Canada Election 2015

[mistercorporate]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

He's not some dude. Prior to working in this office he was actually facilitating refugee claims on the front lines of the Middle East. He's a well educated, born Canadian of Palestinian descent who has more first hand knowledge than you or I or probably anyone else on this forum arguing about this stuff. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle but found it very enlightening to hear his perspective on things.

Yes the CIA has done some good as well, but would it honestly surprise you if 40 years down the road documents revealed they had a hand in poking the hornets nest that is ISIS and helping it along. The mere fact that Russia and China are also at play in this area propping up Assad should be an indicator in itself.

A Palestinian-background guy talking about US-conspiracies? How naive can you be? The Muslim Arabs are the innocent good guys and the Evil Satan from the West is responsible for all those horrible beheadings, genocide and 🞵🞵🞵-slavery of unbelievers right?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

The stupidification of society continues, abetted by social media and fuelled by prejudice.

I'm not sure I agree with you on that one.

Society is sending us the message that it's acceptable to vote while masked, so I can see why some people would just want to "test the system" to confirm that's indeed true...

If it becomes widely accepted that anyone can just choose to vote while masked because they can, doing so without a deep personal reason will just naturally lose of its appeal.

If I had the right to show up with any kind of hat for my driver's license pic, I would show up hat-less, guaranteed. Why would I want to / bother to be wearing a pasta strainer or cowboy hat in that case? No need to, I could if I wanted.

The point is to test and check that there are no double standards, and if no reaction is triggered, then general acceptance of whatever is getting trolled will ensue, be it voting masked or pasta strainers for the DMV photoshoot, and you just won't see any trolls anymore.

I'm fine with being masked if everyone can be; I'm fine with hats on official pics if anyone can have one; etc. It's mostly the double standard that I find annoying. Laws should always trump religion, and if a given law doesn't apply equally, then we should remove it since it's not really relevant (which is proven by the fact that we can tolerate not applying it).

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by lio45

My hat's off to you for not deleting his posts and suspending him

I would say niwell and you are obviously making a good case for a permanent in-house legal staff (I think we could all agree a permanent basis is required; the general job of lawmaking kinda demands it) but given the ebb and flow nature of the work load over time I think I'd rather be under-staffed than over-staffed since it seems that one of the two cases has to be inevitably picked.

Under-staffed, you can at least temporarily outsource work during busier times; over-staffed, you're paying people for nothing during the more idle times.

So, I'd say I can also see geotag's point here.

I'm not sure how effective their arguments really are. From what I can tell their argument is essentially "we need lawyers everywhere, duh!".

I can see putting some career policy lawyers on payroll who have a deep understanding of some aspects of policy development who can be used perhaps on retainer for consultation, but lawyers involved in every step of the process at every level to the tune of 5000+ employees and a billion dollars of operating expense? It on it's face seems excessive.

And there is an open question of why the government doesn't operate like almost every other legal entity operating to protect it's interests - in that it has a skeleton team of internal lawyers and contracts out expensive services when needed.

Absurd questions I guess, which apparently cannot be clearly answered by the people who should know best.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

At the moment, I think the rules only apply to face veils, so people with other types of apparel could be in for an unpleasant surprise...

Incorrect.
Quoting from the JdM article I linked in my post that you saw (and I know you're fluent, no translation's needed for you nor will anything get lost in translation)...

«Qu’il y en ait 2000 ou 300, ils sont tous les bienvenus et on ne fait pas de nuances. La loi est claire», dit Pierre Pilon. [The Elections Canada spokesman]

«On parle surtout de visage couvert, on ne fait pas de nuance si c’est religieux ou pas», ajoute-t-il.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENT VOTER LE VISAGE VOILÉ

Lorsqu’un électeur dont le visage est couvert se présente à un bureau de vote, on lui demande de se découvrir le visage.

Si l’électeur refuse, on lui deman­de de prêter serment par écrit pour attester sa qualité d’électeur. L’électeur doit ensuite présenter une preuve d’identité et d’adresse, comme tout autre électeur, avant de voter.

Élections Canada n’a pas compilé de statistiques des électeurs qui ont voté à visage couvert lors des élections en 2011.

Source: Élections Canada

[niwell]

Originally Posted by lio45

Under-staffed, you can at least temporarily outsource work during busier times; over-staffed, you're paying people for nothing during the more idle times.

So, I'd say I can also see geotag's point here.

I agree with this in principle for sure. In reality sometimes the extra costs of out-sourcing work to a private firm at a higher billable rate (which it is likely to be) can outweigh the cost of keeping around an extra FTE or two. A balance has to be struck to determine the best way of operating.

Again, I can't speak for the operation of the Justice Department, but I know it does work in practice like this in Ontario and in municipal government. For instance there are temporary units created for the duration for say, review and reform of a particular program. These are staffed with a mixture of contract employees and permanent staff on secondment from other areas. Secondment is something that is encouraged which does help shift around resources as needed. Similarly even a municipality as large as the City of Toronto with its sizeable legal staff has contracted out work to legal consulting firms for specific OMB cases as it determined they would eat up too many resources in-house.

But I will admit ignorance when it comes to the Justice Department and the range of services they may (or may not) provide to the federal government. Only what I assume they do.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Well, we'll see what happens with the folks who come in with Guy Fawkes masks or potato bags over their heads. At the moment, I think the rules only apply to face veils, so people with other types of apparel could be in for an unpleasant surprise, although I doubt the polling station officers will push it that far.

I would hope Elections Canada is making this part of their training for poll station staff.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by lio45

I'm not sure I agree with you on that one.

Society is sending us the message that it's acceptable to vote while masked, so I can see why some people would just want to "test the system" to confirm that's indeed true...

If it becomes widely accepted that anyone can just choose to vote while masked because they can, doing so without a deep personal reason will just naturally lose of its appeal.

If I had the right to show up with any kind of hat for my driver's license pic, I would show up hat-less, guaranteed. Why would I want to / bother to be wearing a pasta strainer or cowboy hat in that case? No need to, I could if I wanted.

The point is to test and check that there are no double standards, and if no reaction is triggered, then general acceptance of whatever is getting trolled will ensue, be it voting masked or pasta strainers for the DMV photoshoot, and you just won't see any trolls anymore.

I'm fine with being masked if everyone can be; I'm fine with hats on official pics if anyone can have one; etc. It's mostly the double standard that I find annoying. Laws should always trump religion, and if a given law doesn't apply equally, then we should remove it since it's not really relevant (which is proven by the fact that we can tolerate not applying it).

I checked the Elections Canada site and found that the rules are quite broad ("face covering"), so I suppose the mask people will find that the established procedure applies to them as well. Here's what it says:

Electors wearing face coverings

If an elector wearing a face covering comes to vote, the deputy returning officer will ask the elector to show their face. If the elector agrees to remove their face covering, the election officer will follow regular voting procedures. Election officers have been instructed to exercise respect and sensitivity in following this administrative procedure.

If the elector does not wish to remove their face covering, the deputy returning officer will advise the elector that they must provide two pieces of authorized identification, one proving their identity and the other proving their identity and address, and then take an oath attesting to their eligibility to vote. If the elector agrees to provide the identification and take the oath, the election officer will follow regular voting procedures.

If the elector refuses to uncover their face and also refuses to provide two pieces of identification and take an oath, they will not be permitted to vote.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

Incorrect.
Quoting from the JdM article I linked in my post that you saw (and I know you're fluent, no translation's needed for you nor will anything get lost in translation)...

«Qu’il y en ait 2000 ou 300, ils sont tous les bienvenus et on ne fait pas de nuances. La loi est claire», dit Pierre Pilon. [The Elections Canada spokesman]

«On parle surtout de visage couvert, on ne fait pas de nuance si c’est religieux ou pas», ajoute-t-il.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENT VOTER LE VISAGE VOILÉ

Lorsqu’un électeur dont le visage est couvert se présente à un bureau de vote, on lui demande de se découvrir le visage.

Si l’électeur refuse, on lui deman­de de prêter serment par écrit pour attester sa qualité d’électeur. L’électeur doit ensuite présenter une preuve d’identité et d’adresse, comme tout autre électeur, avant de voter.

Élections Canada n’a pas compilé de statistiques des électeurs qui ont voté à visage couvert lors des élections en 2011.

Source: Élections Canada

Yeah, I didn't think there was any rule that specified that only muslim face veils were OK for voting. I can't see how that could be the case anyway.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I checked the Elections Canada site and found that the rules are quite broad ("face covering"), so I suppose the mask people will find that the established procedure applies to them as well. Here's what it says:

Electors wearing face coverings

If an elector wearing a face covering comes to vote, the deputy returning officer will ask the elector to show their face. If the elector agrees to remove their face covering, the election officer will follow regular voting procedures. Election officers have been instructed to exercise respect and sensitivity in following this administrative procedure.

If the elector does not wish to remove their face covering, the deputy returning officer will advise the elector that they must provide two pieces of authorized identification, one proving their identity and the other proving their identity and address, and then take an oath attesting to their eligibility to vote. If the elector agrees to provide the identification and take the oath, the election officer will follow regular voting procedures.

If the elector refuses to uncover their face and also refuses to provide two pieces of identification and take an oath, they will not be permitted to vote.

So stupid that it's come to this.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

A Palestinian-background guy talking about US-conspiracies? How naive can you be? The Muslim Arabs are the innocent good guys and the Evil Satan from the West is responsible for all those horrible beheadings, genocide and 🞵🞵🞵-slavery of unbelievers right?

I contemplated omitting the fact that he was of Palestinian descent anticipating this exact response from someone. I can flip that around and point out that just because his parents happen to have been Palestinian refugees doesn't mean that he's some Israel hating, freedom fearing, Muslim boogeyman and that anything he says is to be disregarded as hopelessly biased and worthless. He is a born Canadian, not a member of Hamas.

FYI our conversation was quite laid back and felt more akin to one of the actually intelligent conversations on this forum.

[mistercorporate]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

I contemplated omitting the fact that he was of Palestinian descent anticipating this exact response from someone. I can flip that around and point out that just because his parents happen to have been Palestinian refugees doesn't mean that he's some Israel hating, freedom fearing, Muslim boogeyman and that anything he says is to be disregarded as hopelessly biased and worthless. He is a born Canadian, not a member of Hamas.

Never met a Palestinian who didn't espouse extremely anti-Israel views when politics came up or at least involved in an "Anti Israeli-apartheid" group on some level and I've met almost a hundred in my life. It would be incredibly naive to assume his impartiality on the subject matter. Many of them adamantly believe 9-11 was a CIA plot and hold anti-American views, to put it mildly.

[geotag277]

Syria has literally nothing to do with Israel or Palestine.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by geotag277

I can see putting some career policy lawyers on payroll who have a deep understanding of some aspects of policy development who can be used perhaps on retainer for consultation, but lawyers involved in every step of the process at every level to the tune of 5000+ employees and a billion dollars of operating expense? It on it's face seems excessive.

If the Justice Department provides services to vast number of program areas across the federal government then 5000 doesn't necessarily seem excessive. I would assume this 5000 includes all the support staff and other internal operations necessary for running a large ministry. Maybe it is far too many? Not too sure - I am fairly certain you would need to pay a consulting firm a ton of money to accurately determine that. These aren't the sort of things to determine on gut feeling.

Just about every step of policy development requires legal input, which is doubly so in public-facing areas of high contention. I wouldn't want a piece of legislation that can potentially affect thousands, including important stakeholders, to fail because of a legal oversight. From a practical perspective it would be very inefficient to contract out work at every step of the way requiring a legal opinion. Can't see how it would save any money either.

Originally Posted by geotag277

And there is an open question of why the government doesn't operate like almost every other legal entity operating to protect it's interests - in that it has a skeleton team of internal lawyers and contracts out expensive services when needed.

Because other legal entities aren't directly accountable to the broader public, nor are they in charge of developing public policy. These are VERY major differences that should be immediately apparent.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by geotag277

And there is an open question of why the government doesn't operate like almost every other legal entity operating to protect it's interests - in that it has a skeleton team of internal lawyers and contracts out expensive services when needed.

Hmmm, I would say that large corporations have pretty substantial legal staff on permanent payroll AFAIK...

Scaled to the federal govt's 300-billion budget, I'm not sure the proportional size of the govt's permanent legal team is in fact that completely out of whack with the private sector. (Plus, it's not merely just any business we're talking about, it's an entity whose main focus is policy-making.)

[flar]

Originally Posted by geotag277

I'm not sure how effective their arguments really are. From what I can tell their argument is essentially "we need lawyers everywhere, duh!".

I can see putting some career policy lawyers on payroll who have a deep understanding of some aspects of policy development who can be used perhaps on retainer for consultation, but lawyers involved in every step of the process at every level to the tune of 5000+ employees and a billion dollars of operating expense? It on it's face seems excessive.

And there is an open question of why the government doesn't operate like almost every other legal entity operating to protect it's interests - in that it has a skeleton team of internal lawyers and contracts out expensive services when needed.

Absurd questions I guess, which apparently cannot be clearly answered by the people who should know best.

Listen, I could write a book about the role of the public service and why it is necessary, and I could write a book about dysfunction and inefficiency in the public service, and I could write at least two more books on other things about the public service. It's a huge and complex topic. I can understand what you are asking, but we have very different levels of information about the subject, and I don't really have time to start writing these books here.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by lio45

Hmmm, I would say that large corporations have pretty substantial legal staff on permanent payroll AFAIK...

Scaled to the federal govt's 300-billion budget, I'm not sure the proportional size of the govt's permanent legal team is in fact that completely out of whack with the private sector. (Plus, it's not merely just any business we're talking about, it's an entity whose main focus is policy-making.)

Scaling legal teams to match the budget sounds on it's face ridiculous to me. Especially as it applies to government budgets.

Let's be honest, there aren't that many pieces of legislation that the federal government passes each year.

I will again point out that in 15 legal challenges to Charter cases, the total legal bill for defending those cases was 4.7 million dollars.

[O-tacular]

Nevermind

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by niwell

In the case of legal services I'd say understaffed if anything. It sometimes irks me that the lawyers I've worked with make almost twice my salary, but they often work 20 hours a week more than me! It could be very different in the federal government of course.

But yes, just like almost any large organization inefficiencies exist. I can think of a couple areas off-hand. Although probably on the opposite end of the spectrum from legal divisions. But completely writing off advisory bodies within government would set a dangerous precedent IMO.

It's also worth noting that policy development in government often works in ebbs and tides. You can have very little work to do beyond research at times, and at other times it's a non-stop rush to meet approvals deadlines. In theory you could contract some of this out knowing that once a particular function is completed staffing requirements may drop (and the government does make extensive use of contracts). Having knowledgable staff on hand at all times makes more sense to me, at least.

I guess this is why the Harper Conservatives have run roughshod over the Charter and the scientific community. They have no use for evidence or civil rights. Those things just get in the way. Just like lawyers I guess.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by geotag277

Syria has literally nothing to do with Israel or Palestine.

Thank you!

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by flar

Listen, I could write a book about the role of the public service and why it is necessary, and I could write a book about dysfunction and inefficiency in the public service, and I could write at least two more books on other things about the public service. It's a huge and complex topic. I can understand what you are asking, but we have very different levels of information about the subject, and I don't really have time to start writing these books here.

That's fine, but your answer here is just "Trust me, I know better, and I refuse to put in the effort of educating anyone on why the cost is necessary, even as Canadians in this very thread have no avenue or recourse or public resources to justify the expense of this particular Department."

Personally I think we can and should do better at holding these entities accountable for the value add to Canadians and certainly at justifying their operating budget. And I certainly expected a more satisfying response from you after that rather silly string of personal insults.