David Suzuki's Obsession

I've mentioned David Suzuki's Markham Economist and Sun column before; he is a regular contributor and occasionally writes particularly silly pieces. The column below belongs to that group. Suzuki has evolved from a fruit fly geneticist to a commentator on all things environmental. Like many modern-day self-proclaimed environmentalists (or even those of the previous generation), Suzuki seems to harbour a particular disdain for human life, though he will never admit that. He and others continually harp on the idea that we are but intruders in the otherwise perfectly balanced biosphere that is Gaia. It falls on us to restrain our tendencies to procreate and expand our footprint on Earth. Failing that, Suzuki and others have developed elaborate plans to coerce individuals and nations to their vision of the world.

I came across this video of a young and rebellious looking Suzuki explaining what he really thinks of people:

The column below appeared in the Markham Economist and Sun opinion page on Thursday, September 16, 2010.  My response letter (below) to this column appeared on Sept. 25, 2010 on the Economist and Sun's opinion page. An unedited version of the letter is below that.

I had to chuckle at David Suzuki’s latest column suggesting that electric car bodies can be made of hemp fibre to reduce the fossil fuel usage needed for production. He then described the HumanCar, an inexpensive vehicle conceived by a U.S. inventor that is propelled by “exercise-based” people power so that one to four persons can “row” the car around. I immediately had visions of the Flintstones, where Barney and Fred had cars made of logs and used their own foot-power for propulsion. Of course Suzuki was serious, and I believe automobiles are serious business.

Obsession is defined as the domination of one’s thoughts by an idea or desire. The private automobile is not an obsession in our society. The automobile is a tool of modern life, a tool that has altered Western civilization like the telephone, the computer, and the airplane. Are we obsessed with them as well?

The automobile has given us untold wealth and unimagined freedoms. Sure there has been a cost, but every choice made comes with cost and given a choice and if allowed, people will choose what is best for them.

Certainly Suzuki presents points that are sensible in this article, but his patronizing and paternalistic columns (like this one) show that he is more interested in controlling people’s lives rather than helping them. It also shows that he is the one that is obsessed.

Full day Kindergarten in Ontario equals ‘Free’ Full time Unionized Daycare

Prior to the 1960’s it was common for families to be supported by the pay cheque of just one spouse. Due to the rapid increase in the size of government, taxes have increased much faster than the cost of living as a percentage of income in Canada, according to the Fraser Institute. Today young parents are faced with the dilemma of two working spouses and day care for their children.

Most school districts in Ontario offer optional half-day or full-day, alternate day Junior and Senior Kindergarten, and children are eligible to start in the year they turn 4. Kindergarten is a two year program and parents are obliged to provide care before and after school. Many schools have such care on site run by private groups at reasonable prices. In November 2007, Premier McGuinty appointed Dr. Charles Pascal as special advisor on early learning to recommend the best way to implement full day Kindergarten in Ontario. Pascal’s report was published in June 2009 and needless to say it received glowing praise from teachers, education related unions and young cash strapped parents.

Pascal’s report called for Kindergarten classes of 26 students supervised by a teacher and an early childhood educator (ECE). Daycare would also be offered and supervised by ECE people at a reasonable fee at the same location from 7 am to 6 pm outside of the regular school day. This day care could be extended to 6 to 12 year olds if there is sufficient demand. The recession has delayed full implementation, but it will be phased in starting in Sept. 2010 and completed by Sept. 2015 with initial costs of $500 million in the first two years and likely beyond the recently revised estimate of $1.5 billion.

Superficially it may appear that this program identifies children’s problems earlier so they can be dealt with earlier, but the evidence for that is scant. Even if there was good evidence, is it really cost effective or desirable? Why not just remove the children at birth as one wag suggested? This way parents will have no influence in bringing up their children.

What’s wrong with Ontario’s full day Kindergarten plan?

1. It increases the government’s monopoly on education, while increasing the size of the public sector at the expense of private sector day and child care, and reduces choice.
2. It replaces market incentivized child care workers with less accountable, less competitive, unionized teachers and ECE employees at greater cost.
3. It further increases the dependence of citizens on government sponsored programs.
4. It creates a new government-union partnership that invites province-wide daycare strikes in the future when the partners disagree.

As long as educators have no incentive to make substantive improvements, most will continue to behave as before and Ontario schools will strive to reach mediocrity at a high price.

This article first appeared in the Libertarian Bulletin (Winter 2009) a publication of the Ontario Libertarian Party. 

  

Power Hungry

Twenty-two years ago this week (July 1988) I built a deck. I remember it vividly because it was an extremely hot and humid July week, even hotter than we are experiencing this week in the GTA. When I showed the deck to one of my work friends he commented that it was "overbuilt". I had used three nails where two would have sufficed, two bolts where one was adequate. The deck was solid, it still is. Now twenty-years later the pressure-treated wood has held up, and there are no squeaks, no weak areas, not yet anyway. I mention this because I'm certain their must be an engineering principle that requires infrastructure to be built beyond adequate tolerances, to be able to withstand unusual loads, stresses and demands.
Yesterday afternoon on the hottest day in more than two years a transformer fire caused a major  blackout in a large portion of downtown and western Toronto. Yet another disruption in the life of Canada's biggest city that has economic ramifications for the entire region.
It took hours to get everything back up to normal but my first thoughts turned to Ontario's electrical production and is it able to cope with the unforeseen stresses that are inevitable? Is the grid "overbuilt" like any well engineered system should be? I don't think it is.
The lead editorial in today's Globe and Mail implies there is a problem with Ontario's electrical grid and production but it doesn't go far enough in pointing to a solution. Should the planning and production of electricity be left to the central planners at Queen's Park? Can central planners keep up with consumer demand for electricity? Should we trust central planners with the production of electricity? My simple answers are no, no, and no.
There are no truly free markets in the production of any form of consumable energy. There are onerous governmental regulations in oil, natural gas and electrical production, but while oil and gas production and distribution is taxed heavily, consumer prices do fluctuate based on supply and demand. Supply will be there when demand occurs. Not true with electricity, government sets the price and lately has made some questionable and uncompetitive deals with producers based on a slew of false assumptions. The problem is none of those assumptions involve your future demand for electricity and you should be concerned.

Going Green and paying for it

In recent weeks many of the residents of Markham and Unionville that subscribe to the equal payment plan (EPP) to pay their electric bill have received notice of increases to monthly bills from the electricity provider PowerStream.  Increases for most households will be 25 to 100% starting June 2010. Naturally the notice did not give reasons but a subsequent letter explained the increases after PowerStream was inundated with complaints. A story in the Markham Economist at the end of May (Energy Bills Skyrocket) explained some of the reasons. One of the reasons was a scheduled 12% hike in the regulated electricity costs set by the Ontario Energy Board. That is just the beginning, those rates will continue to go up as Ontario closes cheap coal fired electric power plants and replaces them with new "green" solar and wind power electric plants. This recent article in MACLEAN'S outlines Ontario's rush to be green.
Below is a letter to the editor of the Markham Economist from June 19, 2010, (click to enlarge) stating my views on the rush to be green and beside it the letter as sent in easier to read format.

Re: Perfect storm hikes bills, May 29

To the Editor,

It has been fascinating to read the differences in equal billing charges levied by our electric utility PowerStream in Markham to some residents.

When I received notice from PowerStream that my monthly equal billings payments were going up 23% I was incensed, and called then emailed the utility. But my rates are going from $111 to $136; a far cry from the EBP rates some of your readers (even though I’m in a 4 bedroom two story house). The difference in rates is instructive; residents do have some control over their EBP rates, simply cut back on usage.  The utility charges according to usage, and that will be even more important when Smart Meter time-of-use rates are implemented soon.

PowerStream is not the villain in this story; it simply distributes electricity for its three municipal shareholders Vaughan, Markham and Barrie. The real villain is the McGuinty government and its rush to be green at all costs – mostly yours.

Over 100 years ago competitive cheap hydroelectric power became widely available here and Ontario became the industrial dynamo of Canada. We still benefit from that very good start but today rather than encourage a competitive market in the production of cheap electricity the McGuinty Liberals are doing the opposite. They have made long-term deals with various companies to purchase power at rates far in excess of the 4.5-cent per kilowatt-hour market rate (a 100 watt light bulb could run for 10 hours for 4.5 cents). In fact Ontario will be forced to buy electricity at between 13.5 and 44.3-cents per kilowatt-hour for the next twenty years from various solar and wind power companies. Remember, each of these are intermittent power sources (no sun/wind no power), so “back-up” fossil fuel sources will be standing by (at additional cost because McGuinty is closing the cheap coal burning plants). Is it possible to find a more expensive way to produce electricity than McGuinty has? Imagine what kind of competitive position this creates for Ontario businesses for the next 100 years.

Oh, I forgot, the new HST will add an additional 8% to your electric bill in two weeks. So it is no wonder PowerStream is increasing our rates, that is just the beginning. Don’t waste your time calling PowerStream, call or write Michael Chan your Liberal MPP and let him know your thoughts.

Allen Small

Markham is at a crossroads

The column below appeared in the Markham Economist and Sun opinion page on Thursday, April 29, 2010. 

Markham has been one of the fastest growing municipalities in North America and some politicians and residents have decided that this growth and prosperity is somehow detrimental to residents and their way of life. So lobby groups have formed and they have recruited politicians and environmentalists (see below) to force their views on the rest of us.  (click to see entire article)

I sent a letter to the editor of the Economist and Sun and it was published (below left) on May 8, 2010. The actual letter as written is clearer below right.

 Re: Markham at crossroads: to sprawl or protect, Apr. 29

I carefully read and re-read the column by David Suzuki and Faisal Moola of the Suzuki Foundation. Nowhere in the piece was there mention of concepts like property rights and private ownership and freedom to dispose of property.

There was a blanket statement in the article that described “an extraordinary new path…..limiting all future growth to further development in areas already built up”. This was followed by:

“This visionary proposal is aimed at protecting the town’s remaining farms, fields and forests, known as the white belt, as a foodbelt that would be out of reach of future development.” Does this mean that those farmers who own this property, in some families for generations, will not be able to sell the property on the open market for a fair price? That is exactly what it means; they are out of luck, too bad for them.

Like many in Markham, my family enjoys locally grown food when it is briefly available, but the bulk of our food, produce and meat come from far off shores and at lower prices. I doubt that local farmers can sustain a living for their efforts why would they? Their chance to escape the farm and reap profits from the sale of their valuable land is about to be thwarted by environmental and political bullies.

What alternatives do Suzuki and our politicians offer? Densification, the creation of urban high-rise ghettos and massive townhouse complexes “preventing urban sprawl onto agricultural lands….using the principles of smart growth” a concept that has already been dismissed in large parts of the United States where much better agricultural conditions exist. “Smart growth” is a euphemism for coerced growth. If land use is restricted in Markham, what happens to available property values? Of course property values increase, good for me, maybe good for you but what about our children, will they be able to escape the expensive high-rise ghettos?

Suzuki and Moola offer that “critical ecological services” will be provided if Markham preserves its green spaces. Habitat for wildlife, songbirds, wildflowers and the economically important “flying $50 bills” called bees will have freedom to grow and roam in Markham, but not people. Is it possible that these benefits may still exist in an urban or suburban environment? I think they can, I’m prepared to tell Suzuki and those politicians where to get off. Are you?