That this is a failed and discredited do-gooder program? You bet!"

No, that is not my point; I'm sorry that you find it so difficult to understand my real point; which is that you were complaining about money being spent on homeless people while money was not being sent to you; and my point was that money is indeed being spent on you and to your benefit.

Blame the homeless problem on the Mike Harris government and others following his narrow ideological mindset which now seems to dominate the halls of power in this country.

A lot of people on the street have serious problems, mental health or otherwise. Some are just incapable of functioning in our society like the others, while others are living on the streets because it's preferable to living in an abusive home.

To say that homeless is a career choice is unbelievable naive and just plain offensive. I should not expect that type of comment from an informed adult.

The problem will only be solved once effective government programs are put in place. I'm sure that somebody, somewhere has the solution to much of the problem. However, since effective government is antithetical to the current Conservative mindset, nothing will ever be done (and it's not like the Liberals were that much better).

The biggest threat to this country is the PRIVATE-SECTOR corporate bureaucracy and how their limited mindset is being forced upon the public sector bureaucracy in their pursuit of such bullsh*t concepts as efficiency pushing out more important facets like EFFECTIVENESS. Coming from a corporation with 82 facilities in 57 countries on five continents, I've seen bureaucratic decisions that make even the Adscam debacle look responsible...

Honestly, what we have nowadays is a system where those in power are fully disconnected from the realities on the ground. As an example from my experience, executive decisions made in Toronto undercut production effectiveness in facilities in Atlantic Canada because those decision makers really had no clue about how the products were actually made and what was required to keep production running; they came straight out of university and will not listen to "non-experts" running production as they knew best, and had that (worthless) piece of paper to prove it.

This is a huge reason why I had to leave and returned to university.

To return to the original topic, I'm actually in robotics and decisions like this really want to make me leave this country for Europe.

I'm getting very tired of the retards that dominate the Libertories...

"No - the programs do not work well ... especially since Premier Harris turfed all too many mentally disabled out of some institutions on to the streets - but some do work."

To be fair, there were many advocates for the mentally disabled who took offense as institutionalizing people, it just wasn't Mike Harris.

"But, to make this short, what's your point? That I pay taxes? Sure I do. For more than 47 years. That Homeless people don't? You bet. That this is a failed and discredited do-gooder program? You bet!"

That's all that needs to be said, really.

You operate in a moral vacuum, Eric, where every unfortunate gets what is coming to them: more misery.

Your figure of about 5000 homeless is laughable. That was how many they were able to find in one night. The actual figure is much higher:

http://www.toronto.ca/homelessness/2000/appendixa.htm

Even estimates as high as 60-70,000 are considered low as homeless people tend to avoid being counted:

Estimates of the number of homeless in Toronto range from 60,000 to 70,000. But advocates for the homeless say those numbers are low because they are based on shelter use and don't take into account those who live in parks or encampments, such as Tent City.

A planned census of Toronto's homeless was put on hold after advocates said street people were afraid the count would reveal their hiding places and make them vulnerable to eviction.

That's found here:http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/municipalities/squatters.html#toronto

That kind of shoots the shit out of your $70,000/year for each homeless person.

But let's be honest: if it cost a nickel a year per homeless person it would be too much for you. After all, they "don't pay taxes", which is apparently the only measurement of self worth with right wingers. Dishonest numbers are a favourite wingnut tool, but don't bother deploying them here in the future.

Good bye, Eric.

Well, gee, if homelessness is a career choice, it certainly seems to be a career that right wingers are encouraging. 'Cause otherwise I can't explain all the right wing policies that have led directly to major increases in homelessness. They've done everything but put up posters saying "There's no life like it!"

But to get real here for a moment, this is idiotic trolling. I mean, we start with a discussion about revenue neutral choices in terms of science funding, and this person derails it into a discussion of funding for the homeless. Say what? It would be nonsensical even if what the Cons turned down had been a request for extra funding. For one thing, since this guy's *against* funding for the homeless, one would expect he'd come out swinging for pulling that social spending in favour of *extra* funding for scientific research. I mean, if he was gonna say anything relevant at all. Or if he was going to say we can't afford it because the homeless take too much money, it'd still be silly--in a time of massive surpluses, declining corporate taxation and massive corporate subsidies, one cost certainly doesn't make it impossible to fund another. But as it happens, the science guys were saying "We have X amount of funding, we'd like to spend it on this priority rather than some other ones," and they got turned down. In this context, talking repugnant nonsense about the homeless isn't just stupid, vicious fantasy, it's pure and simple trolling; he can't possibly be quite stupid enough not to realize that there is no tiniest point of contact between the topic and his nasty little rant. Well, maybe he can, but if so nobody should be letting him touch a computer, much less post here.