Practicing What I Preach

Here is an article I submitted today after stating my duty/goal/desire (in the last entry) to write more:


Last week it was revealed that the Employment Insurance fund contained a surplus of $51 billion. There wasn’t much of a brouhaha over this astonishing number, largely because it has been accumulating for years, and perhaps because in times of prosperity no-one seems to want to think too much about unemployment.

I for one have been thinking about unemployment quite a bit lately. Every day in fact. Actually unemployment and its near relation under-employment have been ongoing themes in my life ever since I entered the workforce as a burger flipper and potato peeler nearly 20 years ago. Despite having acquired a handful of post-secondary credentials, and a record of being agreeable and reliable on the job since then, the labour market and I have never been much better off as friends. Right now we are barely on speaking terms.

In my time I have had the rare luck to collect Employment Insurance on a few occasions. Though the qualifications have grown increasingly stringent and the benefits progressively paltry, I am living proof that some people actually do make on to the rolls of EI from time to time.

Of course the selection process for this stipend is rigorous and painfully slow. It has been designed to weed out anyone who might conceivably be considering it as a holiday from a hectic life, or escape from a dismal and unfulfilling work environment. Quitters and part-time workers are not welcome, and anyone who can supplement the basic amount they receive is penalized to ensure they remain wanting while at the behest of the government dime. Judging by the current surplus Employment Insurance laws have been extremely successful in keeping all but the most determined and desperate Canadians off the rolls, even in times of need.

For those whose stars happen to align in favour of EI benefits, a whole new course of delightfully archaic procedures awaits. Despite the truckloads of money this program provides to the federal government through premiums, finding current and useful resources within the governing Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development— especially those provided by a live person—remains elusive.

The talent for gaining appropriate council while collecting or awaiting Employment Insurance is a bit like having a knack for receiving favourable advice from Delphic Oracle. Many intricate rituals, mostly involving a specific sequence of numbers entered into a telephone keypad must be followed. Enduring long periods of sacrificial waiting for the next available agent to the tragic wail of some horribly mutilated one-time pop hit are required. Failure to ask the right question can result in a confusing and often misunderstood riddle as dispensed by a distant operator. Only when one has made a genuine dedication, can they obtain an in-person prophecy from on of the mysterious sages that preside over the HRSDC alter, and even then the news can be less than auspicious.

The adoption of the Internet has added a whole new layer of complexity and non-human interaction to the mix. Now you can be thoroughly confused and disheartened in both official languages without ever stepping foot inside an HRSDC office or listening carefully to all the available options. The complete canon of baffle-gab is available through a labyrinth-like series of links, the main advantage being that it does not require the purification ritual involving screeching violins and melancholic Moogs bleating out tributes to The Beatles and CCR.

Unfortunately the majority of criticism regarding the current surplus—estimated by senior bureaucrats within the department to be approximately $36 billion beyond what is needed to ensure the stability of the program—has focused on the opinion that EI premiums should be significantly reduced in the coming Conservative budget. This may be so, but it is also true that the program as a whole needs to be redefined. Employment Insurance should be rededicated to bringing more high-skilled and motivated workers into the economy by helping Canadians overcome their struggle to find consequential careers, rather than acting as a Kafkaesque castle of indifference where one’s grave and pertinent petitions are treated like prayers being carelessly shovelled into a great beyond.

New Poem

As I typed this it started to take a shape, so I've uploaded it is an image to preserve the spacing of the original. It will probably be easier to read if you click on the picture to get a bigger image.

Get the Greens into the debate

Today I received this link from a friend. It is from the national wing of the Green Party of Canada encouraging citizens to sign a petition in favour of allowing the Greens to participate in the next round of televised pre-election debates. If you agree that the Greens ought to be invited click here to sign the petition.

The Ethics of Meat

I’ve flirted with vegetarianism in my past. At the time I stopped eating meat it was an issue of economy more so than ethics. It was just cheaper to buy beans and tofu than chicken and beef.

I have since re-embraced my inner meat-lover, even though I am barely better off now than I was in my starving post-post-secondary years. But the more I read about how animals are farmed, the less likely I am to eat certain kinds of meat.

An editorial in Sunday’s Winnipeg Free Press opined that those who call for the ethical treatment of livestock are really just acting as a front for those who wish to end all livestock production. But this seems like a ridiculous argument in light of the fact that most humans continue to eat meat, and will continue wanting to no matter what strategies fringe animal rights groups bring to bear on public opinion.

It is possible for meat eating consumers to embrace the concept of free-range eggs and open hog barns without siding with the maniacs at PETA. It is in fact a highly logical and ethical stance to take. No one should begrudge farmers their living, but at the same time everyone should concern themselves with farming practices that seem cruel and poorly conceived.

I am not a wealthy person, but I won’t blink an eye when I spend an additional eighty cents to buy eggs that are “free run.” I have this idea that an animal who is raised in a suffocating and stressful environment is in someway unhealthy, and to eat the flesh or offspring of such an animal is unhealthy too. I have no way to prove my concerns scientifically, but intuitively it makes sense to me. I’m not sure to what degree an animal is aware of it’s being, but I am certain that no living thing, especially one destined to end up in my gullet, benefits from a life in a steel cage without any chance to roam and forage.

Like all sectors of our economy the agriculture business has become obsessed with the ideas of cheaper, faster and more. But while the widget factory may benefit from a streamlined production cycle, cutting corners in food production is illogical. Developing genetically similar pigs to better suit mechanized slaughter houses and then stuffing them with antibiotics because they have no natural resistance to disease seems like a really bad idea. Likewise farmed salmon aside from being less tasty than the wild version also threaten local populations with sea lice and competition for habitat when they escape their pens. That seems like too steep a price to pay for a slightly cheaper salmon steak.

Farming advocates can dream up all the conspiracy theories they want as to who is questioning their production methods and why, but the truth is that these methods do require scrutiny. In the end it is consumers who will decide what processes are ethical enough to support, and which need to be amended or abandoned altogether. However in order to make these decisions we must know how our food is being produced, and the real price we are paying for cheaper meat products.

An opinion on racial profiling

Today I sent a letter to the editors of the Free Press with respect to one they had published.

Original letter:

Life in the 21st century

Re. Humiliation in the name of public safety, Feb. 4.

Perhaps Janine LeGal missed Sept. 11 a few years back. Yes, racism is ugly. Death is uglier. Once again someone is crying foul because we have the audacity to attempt to protect ourselves from "marginalized groups from certain countries" that simply want us destroyed.

It is extremely unfortunate that her friend and others are subject to this scrutiny, but how do we protect ourselves against a cult of death that has brainwashed some Muslims into thinking that we of the West are not worthy of life? It is a fact that immigration is a positive for this country, but we still have to be aware that the world is not safe or fair. I believe that LeGal's friend's inconvenience is a small price to pay so that his/her fellow fliers can get on a plane with some sense of security that they will actually get to their destination without becoming collateral damage in a senseless war of ideology.

This is life in the 21st century. Deal with it. It's not going to get easier.

My response:

Far more disturbing than the remote possibility of another 9/11 is the idea that every North American who is dark and Muslim should be subject to degradation and suspicion every time they pass airport security.

Letter writer Gary Billson opines that in the 21st century racial profiling is in the interest of public safety, however I would argue that air travel is already significantly safer, and the odds of someone commandeering a commercial aircraft for an act of terror in this post 9/11 world are as slim as they are for getting a bomb in the cargo hold after Air India.

Sensible, one might say hyper-vigilant, controls have been put in place, and every new perceived threat is met with even harsher restrictions (witness the ban on liquids). In fact it is probably more likely that one will be killed in a school shooting or a Picktonesque act of serial murder than in an air terror incident. The practice of isolating and interrogating Muslim Canadians is far more of a threat to our nation then the possibility that one of them may be planning—let alone capable of—carrying out an act of terror on a domestic flight.

9/11 was a tragedy, but it was also an anomaly. It should never be used as a justification for turning fellow citizens with a different skin colours and/or religious background into assumed enemies of the state without a lick of due process.

Rick Mercer Photo Challenge Entry

Here is an image I created for Rick Mercer's Photo Challenge today. The original picture is here. Not sure who the political figure is--perhaps someone who watches TV might inform me--but the body of the picture belongs to Iron Maiden's lead singer Bruce Dickinson.