Business – Agriculture is a land play

There is a propensity in the world of high tech and escalating knowledge sector to overlook some of Canada’s mainstay industries; I am eager to draw your attention to agriculture. By way of example, the Cattle industry while experiencing a positive place in the cycle now, has traditionally been a “marginal” business. The cattle is trade heavily commoditized & well supplied, and as such, the prices garnered for cattle at sales hover around the industry wide average cost of production; so the reality is that cattle essentially take care of themselves financially – the people and assets to care for them but not the land base.

The Land associated with Cattle ranching then needs to stand on its own as a holding, and it does – over the course of the past decade it has exceeded inflation by good margins pretty consistently. The demand for agricultural land and the land’s resulting value is in no way related to the ability of the land to produce income through agriculture; if it were, agricultural land for ranching would be worth nothing, given the industries track record. The value for agricultural land comes from the western cultural imperative to own land and / or the speculative value of the land as a real-estate development and / or as a pure holding.

So why have cattle, well because, all the land will do is raise cattle in most cases and cattle provide a means by which to “maintain” ownership, in that, the process of ranching sees to the land asset’s care and wellbeing. So, while cattle-ranching is a more or less breakeven endeavor, with a grand spiritual surplus, it has value. The good news comes in the other opportunities that land base provides for companion enterprise, the cattle and land provide an essentially “free” place for other related businesses to function. Never underestimate the stability and opportunity that comes with accessing one of Canada’s mainstay industries, agriculture was here to get Canada started and it will be with us for a long long time.

Please see link below for past agro enterprise concepts and proposals

https://sites.google.com/site/midfraseragro/

Law, Legislation and Civil Liberty – Freedom of Association – Boundaries on Association

Law, Legislation and Civil Liberty – Freedom of Association – Boundaries on Association

The enlightenment finds its roots in the desire for freedom, it is nearly trite to say “freedom” now, people have heard it too many times; many are so convinced they have it in Canada, and the west in general, they are apathetic about preserving what they do have. As a person of Scottish lineage, I have a genetic predisposition for “having my own way”, “having your own way” is a good thing and is the basis for liberty. So when I encounter societal circumstances that seemingly ignore the foundations of liberty and the laws that support liberty, I become very concerned.

Freedom of association permits choice in association – it is a simple concept really – there is a group, they gather or associate for reason X, they have tenets XYandZ and rules 1 through 10 – the “group” communicates the above and the free person decides if they want to be a part of that group or not. The individual has the RIGHT to set boundaries on their association with others, that is to say, if a group has a practice breaking their member's leg as an initiation, the individual can say I want to avoid having my leg broken – then the “group” has to respect that and the “group” can then to refuse “membership” should they choose to.

In Canada we have rebuked all forms of conscription, we had a little at the close of WW2 – after that, we have never had conscription – in fact, the Canadian government has been sympathetic to Draft Dodgers from the United States. So for the past half-century, we, in Canada have held as a value the rebuke of conscription into the military or any other government institution. If this is true of Government, it most certainly extends to commerce or extra-legal organizations. It is a perverse circumstance that in Canada with a legally expressed rebuke of conscription, Canadian institutions can be turned on the citizenry to displace, conscript or otherwise curtail the liberty of a citizen.

We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that is the preeminent document for the direction of human interface in Canada, when “groups” conduct themselves in discord with this document we are adrift, we are then governed by massed marauders operating exterior to the government as opposed to government – there is a very real danger in that – as Teddy Roosevelt said, “behind every ostensible government, there is a government of men with no allegiance to the people”. I have no idea who Teddy may have been referring to, but this quote seems to indicate he was privy to the existence of “groups” in society. This is in no way a nihilistic statement toward civil society, on the contrary, I am eager to enlarge civil society – I am suggesting that civil society needs to be careful – be civil so as to avoid sowing the seeds of their own destruction; strong assaults on individuals will drive individuals to governments. Civil Society has a choice, subordinate itself to government and effect change through legislation, or risk turning our daily lives into a power-play where skullduggery and ruthlessness determine who gets what.          

When the government extends power to an individual to execute a mandate, and that individual uses that power to effect actions exterior to that mandate (perhaps for example direct a person to adhere to a group's wishes), that is an abuse of power. When this occurs regularly enough it “corrupts” the government, that is to say, that there is a lack of fidelity between legislation and the actions of the governing. Intent – good or evil – if it moves one to the misdirection of state power, is corrupting – as I like to say to my friends, “what they can do for you, they can do to you”.  

Association has as a base element a consenting participant, the only means by which to determine the presence or absence of consent is through dialogue – in the absence of discourse there can be no consent granted nor interpreted. Consent requires explicit dialogue peculiar to the subject matter at hand; parables, metaphors and the like are ineffective in garnering consent – they are simply too easily misunderstood or they are administered by the simple and/or simplistically interpreted.

A human being is a composite of temperament and culture; it is a rare thing that cultural nuances get recognized even within the same social group, cultural variations are finely tuned and emanate from as fine a  point as a family in as broad a context as a society. If as a group your interest is to draw on all that cultural variation has to offer, you must have a degree of acceptance inherent in your organizational modalities, if homogeneity is your goal, then a thousand flowers will never bloom – you will collide with the reality of all attempts at suppressing the individual and a gray mediocrity will ensue.

This is Canada, we committed some ideas to paper, and they will remain mere words on a page unless we choose to conduct ourselves in accord with them. It is a concern that I witness daily, the blatant disregard for the laws and values set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

Climate Change - New York Times - Comment

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/science/earth/threat-to-bottom-line-spurs-action-on-climate.html?comments#permid=11013209

The entire climate change movement is focused on “obstructing” the use of fossil fuels, there is no other viable option at the moment. The Stone Age never ended because we ran out of stones, it ended because we found a better way. If indeed, global warming has as its primary cause the burning of fossil fuels, and, as is fact, there is no economically viable replacement for fossil fuels – the solution lies in developing a viable energy source. I submit, if all the people mentioned in this article and all the other brain power and influence that has gone to “obstruct” fossil fuel use directed their actions in a positive way, that is to say DEVELOP A SOLUTION, we would have a solution very quickly. It is important to note as well, there has been global warming on earth in pre-industrial times, one would be a fool to believe there is not anthropogenic effect on climate change, one does need to ponder degree however, we may freeze in the dark and the earth may carry on without us – a strong thought process to support adaption and or a two pronged approach.

Law, Legislation and Civil Liberty – Prostitution – Opportunity for a new perspective

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to end the way we manage prostitution by ruling a charter breach provides an opportunity for Canadian leadership to take a new approach to the immediate challenge of prostitution and the more general challenge of managing the balance of law and morality. The issue of prostitution is the perfect lens by which to view moral issues as they relate to legislation and liberty. In part, one must assume, that the Supreme Court of Canada’s (SCC) recent actions are due to the realization that criminalizing personal choice is generating a circumstance where the exploited are more readily exploitable and the marginalized are more marginalized.

In the contemplation of crafting legislation, one needs to clear the mind of old bias' and endeavour to ask – what are the outcomes we want in this instance? As Stephen Covey counsels us, begin with the end in mind. The next question is, do the outcomes we are seeking have a chance of landing on the map of reality and is there a path from here to there? Prostitution, the world’s oldest profession, is here to stay – that much we all can be certain of – eradication is no option, so managing its presence is required.

The challenge with discussing subjects like prostitution, as with all questions of morality, is that people react to them, kind of a “yuk factor” takes hold. If you've read the story of Joshua in the Old Testament, a key component of Joshua’s success was the cooperation of a prostitute in housing and protecting his scouts. The scouts having been protected and housed by the prostitute instructed her to hang a scarlet scarf on the front of her house, the army was informed. When Joshua’s army took Jericho the entire population, some 15,000 people, were “put to the sword”, the only ones spared were the prostitute and her family. It is hard to imagine what brought this woman to the “business” of prostitution or how she managed the profession in those times – the important thing to remember here is that, though likely marginalized she - “immoral and all” - saved the lives of all her love one’s, an act worthy of respect. I offer this as a means by which to elevate the reader’s view of people in this line of work.

In contemplating prostitution one needs to remember that the “exploited” should never be punished, very few little girls when questioned say they want to grow up to be street workers that sleep with men in risky circumstances – most people find their way to prostitution, due in large measure, to need for money – the fact they got to that point is a failure of society as a whole in conjunction with the individual – a circumstance that warrants mitigation as opposed to punishment. Criminalizing prostitution pushes the activities of the vulnerable (mostly women) further out of sight of authorities and more into the influence of the exploiters. 

   

There are women, well-informed, well-educated, that choose to enter into the “sex trade” for their own reasons – there are men who choose to use these women’s services for their own reasons. If their actions are carried out in private, with private arrangements and in a way that has no effect on anyone else, on what basis can the state intervene. You can disagree with their chosen interface on a moral basis, but how can you justify state intervention. Moral matters, matters of faith and religion, are matters to be dealt with in civil society. You have the right to advertise your view, to speak your view – the state has no basis to intervene save to manage externalities that arise from such arrangements. People who hold the moral view that this sort of interface is unholy have the right to life absent influence from it, which is an imperative. So it is right and proper for the state to say scantily clad women are disallowed from soliciting the public to engage in sexual actions in exchange for money – clearly, there are a number of undesirable effects that can flow from this practice. As Mr. Trudeau said, the government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation; it is fundamental to a free society that people can educate themselves and make choices, different choices; however, the various sectors of society must conduct themselves in a manner that permits the other sectors to function “unaffected”.  

The dialogue in the press around prostitution is clouding the issue with ancillary issues like; human trafficking (which is often related to sex), abuse to women (it is often the case women in the sex trade are abused, it is not necessarily the case), exploitation of women (it is often the case women in the sex trade are being exploited – they are nearly always exploited because of the lack of proper resources – how else can you be exploited), the extortion by males of sexual services (there are laws against violence and intimation to be used here). The involvement of the state in the past in the suppression of “voluntary” prostitution is purely a matter of the state imposing a moral position and this imposition has served to frustrate a constructive approach to the issue – it has been the imposition of a moral with grossly immoral outcomes.

In the legislation of morality, in the case of prostitution, the state has forced women into a circumstance where when they are threatened or abused they have no redress via official channels. The solution offered is to make being a “John” punishable or criminal. It is appropriated to punish violence, extortion, exploitation – it is a gross misdirection of state power to criminalize a contractual arrangement between two free, voluntary and informed people – it is inconsistent to permit people to engage each other absent pecuniary elements and to criminalize relations with pecuniary elements. The criminalization of the “Johns” is offered as a solution only because it is seen as an expeditious means by which to manage the negative externalities flowing from the sex trade as it has been practiced in the past under poor legislation. The criminalizing of Johns has no grounding in law, reason or humanitarian concern.  

So where does the solution lie, given 2000 years, or more, of persecuting women and having no effect on curtailing the practice of prostitution – perhaps – in light of our advancements in technology and health, we should consider another tack. We have developed, or allowed to evolve, a moral complex intended to improve human life – this moral complex as it has found expression in legislation related to prostitution has effected harm. The solution lies in removing government from the personal lives of people and concerning government with the public square. If we permit the sex trade to operate within the law and isolate it from those who are offended by it, we will have generated a circumstance the permits women to seek help when they need it from people in the governance complex – from there if people want to leave the trade there is official help, if they choose to stay it is of their own free will and they will have channels to health advice and the full protection of the law.

All people deserve to be educated and permitted to make choices, the government is there to facilitate effective human interaction, the government is not, and never should be, the enforcement arm for theological concern. I find accord with much of the moral complex that flows from the Christian teaching, Jesus never marginalized or punished or judged harshly and nor should we. The moral complex that has evolved around human sexual relations found its origins at a time when health issues related to human sexuality and contraception where without understanding; we have progressed to the point where these things can be managed to a greater degree, our attitude and management of matters related to sexuality need to advance as well.   

Mutilated Economy - New York Times - Paul Krugman

"The public spending most of us object to is the flagrant waste and inefficiency that is inherent in public spending, the accountability loop is far to defuse in government – this is just the reality of a big organization. Show us clear accountability – clearly stated objectives, metrics and indicators, and objective reporting – then reach in our pockets." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/opinion/krugman-the-mutilated-economy.html?src=recg

Curious that the organization singing the litany is the one that has most rewarded the biggest culprits in the great recession trainwreck, with quantitative easing policy the gives money to banks to provision liquidity to corporations with fat balance sheets. Aggregate demand is built on the backs of people buying things with earned (and or free) money, as opposed to more credit to an already over levered economy. Your comments on infrastructure are most welcome, the one thing government can manage marginally competently is big, long lasting, stable infrastructure. The reason why human capital is under considered, is because no one has ever come up with a way to value it, the supply demand analysis has left many of us “supply siders” blind-sided, we need a value calculation on latent human potential and the resulting lost revenue calculations – then you would likely find some friends on my side of the economic debate; perhaps this document will help. There can be little argument however, that the nearly pan western world 1980 economic restraint and an the effort for responsible spending set up the 25 years of joy prior to the great recession, we can only inflate away so much debt – in long run we may all be dead, but someone will still have to pay. Infrastructure is investing, as opposed to spending and money is cheap - so sure lets build as much as we can as fast as we can, lets also invest in human capital there are great returns there. The public spending most of us object to is the flagrant waste and inefficiency that is inherent in public spending, the accountability loop is far to defuse in government – this is just the reality of a big organization. Show us clear accountability – clearly stated objectives, metrics and indicators, and objective reporting – then reach in our pockets. 

  

Discourse on the great recession

http://nthomson2.blogspot.ca/2013/09/discourse-on-great-recession.html     

Law, Legislation and Civil Liberty – BC Mental Health Act. (BCMHA) – Charter Breaches and Infringements

One can muse about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, whether it is complete, whether it is that meaningful from a federal perspective given the “notwithstanding clause” and of course the complete absence of property rights – but it is here now and it has gained legal mass given all the precedent set in “Charter Challenges”.  The important thing about the Charter is that it says the words “Rights and Freedoms” and holds as equity 300 years of toil for freedom by the founders of the enlightenment. A collection of people who fully understood the tyranny of the institution and how it can wrought the human sole in a  most grievous way at times, they knew that in a human organization – the institution - is levered the human inclination to put a boot on others' necks. We have what amounts of a fledgeling document in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that stands between us and the abuse of state power, a document that in many ways gives expression to the finest intent of humanity – the desire to give freedom to others; we ought to be nurturing it as opposed to permitting it to be chipped away at – as I have witnessed in this case study.

Section 7 of the Charter says we are entitled to Life, Liberty and Security of Person – embedded in that entitlement, and supported by a breath of legal precedent, is the right to choose. The BCMHA imposes on the right to choose and does so in breach of a longstanding tenet in medical law, which amounts to the “assumption of competence”, like liberty - as it is an extension of liberty, for the state to arrest one’s ability to refuse treatment it must prove the individual is incapable of judging for themselves. In British Columbia there is no attention paid to this tenet as there is in other jurisdictions such as Ontario, in British Columbia, the opinion of the individual who is merely accused of mental infirmity has no weight – a doctor’s opinion and only a doctor’s opinion can incarcerate someone. There is no requirement, as the act is now administered to “prove” incompetence. Section 7 says we exist in a state of liberty and for the government to interrupt that state of liberty it must “prove” it has just cause, as the BCMHA is now administered there is no requirement to prove illness exists, with opinion and only opinion and no objective data you can be incarcerated. The BCMHA’s involuntary treatment provisions are most often actuated to force the consumption of medication, medications that are ofttimes pathogenic, very potent, and with very little scientific data to support their use; this is executed absent judicial review or any of the trappings of “real judicial process”.

Excerpt 1 from Case Study of Starson v. Swayze.  “The Court noted that under the Health Care Consent Act there was a presumption that people were capable of making treatment decisions and that the onus rested with those who challenge the presumption to establish incompetence. Further, the Court examined the two-part test under the Act for determining whether a person was capable of making treatment decisions: first, the person has to “understand the information that is relevant to making a decision about treatment;” and, second, the person has to be “able to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision or lack of decision.”

The subject of this case study passed this test, his capacity was substantiated by the very medical personnel the detained him for 12 years. In seven Review Panels and a B.C. Supreme Court proceeding, this issue was never raised on the individual's behalf nor was the principle applied – in other jurisdictions this test is applied.  In Ontario it is considered and generates an odd circumstance where people refuse treatment and then are held due to being a risk to self or others, it is in effect a legal catch 22; the fact this happens indicates how important the Judiciary in Ontario views the “presumption of competence” and the extent they are willing to go to protect it. The very crux of liberty, its point of emergence, is the individual’s right to hold domain over mind and body, there is no greater incursion the state can make on an individual than to take domain over mind and body away – when it is done wrongly, absent due process, in the public eye there is no more dis-empowering or humiliating experience. This case study has shaken my faith in our system of justice, the judiciary has abandoned people accused of mental infirmity and by extension has abandoned us all.

The intrusion by state on Section 7 must be contemplated by juxtaposing – how important is it to arrest this individual’s state of liberty against, the wellbeing of the citizenry at large – that is the basis in thought for the “Fair Balance Test” – the fair balance test in no way extends to the state the power to protect us from ourselves – when the state starts down that road our choice is eroded – as the BCMHA is now administered the state passes judgment of financial decisions, social interaction, physical health – these are matters clearly inside the domain of the individual and should never be subjected to state intervention.

Section 9 of the Charter says that a “reasonable mind(s)” and due process will determine whether or not someone falls under state sanction and that no one can just say “lock this person up”. The BCMHA as it is now administered does that very thing, on the perception of illness only – if a layperson judges your actions to be a product of mental infirmity – you can be incarcerated in a hospital – it is important to note; no illegality needs take place, no act of violence, no suicide attempt, you only need to be acting oddly. To be retained in “custody” a medical doctor has to “be of the opinion” your actions are a product of infirmity and then within 24 hours the “opinion” needs to be supported by another “medical opinion” and then you’re “in the system”.

As an aside, due to the fact that there is no requirement for evidence that is objective in nature, at the point of accusation, one is placed in a de facto state of reverse onus - as the state has acted on subjective opinion only. This disadvantages the accused, in that, they are required to respond with "objective" evidence to secure release.

The act then subjects people to the “arbitrary” actions of fellow citizens, the act then subjects people to the judgment of a single individual, the act the requires another individual to support the first individual – no real due process takes place prior to incarceration – that is arbitrary. Worse, however, is the fact that there is a high degree of propinquity between professionals, not mention professional courtesy – the second opinion is in effect a rubber stamp. The subject of this case study never interfaced with the GP that initiated the act’s use regarding mental health issues, he made claims which the second doctor interpreted as illness and which both doctors failed to refute via judicial process – that is to prove with evidence – then the third doctor, a requested the second opinion, did no independent investigation – he merely reviewed the second doctor’s records. The challenge here is, we have medical personnel taking a paternalistic stance, with a high degree of continuity of thought administering the law, the judiciary understands the boundaries of state power in the context of society as a whole, the BCMHA is administered completely in hospitals. When someone decides to dispute opinions they are offered retrograde process in a meeting room; people rights are being taken away, they deserve a courtroom, a judge, and real process. There should never be a circumstance when we “expedite” the incarceration of a citizen as the BCMHA does, as in the expediting there is inherent arbitrariness.

The subject of this case study had less than two hours interface with medical personnel before that act was misapplied, had never committed a single act of violence or threatened harm to self or others – he merely asserted the presence of synchronistic actions on the part of a group or groups and for that, absent any evidence to refute the claim, he was incarcerated and detained for 12 years, forced to consume medication, had his privacy invaded and a multitude of other humiliating experiences. An obscene abuse of state power, a travesty of justice, a heartbreaking saga for him, stigmatization for no reason - this was a state-sanctioned act of malfeasance. As his case progressed, after 12 years of his fighting the system, after Royal Inland Hospital spent thousands of dollars on a lawyer to fight him and he with only his own person and no resources – they released him with no apparent constraints on his person.

There is no doubt that this acts initiation and ongoing administration was arbitrary in this case – it can be proven – proper process has been denied.

Please Click Here for Discourse on the Review Panel Process

       

Law, Legislation and Liberty – BC Mental Health Act. (BCMHA) – Vague

In order for a law to be administered fairly and absent arbitrariness, clarity is required. The BCMHA is very difficult to administer because the nature of related medical practices leaves a wide scope for interpretation of illness and degree of illness, physiological assessment is inherently subjective and easily subverted by personal biases, social convention, and cultural variances. In administering patients under the act, the medical professional is extended a broad degree of discretion, while they have a requirement to assess the “plausibility” of claims, for example, there are no guidelines on how plausibility is interpreted or applied – they simply decide what to believe or not to believe absent any requirement for proving or disproving and they are most often informed by hearsay alone. Further; “severity” is ill-defined, the perception of illness is all that is required to actuate the act. In the administration of the BCMHA, there are no clear benchmarks for practitioners and judiciaries with respect to “severity”. People can have their rights breached absent being a threat or for failing to watch their finances or a single person exposed to the act can be treated differently depending on who treats them. In this case, vagueness effects arbitrariness. 

In the absence of clarity around “severity” medical personnel have the capacity to act preemptively-  we think the patient will do something wrong, we will incarcerate them. To medical professionals this makes perfect sense, mental illness responds to early treatment, this is one of the base arguments for an act like the BCMHA. The challenge is that it is a base tenet of our legal system, that in order to have your state of liberty interrupted something wrong must have occurred – this is fundamental – the absence of clarity around severity moves us away from fundamentals. There are very few instances if any in practical terms, where there is an opportunity for preemptive action by the state. The existence of preemptive capacity may subject the act to subversion – it may be tempting for example – to have a man declared ill on the basis of “unreasonable jealously” and incarcerated on the perception he might do something violent in a crumbling relationship. This kind of legislation is a very slippery slope and it puts us all at risk, at any time, of having the perceptions of other’s determine whether our state of liberty is upheld or not. In law in general, to incarcerate people on the anticipation they might do something is a complete breach of our legal traditions. 

There is leeway given in the administration BCMHA with respect to the preconditions of incarceration, due to the assertion, that when administering the act professional’s actions are absent a punitive element. Anytime the state uses its power to change behaviour, or to detain for the protection of the public it is punitive; the fact that force is permitted and used indicates the people affected view the use of the BCMHA as punitive. 

The act now grants complete discretion to medical personnel as to whether to use the act or not, the use of the act hinges on the perception of illness, as opposed to physical occurrences, objective data, proof of a pathogenic abnormality, or threatening actions by an individual. The BC Civil Liberties group and others see the flaw in this and want there to be a strengthening of the language around severity to include terms like “imminent harm” “a clear threat to self or others”.

As a result of the BCMHA being ill-defined, the requirements of the state to strike the right balance between public safety and administering the law can never be ascertained, because professionals discretion and the perception of illness are the only determining factors in the in actuating the act. The “fair balance test” as determined by Cunningham V Canada requires that for certain sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be deemed appropriate, circumvented, or the degree they are circumvented, that there needs to be a clear requirement for public safety; the BCMHA has no mechanism, as it is presently administered and written, to determine whether or not the “fair balance test” is satisfied.  To find accord with the precedent it is required that the BCMHA effects a reduction in liberty that is commensurate with the need to protect society, there is no means determine accord with precedent given the vagueness of the act.

The inclusion of language that defines the parameters for professional action would reduce the risk of abuse of the act, reduce the present arbitrariness of the act and return us to be closer to fundamental law. Clearer definition and judicial review prior to incarceration or being committed would permit the treatment of people affected by mental illness and protect the rest of the population while maintaining accord with fundamental rights.   

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR COMMENT ON CHARTER INFRINGEMENTS AND BREACHES