Death with Dignity - BILL C 14 Change Please

It is fundamental that an individual holds domain over mind and body, this is the paramount concern in drafting legislation of this sort and this legislation is failing in this concern. The recent attempt at DEATH WITH DIGNITY legislation is weak to say the least, it institutionalizes a personal choice, it makes arbitrary the decision to actuate “treatment”, it fails to attend to legal review, it reduces the safety to the individual that exists now, it seems to preclude the right to offer written authority prior to events of ill health taking place and perhaps worse, it fails to subordinate itself to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Please Note: I am waiting some verification - this a 1st DRAFT

Link to Bill C 14
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=8183660

All legislation exists under the umbrella of Section 7 of the charter and all legal concern contemplates its application from the perspective of “reasonable” state intrusion on section 7 rights. The fundamental under pinning here is CHOICE. To be at liberty, is to be able to choose and when one chooses something absent harm to others, the state has no authority to intervene and where possible the state should facilitate a chosen action. There are moral concerns of a specific nature being forwarded in the resistance to this legislation and the manner in which choice to DEATH WITH DIGNITY has been “watered down” here. This represents gross intrusion on many fundamental rights that support an individual’s autonomy.

CLICK HERE: Letter to Peter MacKay, past Justice Minister

DEATH WITH DIGNITY is in no way a medical decision, the decision to die is a profoundly personal one, once the choice to seek medical aid to die is made, the medical decisions are in the actuation of the act – how, where when. The only impediment to the choice to end one’s life should be the presence or absent of mental competency as determined by standardized legal tests for mental competency and under the presumption of competency.  Rational people choose to live, unless affected by a complex of factors to choose to die; the perception of legitimacy of those factors as a rationale for choosing to die is a profoundly personal one and one that the state has no place to influence.  So the state putting parameters on the reasons for seeking DEATH WITH DIGNITY breaches sections 7 rights. Medical personnel should be acting on the request of a rational person as opposed to their perception of reality. The determination of grievous and irremediable (medical) condition should lie with the person whose choice it is to make and if this was the case, the term of the condition would have no relevance.  

Click here: MY PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE

With this legislation the state  imposes itself once again on the rights of parents to manage their children’s lives in accord with their specific culture and values. There has been an increasing propensity for the state to encroach on parental choice, an offensive trend. Who better to manage the fate of a child than the ones that love them most?

Suicide, as it is widely perceived, as an aggrieved person taking their own life at a moment of lost perspective, is by any measure an unreasonable act and should in no way be associated with a person seeking DEATH WITH DIGNITY measures.

Click here: MY PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE

The only reason that vulnerable people are put a risk with DEATH WITH DIGNITY legislation is if you institutionalize the process. My making a choice to seek solution to use DEATH WITH DIGNITY measures, in no way imposes on another human being; save the emotional effect on love ones. When you place decision making in the hands of the state, then you expose vulnerable people to risk. The only barrier now to medically induced death in practice, is the opinion of two doctors, there is an absence of judicial review – this is a very dangerous circumstance. There should be an expedited court functionality to facilitate rapid judicial review and opportunity of intervenors to offer weight to court deliberations in circumstances where mental competence is in question. In this way, if the event is being exercised against the interests of the person of subject, third parties can seek intervenor status – that is to say “trusties” may be authorizing medically induced death in circumstance where information is incomplete. If you choose to regulate this choice with law, you require LEGAL process to manage it, if you’re going to insist this is an institutional decision then you require LEGAL process to manage it – two people saying it’s okay is insufficient and it is arbitrary. It is better to insist that the “system” is required to respond to clearly stated wishes related to DEATH WITH DIGNITY and leave all legal and moral onus on the individual.  

It is essential that people be given right for prior directives or better, that prior directives are made mandatory and can be confirmed by family or designates. In doing so the state is barred from in anyway influencing the use of medically assisted death. The provisions provided make no mention of designates or family, it is conceivable, or functionally possible, that medically induced death could be implemented entirely by state actors or strangers, by the co-operative action of four or five people with no judicial review. There can never be a circumstance where a state actor or collection of state actors can facilitate the death of a citizen FOR ANY REASON, humane or otherwise, and most certainly never absent judicial review.

Authorization to for DEATH WITH DIGNITY measures should come from the person affected and no government institution should be provisioned the capability to make that decision on someone’s behalf – functionally it could happen under this law. This being an essential part of crafting this legislation, it follows that it be mandatory that people provision documented directives in advance with their verification at the time of actuation OR verification by a designate; certainly absent advanced directives, judicial review becomes critically important.

The passion that I feel in regard to this issue is driven in large measure by my experience with my own mother, she expressed clearly to me on numerous occasions what her wishes were, she had a stroke and was incapable providing consent – this legislation would force me through the same scenario as I went through, having to let her dehydrate; a most inhuman circumstance.

I believe in Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, this government has forgotten that it has historical equity in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and has failed to subordinate itself to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and all our ability to hold domain over mind and body is diminished because of this.

Click here: DEATH WITH DIGNITY - PROCESS

Click here: MY PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE

GENERAL COMMENT ON LAW AND A DISTURBING TREND

"It is the case that in the practice of law, that the minutia tends to take us away from justice, the big picture. In Canada we have a circumstance in play that has the erosion of fundamental law occurring at an alarming rate. If you have a deep belief in common law and its fundamental tenets that are the foundation of our system, then you will share my concern with respect to this disturbing trend, a trend that has expediency trump due process. There are a number of examples of this trend throughout the system, no more glaring however, than the BC Mental Health Act. An act that has drifted away from fundamental law, and that was drafted and is now administered is a manner that flouts common law traditions and the charter. We need to be very wary of the “tribunalisation” of legal process, as it has been applied here a number of ills have emerged; not the least of which is the stagnation of statute absent exposure to court process and alterations due to its administration in the face of precedent effect. We need to ensure that people have the benefit of the “full due process” that courts provide. We need to protect evidentiary process. We need to ensure that the standard of review is commensurate with state sanction. We need clarity in law. We need the absence of arbitrariness. " Bill C14 as written puts far to much power in the hands of medical professions and negates due process - in much the same way the BC Mental Health Act. does. 

Inverine Marine - Offering Summary

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE OFFERING WEBSITE

EARLY FUNDING INCENTIVE 20%, VENTURE CAPITAL TAX CREDIT 30%

CAN QUALIFY FOR SELF-DIRECTED R.R.S.P.

Executive Summary

There is a complete prospectus for interested parties, please contact us at 250-819-6950 

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE OFFERING WEBSITE 

2016 BUDGET FISCAL FAILURE

Winston Churchill said “attempting to spend your way out of debt is like standing in a bucket and attempting to pick yourself up”; the Liberal government is in effect attempting to do this very thing.

"With the exception of the Child Subsidy, this budget was FISCAL FAILURE".  

Counter Cyclical spending, the process of government spending to stimulate the economy in the face of a down business cycle needs to have a very sharp pencil. We need to be sure that the money spent generates a sufficient increase in tax revenue to recoup money spent AND cover the cost of money.  Perhaps the most important point in counter cyclical spending is that it has very little stimulative effect, the Canadian economy is approximately $2 trillion, the Federal Government Budget is about 10% of that give or take. So think about how much 1% ($20 Billion) of the total economy is going to do to simulate the economy just in nominal amounts – nothing. Policy that uses the mass of the economy to drive growth, is policy that works – government spending can be directed at facilitating the economy, it will never grow the economy on its own.

The budget the Liberals just brought down, is the kind of budget that brought us down in the 70s and 80s. Less than 20% of the total budget is going to “investment” in capital projects and many of those are nothing new, nothing that is going to do what capital spending is meant to do, help us satisfy Canada's overall mission – they never got to the $10 Billion they promised in “new infrastructure”. This burgeoning deficit is partly the product of reduced resource revenues, but it is also indicative of a bad attitude toward fiscal management – this is like déjà vu la 1970s, the only difference is then we had an expanding tax base to save us, now we are facing some tough demographic realities that will reduce government revenues and increase the cost of government.  We need to invest in our First Nations, the Liberal government has committed to that, yet they have failed to insist the money invested in First Nations is subjected to generally accept accounting principles, by avoiding mandatory reporting as precondition to funding.  

Capital spending when done in business means purchasing assets or developing assets that generate benefit to the company mission; government can do this as well.  Had this government trimmed government operational spending and upped capital spending, I would be praising them right now. The fact is they have done the opposite and in so doing are robbing the next generation to fund nothing of significance now. 

They – this government – will point to all manner of numbers to say what they are doing is okay, they will pull comparative data from Europe, showing Canada’s debt is better than most western economies – none of this has relevance. What is relevant is, are we doing the very best we can with what our country has to offer – we are falling short. With Canada’s wealth, we should be sporting a sovereign wealth fund big enough to choke a horse, instead we are broke. Had we managed our resource wealth properly, we would be funding counter cyclical spending from capital reserves, instead we are spending our children's future.  We need to get serious about fiscal management, this government’s first attempt falls short, very short – they seem to indicate by their actions that they believe there is no bottom line.

CLICK BELOW - More Thoughts On the Issue

CANADA - ECONOMIC STAGNATION NATION
Thoughts on - Counter Cyclical Spending

Senate - Government Financial Monitor?

Government Resource Revenue Dependence

Government - Ensuring Optimum Size

Senate Spending & Restructuring

Government Scale & Accountability  

Carbon Tax V Cap & Trade

If you’re bent on pricing carbon, think about this.

MY PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE

In designing public policy the first objective should be “do no harm”, the second objective should be enhance human existence. In managing Carbon and the negative externalities that flow from fossil fuel use there is opportunity to; maintain a healthy economy, facilitate the transition to other fuels, develop the safe use of fossil fuels and to seed new or other industry.

We want to create a circumstance where people can readily respond to opportunities that flow from carbon credits. By way of example, an Oilsands company exceeds its carbon cap, posts a number of tons on a trading platform, then a business person elsewhere accesses the dollar value in that tonnage to plant an appropriate number of trees OR, a homeowner converts to solar or super insulates their home and accesses the value in that tonnage to offset the cost. The challenge in many of the conservation measures related to reducing fossil fuel use is that the economics fail to justify action - the time it takes to recoup capital costs associated with conversion to other energy sources results in the accumulated benefit of the “improvement” being unwarranted – when judged from an opportunity cost perspective and or on a partial budget perspective. So any policy that assists in enhancing the economic benefit in conversion is a wise choice. Cap & Trade provides opportunity for these sorts of “GDP neutral exchanges” to take place, that is to say, that Cap & Trade done properly can result in little or no net reduction in economic activity.

The assertion that Cap & Trade unduly burdens the industrial sector is errant, the system can be designed to cap consumer use of fossil fuels as well. There can be carbon caps on personal transportation associated with vehicle classification, certain vehicles would exceed the cap and incur carbon cost, that cost could be offset by some other conservation action by the vehicle owner or another actor OR by directing carbon credits to an electric car user for example.

In the age of the internet, trading platforms are readily accessible to all people and easy to use, so the process of posting excess use of carbon and people accessing the value associated with it is simple to do.    

The problem with Carbon Taxes is that they are implemented with a critical misconception – that, as in British Columbia’s case, a 2% Carbon Tax will deter fossil fuel use. When attempting to deter use of fossil fuel by increasing price, a large percentage - like 20% - will deter use, but only to a point because very soon demand for fossil fuel “hardens” or becomes “inelastic”; there is really a very small amount of discretionary fossil fuel consumption in society as a whole. We know this is true because, there is a hundred years of price sensitivity data that shows it to be true. British Petroleum has done extensive price sensitivity analysis in England, drawing on data from the energy crisis era. In a country that at the time had food costs at nearly 40% of disposable income, gas prices doubled and demand for gas degraded just slightly, but in the main held steady. Carbon Tax is a very weak deterrent to consumption and to be used as a deterrent to consumption would require economy slaying percentages to work.

$30 / tonne may translate to more or less than 2% at the point of consumption - the concept holds true.

If Carbon Tax is being implemented as a means to manage the negative externalities that flow from fossil fuel use, the Carbon Tax is a means to garner funds, in the same way that we tax liquor to manage negative externalities flowing to society from its use, THEN carbon tax may have some merit. If the Carbon Tax is a means to finance transition from a Fossil Fuel regime to another energy regime, then it may have some merit - BUT only if the funds are earmarked and directed to transition AND the tax is NOT revenue neutral. 

The important point here is that Carbon Tax is just another way to get money, linking the funds collected for carbon mitigation activities to the degree of fuel use really has no rational basis as a claim, given that the smaller increments in price have very little affect on consumption. There is no basis to assert for example, that the 2% Carbon Tax in British Columbia has decreased fossil fuel use, any declines in fossil fuel use can be attributed to the long-running trend starting in approximately 1980, where GNP and fossil fuel decoupled, with fossil fuel use relative to GDP falling. This is due to the expansion of non-industrial components in the economy. To support this point I have provided two graphs below, barrels per day oil consumption and the historical price of oil in current dollars - you'll see there is little or no correlation between oil price and oil consumption. 

   

More Thinking on the Subject
CLICK LINKS BELOW

Oilsands Moratorium Wrong Wrong & Wrong
Cop21 REALITY CHECK

Environmentalism Reconsidered - First Thoughts

Environmentalism Reconsidered - Scarcity Doctrine
Environmentalism Reconsidered - Agriculture & Scale
Environmentalism Reconsidered - Narrative & Origin
Environmentalism Reconsidered Lessons From Canadian Cod
Environmentalism Reconsidered - Connecting Carbon to the Economy
Canadian Oil V World Oil
Environmentalism Redefined - Road to Prosperity
Environment Reconsidered - A Positive Strategy

MY PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE

Inverine Marine - DECK

Please press CTRL + to facilitate a larger image 

Please Click Here for: Inverine Marine Website

Inverine Marine - A Call To Action

This offering is atypical due the application of innovative processes, with established elements; so the risk associated with innovations is minimized. The boat designs are innovative and tailored to the environment and people they are intended for. The Business model is innovative in it approach and scale. The confluence of these two ventures was a product of design rather that happenstance. The market is there and ineffectively served, Inverine Marine is designed to aggressively take market share with a cohesive offering in a market characterized by dispersed and varied actors. Most importantly to investors, is that the build-out is designed to ensure that the greatest part of the invested capital is supported by marketable assets in the form of watercraft. I am excited about this business and confident in a positive outcome in it's development. Please call and allow me to brief you completely on a lucrative business ideally suited to contemporary times.

Smart Infrastructure – INVEST PLEASE - AVOID SPENDING

Are you concerned about how infrastructure spending is going to get done - I am. Please read this and let the government know how you feel. 

Please Visit my Professional Website 

There are three elements to smart infrastructure, the infrastructure has to serve to improve commerce so that is PAYS for itself in time, government should seek to partner the costs wherever possible (or avoid them altogether) and it should be financed creatively and to the extent possible domestically.  Infrastructure is agreeable to politicians because it normally results in a ribbon cutting and public gratitude; but it should be remembered that the real infrastructure of society is human capital, build human capital and it propagates itself. Governments are good at counting traffic flow or assessing the value of transporting goods; the entire western accounting complex is very poor at valuing human capital. Infrastructure is more nebulous than ever, perhaps the most nebulous after human capital is infrastructure that facilitates technology – little things floating in the sky that no one sees.

Recent press coverage of the feds meeting with municipal and provincial governments has me quacking in my boots, I was hearing a lot about arenas, recreations centers; Canada, toys are what we buy when the budget is balanced, government is a little like the single parent that invests in hockey gear only to have no milk for the month. It is a question of priority, it is a question of putting pencil to paper and choosing to spend on things that result is a sustained improvement in living standards, invest money in infrastructure and avoid spending on things that just end up costing more when the loan is paid.

Intellectual Infrastructure

The language that emerges in the form of buzzwords often serves to give insight into to the head-space that is feeding human action, when I hear “shovel ready”, it gags me – one realizes this is only a metaphor, but to many when you say “infrastructure” they think railroad. So here are some suggestions for some “intellectual” infrastructure.

Bigger Pipes & Satellites Please

The CRTC sometime ago in effect sanctioned throttling by granting companies the “right” to choose who’s data travels quicker than others over the internet, this was offered as a solution to “burdened” infrastructure – granted it was infrastructure specific to “private” companies, companies it should be noted that enjoy a privileged operating circumstance relative to most other countries. There are two key factors creating a problem, firstly, the regulatory environment in Canada related to telecom is anti-competitive and secondly, the term “information highway” has relevance in communication policy; that is to say, government has a role to play in ensuring there is optimal infrastructure to maximize it’s tax base and to promote regional advantage. We are failing in Canada on this score, mainly due to the regulatory environment we’ve created. A minimal investment in satellite technology and encouragement to the telecom industry to build out capacity would serve to facilitate commerce and human interaction in general, but also take industrial opportunity to all corners of the country.  Satellites could be P3 financed and “private” information transmission infrastructure is able to be addressed through more generous Capital Cost Allowances. 

Please See Link Below:

CRTC - We need reform

Note: there have been some changes at the CRTC, but the fundamental structure remains the same. 

Converting Knowledge to Action

Government has a responsibility to provision fort bias or politcal Education and coming in on Business activity. That is the MATH, and the joy of  the collection and distribution of knowledge and to make the services it provides efficient as possible. Examine the budgets of governments in Canada and you will see that money is going out on Medical Care and Education and coming in on Business activity. That is the MATH, and the joy of math is that it informs without bias or political distortion. One of the greatest impediments to facilitating trimming cost and enhancing services by government in Canada is a gross under estimation of people to read, think and care for themselves that emanates from the collective paternalism of interested service providers. Give people the information they need to make manage their life and they will – the largest element of intellectual infrastructure is knowledge and the largest benefit to government is the self-reliance that comes with having it.

Job one, free web based education programs, this is almost unrepresented now. The government is wed to big buildings, big institutions and big money, when the internet opportunities for free education lay wasting. Trades theory could be web based and free, and supplemented with very little self-financed one on one tutelage. There are a vast number of professions that could be facilitated on line – most learning can be done online – certainly a larger percentage than is now available.

Job two, give people the tools they need to take care of themselves so government services are targeted to high value use. Medical service delivery, even under the “single payer” model we have in Canada could be made much less costly, if the government would only give people the means to care for themselves. There is plenty of space to support this through government provided infrastructure, self-directed medical assessment for example – the vast majority of Canadians can plug a basket of symptoms into a computer and make an assessment of their medical status – self-directed medical assessment could be developed an expanded. Canadians can enter the medications they are taking into a computer and have a the computer scan a database for contraindications and print out complete reports on other risks like food interactions – the computer will do a better job than people. 

Governments in Canada run massive organizations delivering health care to Canadians and they fail to track medical outcomes, in Canada we have no database that explains the 10,000 or more deaths from preventable medical accidents each year; this is analogous to a farmer failing to measure yields – people surviving a hospital stay is the key metric in health care – we should be tracking it so people can decide how best to manage the risk.

ess costtly livery, even under the "igernment is wed to big building, big instituti

See Link Below: 

Submission to the Government of British Columbia - Health Care Reform

Converting Knowledge to Action

The vast majority of the world’s knowledge lays in a latent state along with untold wealth now, in large measure because as a society we are absent the absorptive capacity to put it to work.  There are two components to converting existing knowledge to actionable goods or services, firstly there is knowledge required and secondly there is capital required.  There are several ways government can contribute to a infrastructure for a “capital deployment”; it can provide the platform for favorable capital distribution from the mass of wealth that is also latent in the form of conservatively invested “boomer” wealth, by engaging in a form of quantitative easing that would subsidize capital.

Please see links below:

Stagnation Nation - Stimulative Policy - Less Government Money

Why Government Needs to be Rationed

Counter Cyclical Spend - Where the smart money goes

Converting the bank of latent knowledge that is present in the world today to action requires a process called innovation – we hear the word – we see it as the creative use of knowledge to generate something new and or improved to sell to a market. Innovation is also, as often as not, an exercise in heuristics; patient capital is required here.  

Please see Link:

Education System Reform

 Please Visit my Professional Website 

Funding

Money used to pay for infrastructure can justifiably come from the liquidation of raw resource assets – sell one asset, create another; we have failed in the past in converting raw resource assets into actuating human capital – we have frittered it away paying to operate government institutions, which cost more than the tax base can pay for. We have hitherto spent much of our resource wealth rather than invest it.

Please see links below:

Resource Revenue Addiction - Selling assets to fund operations bad business

Comment sent to the New York times regarding infrastructure spending

The municipal governments need to be able to issue bonds for infrastructure improvements, this is a place where the cities can garner funding from their respective citizens and the federal government can augment returns to bond holders. In doing so, a healthy outcome emerges, in that cities initiate the spending at their discretion, the local citizens choose to support it and the federal government engages in a populous driven quantitative easing program.

Human capital is the most important asset of any society; the second most important is the financial wherewithal to actuate human capital. Infrastructure spending is INVESTING in a manner that facilitates the human endeavor. The government needs to play the role of the facilitator of facilitation; that starts with providing access to relevant information and then promoting access to capital.

Please Visit my Professional Website