Kinch Blog

Mayor Dave Bronconnier announced he will not be running for Calgary’s top job for a fourth term.

At his state of the city address on Tuesday, Bronconnier said he wants to give all challengers enough time to mount a proper campaign for the October municipal election.

Bronconnier’s speech was scheduled to look back at the past year at city hall, but he surprised reporters with the announcement that this will be his final term as mayor.

Read more at CBC.ca

Let the speculation begin. I would love to see either Joe Ceci or Brian Pincott run for the position, but I’m not holding my breath. The moderate/left need to organized, let the right split the vote with all the opportunists.

CBC staffers have handed out thousands of small Canadian flags to passersby outside their Vancouver studio – a friendly gesture, the public broadcaster said, to the patriotic crowds milling in the Olympic city.

But Vancouver Olympic organizers weren’t amused and asked the CBC to cease with the flags. The breach? The small flags had CBC’s distinctive corporate logo on the back.

The CBC building in Vancouver is near Canada Hockey Place where men’s and women’s Olympic hockey games are under way. Many of the crowds walking by are headed to the hockey arena, where it’s strictly verboten to brandish a corporate logo. The VANOC thinking was to halt those CBC logos from getting inside Canada Hockey Place.

The Vancouver organizing committee called the CBC Monday and the free flags were halted. However, the CBC said it didn’t believe it did anything wrong. CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said the flags were meant as a “friendly gesture to the city of Vancouver” and were popular among the crowds.

“But we know that VANOC is very vigilant about anything related to the Olympics. And you know what? We’re good citizens and if they’ve got an issue with it, fine with us, we’ll stop distributing the flags,” he said.

“We don’t believe we were in breach of any rules. We’re not trying to start a fight either. So, if VANOC’s got an issue, we’ll stop distributing the flags.”

Read More at CTV.ca

This makes me upset for two reasons. First, that VANOC would ask CBC to cease handing out Canadian flags on private property. Secondly, that CBC caved so easily under pressure.

As far as the CBC logo being on a Canadian flag, I haven’t seen the flag, so I really can’t make a judgement on that.

Following allegations from a Tory staffer  that there is enormous pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office to sanitize access to information requests, the New Democratic Party of Canada has asked the Information Commissioner and the Director of Public Prosecutions to look into possible violations of the Access to Information Act by the Prime Minister’s Office and ministerial staff.

The staffer told the Hill Times that, “The PMO does get mad at ministers’ offices when there’s an ATIP that goes out that has more information than they believe it ought to have had.. They’ll yell at ministers’ offices.”

New Democrat Ethics, Access to Information and Privacy Critic, Bill Siksay, wrote the following letter to Brian Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions:

Mr. Brian Saunders
Director of Public Prosecutions
Public Prosecution Service of Canada
284 Wellington Street – 2nd Floor
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0H8

February 22, 2010

Dear Mr. Saunders,

I would like to direct your attention to an article that appeared in today’s Hill Times, entitled “Cabinet ministers’ offices regularly interfere in ATI requests, says Tory staffer.”

In the article, Jeff Davis reports that “Cabinet ministers’ offices had been under orders [from the Prime Minister’s Office] to pressure bureaucrats to pare down the amount of information released under the Access to Information Act.”

A government staff person Davis interviewed said that the recent incident concerning Ministerial Assistant Sébastien Togneri, at Public Works and Government Services, is in fact endemic. “Sebastian…has not, from my experience, done anything that is significantly different than what ministers’ offices are expected to do by the PMO.”

I believe that these actions constitute a contravention of section 67of the Access to Information Act, including but not limited to concealing records and directing, proposing, counselling or causing concealment of records.

I would ask that you investigate these allegations and report publicly as you are obliged to under Part 3 section 3.(3)(e) of the Federal Accountability Act.

Yours Sincerely,

Bill Siksay, MP

Anyone who knows me, knows that calling me a “huge Barenaked Ladies fan” is quite the understatement. I’ve seen them so many times in concert, I’m afraid to count.

With Steven Page splitting from the band last year, I am excited, yet nervous, to listen to the band’s new record, “All In Good Time”, when it is released next month. If their single, “You Run Away”, is a good representation of the rest of the album, I know I will be delighted!

They are coming to Calgary on April 8th, and are touring the entire country. I’ll be there in Calgary, front row, as usual! You should be too!

The video for “You Run Away” was released today, and I’ve included it in this post. Enjoy!

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a… duck!

This simple test, when applied to the Canadian housing market, shows that there is a very high probability that Canada is facing a housing bubble, something that our Finance Minister and the Bank of Canada are reluctant to admit.

Andrew Jackson at the Progressive Economics Forum points out some key ratios that make it possible to spot a housing bubble: the rate at which housing prices are rising relative to all prices (looks like a duck), the ratio of house prices to incomes (swims like a duck), and the ratio of house prices to rents (quacks like a duck).

All three ratios show that housing in Canada is becoming over valued. Housing prices are up 92% from 1999-2008, way above the average consumer price inflation rate.  As I posted earlier this week, the Vanier Institute for the Family released a report showing that the ratio of house prices to incomes has risen considerably in the last decade. Right now the ratio stands at 5.0 times family income, compared to the two-decade average of 3.7 times family income. And renters of two-bedroom apartments in  metropolitan areas saw their rents increase 28% between 1999-2008, more in line with inflation than housing prices.

When inflation and interest rates rates start to rise, and they will, those with variable mortgage rates and those renewing their fixed rates will see increases in their mortgage payments. How they react, will determine if this bubble pops or not. Many will not be able to afford the increases and will be forced to sell, driving housing prices down.

Right now would be an excellent time to start investing in affordable housing again, Canada will need it more than ever.

Canada’s privacy commissioner has chastised Google for not consulting with her before launching its Buzz social-networking service.

“We have seen a storm of protest and outrage over alleged privacy violations and my office also has questions about how Google Buzz has met the requirements of privacy law in Canada,” Jennifer Stoddart said in a statement Wednesday.

“My office has a variety of resources available to help companies build privacy into their products and services. When companies consult with us at the development stage, they can avoid the problems we’ve seen in recent days.”

Google Buzz, launched last week, integrates Twitter and Facebook-like communications and media-sharing functions into users’ Gmail accounts. When users turned the service on last week, many of their most emailed contacts were automatically added as public followers, which prompted privacy concerns. Critics said the service inadvertently exposed contacts and communications to anyone following the user on Buzz.

Read More at CBC.ca

The Vanier Institute of the Family released its 11^th annual assessment on The Current State of Canadian Family Finances. The report provides details on how the recession has affected Canadian households.

The report raises the alarm on a housing market bubble. This goes contrary to federal finance Minister Jim Flaherty assertion today that there is no evidence of a housing bubble; however the statistics provided by the Vanier Institute are hard to ignore.

According to the report, “over the past 20 years, house prices have averaged 3.7 times household earnings. Now it is 5 times earnings, with real estate now providing 48% of the net worth of Canadian households, the highest it has been in 20 years.”  With real estate being such a significant percentage of net worth, “a significant housing correct would clearly damage the balance sheet of many households.” The author of the report says that conditions are in place for a correction in house prices.

A situation involving housing prices dropping to 3.7 times (the two decade average) the average household income after income taxes are demonstrated in the report.

The house price would be about $250,000 or back down to 2005 levels. This $250,000 price is 26% below the October-November price of $340,000. A quick return to the “traditional” house-price to income ratio would be very difficult for people who recently purchased at high prices.

Others have also raised the alarm bells regarding a housing bubble in Canada. David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff has suggested that “housing values are anywhere between 15 per cent and 35 percent above levels we would label as being consistent with the fundamentals.”

Other findings in the Vanier Institute report include:

• Research in which 59% of respondents said that they would be in trouble if their paycheque was delayed by a week.
• 50% increase in mortgages running 90 days or more in arrears in 2009 compared to a year before.
• The number of credit card holders who were behind at least three months in their payments was up 40% during the same period.
• In 2009 the average household debt climbed to $96,100, creating a debt to income ratio of 145%, the highest it has ever been.
• Almost half the job losses during 2009 were lost by young people 15 to 25. Youth now entering the labour force face a big challenge as only 7% of companies say they now face a labour shortage compared to 36% a year ago; its the lowest number since 1997.

My blog recently was attacked maliciously, and because I am extremely busy with University and do not have time to fix it, I’ve just refreshed the entire blog. (Un)fortunately nothing is ever lost on the internet though, thank you Google!

Maybe this fresh start will inspire me to write more… maybe.

Enjoy the Olympics!