Recent Events

Okay, it has been a few days since blogging, but here is my take on the recent events.

Michigan Primary

In the case of the Democrats it is largely meaningless as both Obama and Edwards refused to be put on the ballot in protest of the date being moved earlier. However, for the Republicans, Romney's win makes this a three way race and maybe even a four way race if Guiliani wins some on Super Tuesday. Romney put a lot of money into this state and played up the fact he was born there and this seems to have paid off. Off course Huckabee being popular amongst Evangelicals should help him in some of the Southern states, while McCain having the momentum and being seen as the most electable still means he has plenty of chances to win elsewhere.

The Chalk River Reactor Issue

This issue touches me personally more than others. When I lived in Vancouver, I was constantly asked if I was related to Gary Lunn, since we share a common surname and my answer was off course No, since he is not a relative despite the fact Lunn is a relatively rare surname. Now living in Toronto, I assumed I would never get asked this again as he was the Natural Resources minister which is normally a low profile ministry, but after mishandling this, he is back in the news nationally.

Now on the issue itself, I think the firing of Linda Keen was disgusting. What happened at Chalk River was unfortunate, but we have a Nuclear safety watchdog to ensure we don't have a Chernobyl type incident. This requires that the head be someone who is expert in Nuclear safety and one who is free from political interference. The shutdown that lead to a shortage of isotopes was serious and an investigation should have been launched into what caused this and if the investigation turned out that Linda Keen was negligent, then fire her, however to fire her for political grand-standing is absolutely dispicable. I am concerned about the high levels of partisanship from both the Liberals and Tories, but at least the Liberals never took it to this extreme. To Harper and Gary Lunn, Shame on you!

Manufacturing Crisis

While I don't always agree with Harper, I do think he was right to refuse to offer Ford a subsidy. I don't believe businesses should be getting government subsidies as this involves picking winners and losers, which the government traditionally is not good at, but also it leads to businesses that are poorly run continuing to be poorly run knowing they will get subsidies. In British Columbia, Gordon Campbell as part of his 2001 New Era promises, eliminated corporate subsidies and there is little evidence this has harmed British Columbia. While I agree corporate tax cuts are definitely one solution, I also understand that plant closures do lead to job losses and here the government does have a role to play. However, its role should be to provide programs to re-train workers so that they can find new jobs. The reality is our economy is rapidly changing and certain industries will come and others will go. Trying to keep a dying industry alive only prolongs the inevitable, instead we should help those in those industries make the transition to new ones. Besides I am not sure manufacturing is totally dying. I realize the high dollar is hurting exports, but one should remember, Toyota and Honda have both opened plants in Ontario not too long ago and are expanding. The problem here seems more that the Big three American companies are making lousy cars compared to the Japanese, which is why they are facing trouble. As someone who also has an interest in cars, the reality is American cars since the 70s have generally been lousy, which is why I have only driven a Japanese car which are smaller, reliable, and last long.

I will have more on Nevada and South Carolina primaries later.