[NON BLOG] More on my name

I did my family name already, why not my given name?

Yes, it really is Randy. Randy appears on my birth certificate. Randy is not any sort of diminitive, I am not actually a Randolph or a Randall.

Oddly enough, I had never been asked this before I left Prince Edward Island.

[BRIEF NOTE] An Example of Cynicism in the Media

Carlos at Halfway Down the Danube links to a transcript of a MSNBC chat with Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief, Rod Nordland. The six pages make for occasionally funny, occasionally disturbing, reading.

[BRIEF NOTE] Canadians Love Each Other, Really

The ongoing uproar in Ontario about the federal equalization system--the federally-run system of monetary transfers from wealthier provinces (i.e. Ontario and Alberta) to poorer ones, with the aim of ensuring a uniform high quality of public services across Canada--has caught the attention of Canadians outside of the province. The sentiment of (non-Albertan) Canadians seems to be reproduced in this editorial, reprinted in the Toronto Star and originally from the Winnipeg Free Press.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty will launch a strong campaign, he announced, objecting to the federal government's offshore oil revenue deal with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Ontario is paying too much to Ottawa and getting too little in return, he complained, and now they're giving two Atlantic provinces more than they used to and it's just ... not ... fair!

McGuinty's argument will have to be a great deal stronger than that before it wins significant sympathy in the rest of the country. It seems to people in other provinces that Canada is run primarily for the benefit of Ontario. Federal taxes collected all over the country pour into Ottawa, a city in Ontario that has grown from a lumber camp to a great metropolis by sucking up the wealth of the nation.

Federal trade policy gave Ontario the auto industry on which it still lives. The federally built St. Lawrence Seaway gave it the ocean access that keeps its mines and mills in business.

McGuinty does not wish to discuss the immense benefits Ontario has derived from being part of Canada — benefits that have made it by far the richest and most populous province. He wishes only to discuss how much tax the federal government collects in Ontario and how much it spends there. Since Canada has a progressive tax system and Canada's wealth is heavily concentrated in Ontario, it is obvious that the federal revenues are going to be drawn disproportionately from Ontario. And since national policy is to redistribute wealth, Ontario is going to deposit more than it withdraws.

It isn't stretching too much to say that Ontario is to the Canadian federal state what the Russian SFSR was to the Soviet federal state, that is, Ontario is far and away the larger Canadian federal unit by population, the single largest provincial aggregation of wealth and one of the richest provinces per capita, and the territorial nucleus of Canada. A Canada is imaginable without British Columbia, or Atlantic Canada, or even without Québec. Without Ontario, though, Canada would be defunct.

I favour equalization, of course. I think that better use can be made of the funds on the part of the receiving provinces, but maintaining uniformly high standards of public service (education, health, now daycare) across the country is critical for citizenship in the Canadian political community (as opposed to separate provincial communities) to mean anything. I just wonder how, if at all, Ontarian grievances can be assuaged.

[NON BLOG] Back to IKEA

I broke my chair Monday. It was an old chair, scavenged from the sidewalk where it had been dumped somewhere to the south of the Christine TTC station last August, so I wasn't have been surprised when the wooden frame finally split messily in two under my weight. I knew that I'd be going to IKEA, not least because of the kind gift of a $C25 IKEA gift card for my birthday. I would have gone to the North York IKEA Tuesday, but reality intervened; on Wednesday, choir.

Today, things were quite open. Errands intervened, mind. I popped down to This Ain't the Rosedale Library with the intent of picking up a tome on Ontario history. That wasn't in. Instead, I got the latest spacing, and--3 items for $C10, again--Robert Kroetsch's Going Native, Tony Wilden's The Imaginary Canadian, and, most notably, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem. my visit to the No Frills up the street in the Dufferin Mall had to wait for tomorrow, I fear.

The actual IKEA shopping expedition went smoothly enough. North to Sheppard-Yonge, east to Bessarion, walk 10 minutes past the Canadian Tire to the blue-and-gold IKEA. I'm a practiced IKEA shopper, now; things didn't feel nearly so unheimlich as they did on my first visit to the North York IKEA. Even the inexpensive and excellent meal offered at the store restaurant--pasta for 99 cents, another dollar for some Swedish meatballs and garlic bread--didn't delay me for very long. I think I'm rather fond of the IKEA aesthetic.

The final results? My new SVENNING swivel chair from IKEA, quite comfortable, only $C20 after the gift card, and--most unlike my desk--quite quickly assembled. I'd like to thank Sweden's Social Democratic Party for ensuring that, in the post-Second World War era, wages for Swedish workers were so high that the IKEA model of inexpensive assemble-it-yourself furniture became attractive among up-and-coming Swedes.

[BRIEF NOTE] runyon on I Am Charlotte Simmons

runyon's pithy review of Tom Wolfe's latest work, I Am Charlotte Simmons. Her conclusion? "I find myself wanting to read his other books if only to see what he's done to deserve the "greatest social commentator of our time" accolade. As basically good a story as it is, it certainly wasn't I Am Charlotte Simmons."

[BRIEF NOTE] That's all?

Stephen Harper's hostile response to Bill C-38, which will establish same-sex marriage in Canadian federal legislation, is disappointingly incoherent.

• Harper positions "New Canadians" as a community permanently and innately opposed to same-sex marriage. One might think, given the Conservative Party's rather weak support among immigrant groups, that he's trying to attract the support of the sizable portion fo the Canadian population of first- or second-generation background. What a pity that Canada's immigrant communities are rather diverse, and composed of actual people who (surprise!) are no more identikit conservatives than Canadians of longer vintage.


• Harper argues that the denial of same-sex marriage rights isn't a particularly serious violation of human rights, compared to what has happened in "Rwanda or China or Iran." This is true. It is also true that what happened in China and Iran (not Rwanda) pales compared to the autogenocide of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The fact that one set of human-rights violations is more sanguinary than another set doesn't make the second set go away. One might as well say that so long as a country isn't smashing in the skulls of everyone with a Grade 4 education with pickaxes, there are no human rights violations of note.


• Harper argues that the establishment of same-sex marriage would force non-religious private institutions to grant the same recognition. Well, yes, that's what anti-discrimination laws are for. Now, you can make a case that private institutions should be allowed to discriminate against individuals on the basis of their ethnicity or religion as well as their sexual orientation without being racist; but, given his attempts to reach out to "New Canadians," I somehow doubt that he really wants to do this.

I'm disappointed that Harper can't come up with stronger arguments against same-sex marriage, if only because they'd be fun to dissect.