Apparently I do respond to news coverage

Yesterday I saw some of the coverage of the accidental self-impaling of a ceremonial guardsman at the daily changing of the guard ceremony on Parliament Hill.  Not only did this story remind me that it's now the time of year when I can see such a ceremony, but it also made it clear that these guys are carrying real bayonets.

I know these guardsman are technically soldiers, but why are they carrying real bayonets?

I hope their guns aren't also loaded with real bullets.

Anyway, because I was reminded of this ceremony by the story and also aware of its schedule I decided to head to today's iteration (and I haven't seen it since the summer of 1995).

Despite the fact that the news story indicated that the event occurs daily at 10:00 AM, as I was approaching about 10 minutes before 10:00 AM I saw the pipers and a batch of soldiers just beginning their march towards the lawn (they arrived on site a fell 5 minutes before 10:00).  Maybe this smaller parade isn't considered to be an official portion of the ceremony?

Just after this group passed me I crossed the street just in side the walls of the parliament hill compound only to see the manhole covers that were likely the cause of the aforementioned self-impaling.  It seems that at some point between yesterday and today they have been painted with some kind of gray anti-slip paint.

After the pipers, drummer, and soldiers arrived on the lawn they just stood around without moving for a while.  It was a little less than exciting.

After a few minutes of standing on a sidewalk watching these guys stand motionless in the sun we were informed that we'd have to move, but we couldn't stand behind where we'd been standing because that was an active road.  Really?  

They have major tourist event every morning and they still haven't figured out a way to effectively direct traffic and pedestrians?  Oh, and they probably shouldn't allow people to block the band's entrance until the band has entered, then they wouldn't have to clear everyone out and and help them find a non-road based spot for them to stand until the band enters.

Anyway, eventually the band and another batch of soldiers made their way to the lawn.  The presence of a few flags and cones allowed me to trick myself into thinking that we may be in for some fancy marching and whatnot.  

Boy was I disappointed.

Once the band (along with the pipers) were in position the two groups of soldiers stood across from each other on the lawn.  There was then some kind of 'inspection of the troops' that went on for about 25 minutes.  During the inspection, aside from a few shimmies and the placing and removal of bayonets, the soldiers were largely motionless. Of course at this point I was still hopeful that some fancy marching would still take place.  At least the band was occasionally playing during the inspection.

Sadly, after the inspection of the troops concluded everyone moved to the centre in formation to leave.  They then marched off of parliament hill and down Wellington and Elgin.

In case you're curious, as they left all of the soldiers appeared to have bayonets on their rifles.  Fortunately there weren't any additional self-impalings during the course of the event.

Anyway, if you are planning in being in Ottawa and though you might want to check this event out I would recommend getting there a few minutes before 10:00 to watch the arrival of the two sets of musicians and then leave a few minutes into the inspection.  Once you've seen a guy looking down the barrel of a rifle once you get the idea of what's going to go on for the next 25 minutes and there's really no need witness him looking down the barrel of every rifle present.

Dead voters aren't the only thing Newfoundland doesn't have

According to a CBC story, for at least the last five years, Securities Commission of Newfoundland and Labrador has not had to fine anyone for securities law violations.  Despite the fact that this sounds great, I can't help but think it also sounds too good to be true.

Because the CBC piece doesn't really address the issues in Newfoundland (because they, like PEI, haven't fined anyone recently so there are no unpaid fines to collect) I decided that I should probably try to find the name of the entity responsible for enforcing securities regulations in Newfoundland.

A quick search lead me to a Newfoundland Government page that kind of suggested that the name of the relevant entity is the Securities Commission of Newfoundland and Labrador (and that this entity falls under the aegis of Service NL).

Of course, because this first website included very little of the information I was looking for (like the names of members of the Securities Commission) I decided a little more digging was needed.  It only took me a few more seconds to find the page of the Canadian Securities Administrators, which includes names and bios of provincial representatives.

The bio for the Newfoundland representative was quite a read.  Not only does the short write-up include a few biographical details about the representative, but it also mentions that this individual

is the Director of the Financial Services Regulation Division and was appointed Superintendent of Securities in December 2009. He is also the Superintendent of Insurance, Superintendent of Real Estate and Registrar of Mortgage Brokers and has responsibility for the regulation of Prepaid Funeral Contract Sellers.

But maybe more important than the fact that the Superintendent of Securities wears quite a number of hats simultaneously, is the fact that this bio also mentions that Securities Commission was eliminated in 2005.

Funny that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador's website doesn't mention this.  Actually, there are still quite a number of references to the old securities commission scattered throughout the areas of the site that deal with securities regulation.

And because I found all of this a little curious I decided to quickly skim through the old versions of the law to see how the Securities Commission was constituted.  Apparently it had at least one member, but additional commissioners could be appointed. The other aspect of the law that immediately jumped out to me is that related to the investigatory powers of the Securities Commission.  The old version of the Securities Act included the following section:

3.4  In carrying out its duties under this Act, the commission has all the powers that are or may be conferred on a commissioner under the Public Inquiries Act .

The current version of the act doesn't seem to  provide the Superintendent with quite the same range of investigatory powers and requires that investigators empowered through the act, at least in some cases, to go to judges to seek prior approval for searches (this might be something of an improvement, if it investigations are actually initiated).

I've been trying to find out a little bit more about the Superintendent's office, but as of yet I haven't found much.  This, of course, contrasts with the Nova Scotia Securities Commission, a organization that provides easy access to their organizational chart and overall goals (as far as I can tell the name of the position of Superintendent of Securities, and that they are the chief securities regulator isn't even listed in an obvious and clear way on the main portion of the Newfoundland website).

Oh, one last thing about the 'securities' section of the Service NL website.  If you follow the link titled Public Orders all you find is the following text:

Copies of orders, rulings and decisions relating to discretionary relief can be obtained by calling (709) 729-4189.

Am I the only one that finds some of this a little strange?

A Few Quick Notes 582

-Despite the intense sun, today hasn't been too hot. Maybe the fact that it doesn't seem to be as humid is the big difference.

-This morning Jeannette and I rode our bikes along the Rideau Canal for about 10 kilometers to watch a few of this weekend's dragon boat races.

-Our plants continue to grow rapidly. We must now have close to 20 immature tomatoes and maybe a few dozen semi-ripe beans.

Though we keep adding new tomatoes the older tomatoes don't seem to be getting all that much larger.

We've been pleasantly surprised to see that a few of our sweet peppers have started to develop, if somewhat slowly.

All-in-all I am hopeful that we will eventually have at least a moderately successful harvest.

-On our way back we acquired a few new board games from a store that is in the process of closing. Maybe in a few years we might have as many games as Neil, Rebecca, and I had in Halifax.

It's not a surprise if it was advertised months ago

At about the time I was preparing to move to Ottawa (February 18th, to be precise) my father sent me a job ad for a job at elections Canada.  The basic ad included in the paper made it sound as though I might be at least semi-qualified for the position.  Of course, when I read the full job description on the Elections Canada site I was pretty sure I was nowhere near qualified to become the Commissioner of Elections Canada.

Now, about three months after the job was posted, the successful candidate has been announced (and because I've signed up for Elections Canada's news updates I received an email hours ago).

Just recently the Ottawa Citizen's story on the appointment was released.  I was quite surprised by one of their early paragraphs.

But in a surprise announcement Thursday, Elections Canada said Corbett had retired and been replaced by Yves Côté, the former associate deputy minister of Justice.

 At least to me it seemed hardly surprising that such an announcement was made given the months that have passed since the post was advertised.  Maybe they were using the word 'surprise' to refer to the successful candidate?

Despite the fact that I don't think that the early part of the story makes it clear that their 'surprise' relates to the appointee rather than the existence of an announcement, they do go on to paint a rather uninspiring picture of successful applicant.  In their profile a picture is painted of an individual disinclined to challenge the powers that be.

Anyway, whatever the case may be as far as the Citizen's use of the word 'surprise' may be this new Commissioner is going to have his hands full with the sizeable investigations currently underway by his office.

There are no dead voters in Newfoundland!

For the past few days I've been thinking quite a bit about the enforcement of electoral law at the federal level in Canada.  Consequently I've been reading about the offences that have been investigated/prosecuted over the past 20 years.

While after every election we tend to find that there are a handful of financing/advertising related cases, I was pretty shocked to see that duplicate voting seems to be one of the most common offences (and even as one of the most common offences there are only, at most, a handful of cases dealt with by Elections Canada after each general election).

Finally today, and I really don't know why it took me this long to make it here, I decided to see if provincial electoral laws had similar conviction/infraction patterns.  Not surprisingly, I decided to start my investigation in Newfoundland.

After quickly skimming Newfoundland's Elections Act and finding the relevant sections I made my way over to CanLII to see if any of the relevant sections have been cited in any cases in their database (I had to use this imperfect approach because unlike Elections Canada, Elections Newfoundland and Labrador does not have a section of its website that includes such information).

Anyway, the CanLII information was quite revealing.  Apparently there are no cases that cite the passage about duplicate voting (which I feel I must include here for its humour value)

193. (1) A person is guilty of an offence who, at an election,(a)  applies for a ballot in the name of some other person, whether that name is that of a person living or dead, or of a fictitious person;(b)  having voted once at that election, applies at the same election, for another ballot; (c)  votes in more than 1 electoral district; or(d)  aids, abets, counsels, procures or endeavours to procure the commission by a person of an act described in paragraph (a), (b) or (c). 

As it turns out, there weren’t even any cases citing s. 194:

194. A person is guilty of an offence who, at an election, votes or attempts to vote knowing he or she is disqualified from voting or not qualified to vote at that election.

I thought it was also noteworthy that while one of the offences common at the federal level (the failure include a statement from the official agent authorizing the publication of election material) is also against the law in Newfoundland (s. 198) it seems that that section has not been cited in any cases included in the CanLII database.  Overspending expense limits is another potential violation that has come up from time to time federally but not once provincially.

I can’t help but wonder if it is really the case that those involved in the electoral process in Newfoundland are really more law-abiding than those involved in the analogous processes federally?

Or, maybe, it’s not that the case that these infractions aren’t taking place, but that they aren’t necessarily being investigated to the same extent.  If one takes a look at the organizational chart for Elections Newfoundland and Labrador there it isn’t obvious that any of the positions mentioned would conduct investigations into such matters after an election’s results had been made official (though the Elections Act does confer such an investigatory power upon the Chief Electoral Officer, at least in relation to the examination of records relating to party or candidate finances).  And I hope I’m mistaken, but I did not see anything in the act that would conclusively give the Chief Electoral Officer the authority to investigate potential infractions committed by individuals or entities other than parties or candidates (ex. voting for a dead person).

And in case you’re curious, if you ever are found guilty of voting for a dead or fictious person the punishment can be severe. 

208. A person who is guilty of an offence under section 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198 or 199 is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both a fine and imprisonment. 209. A person who is guilty of an offence under this Part that is not an offence referred to in section 208 and for which no other penalty is specifically provided, is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $1,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months, or to both a fine and imprisonment.

So I’m not really sure where all of this gets us, but I do feel it’s at least something to know that there isn’t much evidence of Elections Newfoundland and Labrador going after people in the courts for election finance violations, advertising violations, or voting violations.

I don't know how I'm going to make it through the day

It's just a few minutes after 9:30 AM and I'm already drenched with sweat, despite the fact that it's not even 20 degrees outside.  I guess the fact that we're at 93% humidity has something to do with the current state of affairs.

Anyway, this early morning unpleasantness is notable because we are apparently in for something of a 'heat wave' today.  If it's this bad now I really can't imagine how bad it's going to be this afternoon.

At times it feels that the environment is conspiring against me.

Our garden from below

I guess it is likely that at least of our neighbors know that we are growing plants on our balcony.

And after a late afternoon trip to Chinatown our plant collection now includes a banana plant (similar to the one I had in Halifax).

Maybe this will make things a bit clearer

So just after my last post I realized that it may not be entirely clear where everything I mentioned is located. 

Hopefully this annotated photo makes what we've got going on a little clearer (though it still doesn't include the other half of the balcony (so maybe I'll have to prepare a second such photo shortly).

Update: Spelling mistakes are the worst - almost as bad as not having spell checkers in my basic photo editing software.

A Few Quick Notes 581

-At first I was thinking today wouldn't be particularly hot or unpleasant, it seems I may have been a little off.  It's just past noon and it already feels like it's in the low 30s.  Gross.

-It seems that the Ottawa Fringe Festival is taking place in our neighbourhood.  Despite my best efforts I haven't yet been able to convince Jeannette to attend any of the shows with me.  Hopefully sometime between now and the end of the festival I'll manage to talk her into seeing at least of of the shows.

-As another week as passed I thought I would post a few more photos of our container garden progress.

Not surprisingly, the largest portion of our container garden is where we've seen the most growth.  The largest tomato plant keeps pumping out flowers (and immature tomatoes), as do our four pepper plants.  And our runner beans ran right up a line I set up for them.  Maybe most amazingly, our mini-pumpkin plants keep adding new leaves and buds (though only male buds so far) to their pot.  Almost every morning when we head our for the first inspection/watering of the day we find new and exciting developments.

Or, if you were looking for the angle I've posted for the past few weeks.

And if you needed more evidence in support of my claim about the presence of immature tomatoes.

The bathroom wheat continues to grow, but I think the less-than-harsh environment that is our bathroom didn't condition the wheat for some of the wind that we had earlier this week.  To try to overcome the weakness of the plants and fix the damage that was done I installed this new rigging system.  Hopefully this will encourage the growth patterns we are looking for.

We've also had some success with some of the plants I haven't spent as much time documenting.

For instance, a few days I noticed that one of our bean plants had a juvenile bean.  I would guess that we now have at least a dozen or so beans in various stages of not-quite-ready-to-pickness.

And after a slow start our lettuce has finally started to come into its own.  Maybe if we'd used a reasonably sized pot we'd have even more success (but I'm still hopeful that even with this small pot we'll have enough lettuce for a few salads).

And finally, maybe our most exciting garden development is that we finally had our first harvest.  When we went out to check on the plants this morning we noticed that two of our strawberries were ripe.  While even if you combine them these guys won't be much of a meal, it's nice to know that purchasing those plants wasn't all for nought.

-One of the things I've really like about our subscription to the Ottawa Citizen is that it means we're regularly supplied with new crossword puzzles.  Not that either of us is particularly adept at crossword puzzle solving, having the opportunity to spend a few minutes each morning on such a puzzle can be quite pleasurable.

Oh, and maybe the best thing is that on Saturday and Sunday two such puzzles are included.  They seem to know that when we have more breakfast time on our hands we will want more puzzles.

Predictable response?

The introduction of amendments to the accesss to information law in Newfoundland earlier this week caused quite a furor. Not surprisingly, the media and the opposition parties were less than keen to see changes that will make it easier for the government to deny access to information. 

Aside from the fact that these amendments seemed tailor-made to cause the uproar that they caused, I find the timing quite strange.  If you wanted these amendments to seem like normal housekeeping amendments, which seems to be what the government wants, why would they more or less hide the details of the changes until the end of the legislative session and then try to ram the bill through on the same week it was introduced?  Could they have come up with an approach that would be more likely to raise suspicion among the critics whose ire they were hoping to avoid? If so, I'd be curious to see such an approach implemented at some point in time.

Because of cabinet exemptions to the law we will likely never know, but I would really love to know how long these changes have been in the works and how long the text of the current bill has been ready. In other words, how long were they sitting on the bill in its final form before they introduced it? (And as far as I know there hadn't been much discussion of such a bill/changes in the run-up to its introduction - a fact that likely intensified the feeling of shock among opponents).

While here are other aspects of this bill that merit consideration, the issue of it's timing seems particularly peculiar to me.

The vote-a-thon really is just voting

So last night I broke down and went to the House of Commons vote-a-thon.

I arrived at about 11:00 PM, just in time to catch the reading of the last 200 motions.

Much to my surprise, at about midnight Harper and the rest of the front benches showed up.

Voice voting started shortly afterwards.

They then rang the bells for 30 minutes before starting the roll call votes.

From then on it was just roll call vote after roll call vote.

I called it a night just before two and about 7 votes.

It's still ongoing, if you're interested or if you don't believe me that they really are doing about 24 hours of straight roll call votes.  Oh, and it's about as boring/absolutely fascinating as you would expect it to be (kind of reminds me of watching the GG's door in December 2008, or OJ's white Bronco in the nineties).

Now I'm fixing the radio

Yesterday afternoon I was listening to CBC Ottawa's All in a Day when I heard the host reading a listener letter chiding the host for warning cyclists about a location where police were actively handing out tickets.  After reading the note the host agreed that he wouldn't issue such warnings in the future.

I was immediately reminded of a story tweeted about by On the Media.  In the story it was reported that a man in Florida had been charged after he had been flashing his car lights to warn drivers about an upcoming speed trap.  The judge considered headlight flashing a form of protected free speech and the ticket was overturned.  Despite the fact that the case related to free speech protections that are specific to the US, I thought one the concepts that the judge mentioned was particularly relevant to the issue of warning cyclists.

At an earlier hearing Circuit Judge Alan Dickey said, "If the goal of the traffic law is promote safety and not to raise revenue, then why wouldn't we want everyone who sees a law enforcement officer with a radar gun in his hand, blinking his lights to slow down all those other cars?" reported The Crime Report.

My thinking is that the judge has it right.  Whether one is flashing lights or issuing a warning over the radio the end result is, hopefully, less of the prohibited/dangerous activity.  And isn't reducing the number of incidences of the action in question usually the justification for such check-points?  And, as far as society is concerned, isn't reducing these incidences what we really want as an outcome not the issuance of more tickets?  Are we necessarily served by the police issuing more tickets (which implicitly means that instead of being prevented the behaviour was ongoing until after it had been observed)?

Anyway, I quickly dashed off an email to All in a Day expressing my disagreement with the listener's letter, citing the aforementioned case.  Just a few minutes ago I received an email from someone from the show looking for more information about he case because they are interested in doing a follow-up piece on the topic today.  So if all goes well the radio will be one step closer to fixed by the end of the day.

The all-night vote-a-thon

So in just a little while the Canadian House of Commons is set to begin would could be close to 24 hours of straight voting (they'll be voting on hundreds of proposed amendments to the recently introduced budget).  Because the Conservatives have a majority government the outcome isn't really in question, though I guess when you're trying to coordinate such large number of people for such a long period of time unexpected things may crop up.

Anyway,  for a while I'd been thinking about heading over to check out a little of this vote-a-thon, despite the fact that it will probably be just about the most boring thing in the world.

Then I went out for a walk.

Originally I was thinking I might just pick out a coffee.  Turns out that I ended up going for a slightly longer walk and ended up walking past Parliament.

By the time I made it to Parliament I had pretty much come to the conclusion that I probably would just give the whole vote-a-thon thing a skip and maybe just watch the streaming version, if anything.

Of course now that I'm back home and I get the sense that the voting is just about to get underway I'm a little more interested in the idea of heading over to watch the late night parliamentary antics.

Of course another problem is that if I head out to the House of Commons I'll lose my online coverage of the 'filibuster' currently ongoing in the Newfoundland House of Assembly (which is currently in recess while they resolve a point of order relating to comments about whether or not someone called someone racist and whether or not the comments are unparliamentary).

Anyway,  what a night.  I have more strange opposition-induced middle of the night legislating than I ever thought I'd have a chance to witness.

A Few Quick Notes 580

-For the past few days we've had close to perfect weather until the evening when, all of a sudden, we've had the pleasure of experiencing brief, but torrential, downpours.  Assuming today's forecast holds we should be in for something similar this evening.

-No matter how many dishes I do every day it seems I am never more than 30 seconds away from a half-sink full of dishes.  How is this possible?

-I just made a batch of pumpkin bran muffins for breakfast.  Because I didn't have quite enough pumpkin puree on hand they aren't quite as tasty as I had hoped they would be.

-Last night Jeannette's brother Alex spent the night with us.  After we had dinner we walked around the downtown area a little to see the sites.  As we neared Parliament Hill we could sense that something was up because we could hear something in the distance.  As we drew nearer we could see that 'what was up' was that an A/V presentation was being projected on the centre block building.

This weird animated gif may give you a very limited sense of what was going on.  Eventually Jeannette figure out that what were watching was the Mosaika: Sound and Light Show.  We ended up staying until the show ended a few minutes later.

(Maybe this photo will help paint a slightly better picture of what was going on.)

-So our plants seem to keep on growing.

When I posted a photo of our balcony plants about a week ago they were this big.

Even though it's only a week later many of the plants have put on a few inches or, at least filled out a little.

Talk about exciting.

-Despite the fact that my family seems to think I working from an absurd premise with my wheat plants, these little guys continue to put on a few inches every few days.  Apparently they aren't allowing the criticism to stunt their growth.

Check'em out now!

We'll definitely have enough for a 1/4 loaf of bread in a few months.

The most basic security system

A few days ago I walked past a granite dealer and was a little surprised to see that they stored much of their merchandise unlocked and unfenced in front of their building.

It took me a second to see the beauty inherent in rocks weighing hundreds of pounds - you can just leave in your driveway because they will be too hard to steal. It was heartwarming to see that the company also realized this and the opted not to even build a fence around much of their stockyard.

An amazing thing about this Magnotta affair...

...is that each story seems to include a series of different photographs of the suspect.  I'm sure I've now seen dozens of glamour shots of this guy and I haven't been doing anything more than reading the standard media coverage of the story.  One can't help but wonder when the well of unused photos will run dry, if ever.

This ever changing array of glamour shots of the suspect just makes an already bizarre and horrific story even more bizarre and horrific.

How to solve our F-35 problems

As some of you may know, since Kirsten and I first watched the NFB's The Defender about a year ago I've been a real evangelist for the film.  At almost every opportunity I try to encourage people to watch the film.




[Embedded video]

Just moments ago I realized that I'd been completely missing at least one aspect of the film's timeliness - which is that aspects of the film parallel (or should parallel)  the F-35 process.  

When the film was originally created the plane development process followed in the film was in the context of the costly development of the CF-18.  Bob Diemert, the plane's creator, was hoping that his low-tech, low-cost plane would be adopted instead of the technologically advanced CF-18.  Maybe now that we're in the midst of the F-35 development process we need another prairie inventor the champion a low-tech, low-cost alternative to the F-35?  

Or given that we're now well into the 21st century maybe we could crowdsource the design?

And shouldn't there be a new NFB film charting the development of the 21st century version of the The Defender?

Even if this project doesn't lead to a viable alternative to the F-35 it might at least raise a few questions about plane design, approaches to military engagement, and procurement.  And, who knows, maybe it would lead to a movie as fun as The Defender.

A Few Quick Notes 579

-After a few days of temperatures over 30, we've now returned to much more pleasant temperatures.  Even though it's about 14 and overcast at the moment I am not inclined to complain.

-Our local raccoon made a particularly early appearance yesterday afternoon.  By my calculations he was out rummaging around through construction debris before 5:00 PM, which seems early for an animal that's supposed to be nocturnal.

-Thanks to some recent sun our balcony garden is finally starting to look as though it might turn out quite well.  Over the past few days the bean, tomato, and pepper plants have started to do particularly well.  I'm even hopeful that some of our herbs may eventually be large enough to harvest.

-In the bathroom we started some wheat a few days ago.  Much to our surprise, these plants have put on inches in just days.  Eventually we are hoping that the plants will be large enough that they will provide a natural privacy barrier in front of the bathroom window.

This is a classier solution than mini-blinds, right?

-The recent mailed body parts/gruesome murder story has really been dominating the news in Ottawa for the past few days.  I keep imagining this is because of the Ottawa connection to the crime, but now that I've seen a little bit of the non-Ottawa coverage I'm wondering if the coverage is so extensive just because this is such a bizarre and gruesome crime?