Mostly competent government

There's so much competence in Ottawa these days, there's no time to do real justice to it. Here's a taste, with emphasis added:

The closure of a visa office in upstate New York last spring has meant extra long delays for thousands of increasingly cash-strapped would-be permanent residents and Canada could risk losing the very immigrants it wants most as a result.International students and foreign workers -- young, educated newcomers with so-called Canadian experience, the kind of people Canada's revamped immigration system is increasingly keen to court -- comprise the vast majority of the nearly 10,000 files that were transferred to Ottawa from Buffalo, N.Y.

Different file, same awesome management:

At issue is the new Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012, a cornerstone of the government's Responsible Resource Development Plan -- intended to spur development and increase investment in Canada's energy and natural resource sectors. Parliament passed the new law this past summer as part of its omnibus budget bill, Bill C-38. Even though the bill included sweeping changes to most of Canada's environmental laws, the Conservatives let parliamentary committees study those changes for only 11 days.

In the rush, rather than taking time to ensure the law came fully stocked with new regulations, the government simply cobbled together bits of old regulations that had been developed for different purposes, says Pierre Gratton, president and chief executive of the Mining Association of Canada.

Bear in mind that's an industry representative, not one of those radical environmentalists. Projects that wouldn't previously have required assessment will now be delayed because the legislation was poorly written. Lawyers will do well, though, since badly written regulations will ensure more lawsuits which will also slow things down.

The competence on display here is just breathtaking, isn't it?