The concerns raised prior to the election about vote rigging and electoral fraud appear to have been validated by evidence of widespread vote rigging. These elections were by no means “free and fair”. Although disappointing, this was not unexpected. However what was different this time was that the media was on hand to capture images of blatant rigging and transmit them worldwide. This has led to a huge debate about electoral fraud and although international observers estimate rigging to have affected 10% of the vote, the actual figure is probably significantly higher. 

The judiciary has been woefully silent on this issue and the Election Commission of Pakistan has not acted as swiftly and comprehensively as it ought to have done. However, what is refreshing is the debate and scrutiny which is being applied by the media and in particular the courage of journalists in revealing what went on in spite of open threats to their safety. This is something which could never have happened previously. The public reaction to this has been surprising too. Whereas in the past, people did not dare to question the results, we now have people taking to the streets peacefully to demand that action is taken against the fraud and re-counting is underway is some areas. 

Though not widely reported in the international media, there are huge demonstrations and sit-ins going on in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and many other cities where many people feel their votes were stolen. Moreover, when one looks at those demonstrating, it is not the poor but rather middle and upper-middle class men, women and children who have come out in droves to fight not only for their rights but more so for the rights of the downtrodden, poorer classes who are seldom if ever heard. This is something which I have not previously seen in Pakistan and did not expect. This compassion and empathy is a positive sign for the future social cohesion and wellbeing of the country.

The challenges that lie ahead for the in-coming government are huge; crippling energy shortages, corruption, poverty, law and order breakdown, a broken health system, a rapidly growing gap between rich and poor, debt, terrorism, growing unemployment, sectarianism, attacks against minorities, and foreign policy issues such as the US drone strikes. Yet, in spite of the rigging, violence, intimidation and usual chaos which seem to be part and parcel of Pakistan’s precarious political situation, what is emerging is a greater awareness and willingness to act amongst the public and to no longer be subjugated.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thecolumnists/2013/05/shazia-ovaisi-pakistans-election-freedom-or-fragmentation.html

If the Pakistani elections could be boiled down to one issue, it was electricity. For many voters, their principal concern was the crippling power shortages they endure — sometimes for up to 20 hours a day — and the effect it has on the economy. Economists estimate that Pakistan’s energy crisis shaves off up to 5% growth each year. In big industrial towns like Faisalabad, where Sharif’s party won many seats, factories have been forced to shut down and tens of thousands of workers laid off. If the next government can diminish power cuts substantially, it may be enough to win the next elections. If it fails, it could suffer the fate of its predecessors.

Sharif appealed to voters, particularly in his native Punjab, as a businessman who has experience of governance and who may be able to lift Pakistan’s economy out of its current misery. In a country shifting toward a more conservative direction, Sharif’s social conservatism and religiosity was a plus. In 1997, when he last won an election, Sharif told academic Vali Nasr, he wanted to be “both the [Turkish moderate Islamist leader Necmettin] Erbakan and the [economically minded former Malaysian Prime Minister] Mahathir [Mohamad] of Pakistan.”

Sharif will face three major challenges when he comes to power. He will have to restore electricity and boost the economy. He will have to deal with domestic terrorism. And he will have to work with the U.S., trying to strike a balance between managing relations with Washington while assuaging anti-American sentiment at home. Sharif’s aides say that he is best placed to boost the economy, thanks to his free-market approach. “The best way to deal with the electricity problem is to privatize the energy sector and give the business community a stake in it,” says Khawaja Muhammad Asif, a leading PMLN member.

When it comes to the Pakistani Taliban, Sharif is less clear. In recent years, he has preferred to remain mostly quiet on the threat, as he did during the election campaign. While secular anti-Taliban politicians braved bomb attacks, Sharif and Khan were able to campaign mostly in peace. Sharif has said that he would like to negotiate with the Pakistani Taliban, an approach that is popular among conflict-weary Pakistanis but controversial. Critics point out that all peace deals with the Pakistani Taliban have failed and yielded them more space.

In 2010, Sharif’s younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, who was chief minister of Punjab, made a controversial appeal to the Pakistani Taliban to spare his province because, like them, his party is “anti-U.S.” During his rule of Punjab, the younger Sharif was also criticized for not doing enough for religious minorities.

Sharif will also try to establish a new relationship with Pakistan’s powerful generals. “I think the army will want to work with Nawaz Sharif,” says retired Lieut. General Talat Masood, an analyst. The relationship has been repaired over recent years with Sharif’s top aides often meeting army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

During his last stint in power, Sharif was capable of destructive confrontations with not just the army, but also rival politicians and critical journalists. Masood says that Sharif has matured over the years: “The time in exile has given him time to reflect and learn.” Surveying the election victory on Sunday, many Pakistanis hope that is true.

http://world.time.com/2013/05/12/nawaz-sharif-returns-to-power-as-pakistans-newly-elected-prime-minister/#ixzz2TJ9oGfUU

Former premier Dalton McGuinty says he had no idea how much it would cost to cancel two power plants before the 2011 election, and he now finds the $585 million tab “higher than anyone would have wanted.”

In long-awaited testimony Tuesday before a legislative committee investigating the controversial cancellations in Oakville and Mississauga — which opposition parties charge was done to save five Liberal seats — McGuinty maintained the plants were axed because they were too close to residential areas and emissions could cause respiratory problems.

“In Oakville and Mississauga, we were faced with a circumstance where gas plants were sited right next to schools, condominium towers, family homes, and a hospital. That wasn’t right,” McGuinty said.

When it came time to build the plants, regulations implemented in 2009 would not have allowed wind turbines on the sites so it would have been folly to build natural gas-fired power plants there, McGuinty added.

“This all happened in the run-up to the election campaign,” he admitted, speaking of the Mississauga plant axed less than two weeks before voting day on Oct. 6, 2011.

“When that campaign began, the people of that community repeated their argument that the plant didn’t belong there.”

He added: “all three parties promised to cancel the plant if elected.”

McGuinty also acknowledged the minority government’s ability to get accurate figures on the cancellation costs has been “less than stellar.”

Opposition MPPs said the former premier’s testimony failed to clear up questions on when the government knew the cancellation costs were higher than the figures they kept using publicly.

The OPA now says cancelling Oakville will cost $310 million — eight times more than the government maintained, while Mississauga will cost $275 million, which is 45 per cent more than the government said, according to an auditor general’s report.

The Oakville plant is being relocated to Sarnia while the Mississauga plant, which was partially built, is moving to Napanee.

McGuinty also testified he did not know how much it would cost to cancel the plants when he made the decisions in October 2010 for Oakville and in late September 2011 for Mississauga.

Just like doctors, the guiding principle of governments should be “do no harm.”

And yet the federal government is now belatedly acknowledging that two of its signature workplace programs may be making the country’s employment landscape worse, not better.

With the changes to the temporary foreign workers program and last year’s employment insurance reforms, Ottawa is making it clear that it isn’t happy with the results, nor the public backlash.

The Conservative government announced on Monday changes to the temporary foreign worker program, which has become a lightning rod in the wake of awkward revelations about the outsourcing of IT jobs by Royal Bank of Canada and a B.C. mining company’s use of the scheme to import 200 Chinese miners.

With MPs hearing it from angry voters, the government said it will suspend permits handed to companies that are found to be abusing the system and will make it much tougher for employers to pay temporary foreign workers less than Canadians would make.

Ottawa also plans to introduce fees so that employers will help cover the administrative costs of the program.

There is now evidence that the two programs may be inhibiting labour mobility, depriving Canadians of opportunity, preventing the untrained from acquiring skills and driving down wages.

Business groups are already warning that the changes to the temporary foreign worker program go too far, tying their hands in a tight job market.

Ottawa’s foreign worker program has doubled in the past six years, enabling employers to import more than 446,000 workers in 2011 into a country where 1.4 million people are officially unemployed. And yet experts say they are shocked to hear stories of landscapers in Calgary who can’t find labourers and building owners in Ottawa struggling to find janitors – even at wages as generous as $20 an hour.

The temporary foreign worker program has become a convenient “out” for employers unwilling to pay higher wages, argued David Gray, a labour economist and professor at the University of Ottawa. “It should just address only acute labour shortages,” he said The objective, Prof. Gray said, should be to fill gaps among highly skilled workers and find people to do very low-skill work that Canadians won’t do for any wage, such as farm labourers.

Just like the temporary foreign worker program, too many employers have learned to bend the system to meet their own needs, at the expense of the country’s best interest.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/more-work-needed-on-ottawas-fix-for-foreign-workers/article11622084/

The PC party is pushing to defeat the Liberal minority government before Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa can present a budget on May 2nd over gas power plant cancellations in Mississauga and Oakville.

Progressive Conservatives would like the NDP to support “want of confidence” motion against the government “within days.”

Tory House leader Jim Wilson said “We’re asking the NDP to stop propping up a corrupt government.”

 “The power plant cover-up will probably go on for months and months and months the way things have been going, ” he added.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath called PC tactic a political game.

“The last thing people want in this province are political games that are going nowhere just for the sake of headlines,” she said.

In reaction to PC’s announcement that they will present “want of confidence” motion, Ontario Minister of Government Services Harinder Takhar said in an interview with Generation Next that ” the opposition have their rights, they will do whatever they want to do” however “we need to focus on our priorities” which is to present the budget that is “acceptable to Ontarians as well as the Opposition.”

He sees PC’s motion as an attempt to position themselves “to take some stand on it.”

But the question remains, will the government fall after it has presented its budget.

Minister Takhar says that Ontario Liberals agree with the NDP leaders’ demands to lower auto insurance premiums, to reduce wait times for seniors at senior homes, to close loopholes so that larger corporation do not get away with “deductions. “

The question, he says, is “how can it be done and how quickly can it be done.”

He added “we are working hard to make sure that people’s concerns are addressed and some of her concerns are addressed.”

As for Spring elections, “I don’t think anybody is looking for an election or people are looking for an election, so we wanna make sure that the budget gets passed.”

Nonetheless how will Ontario Liberal gain trust of Ontarians with one scandal after another especially the cancellations of gas power plants in Mississauga and Oakville.

“I don’t see them as scandals,” he responded. He conceded that it was “a mistake to put the plants there.”

” We should not have put the power plants” in Mississauga and Oakville. Nonetheless, he says “all parties agree that the power plants should be put somewhere, NDP agreed to it, PC agreed to it .. and there was gonna be cost involved whether we do it or they had done it.”

$275 million cost of Mississauga gas power plan cancellation is the cost of the entire project and not just of cancellation, he stated.

At the end of the day, MPP from Mississauga Erindale says that ” PCs are gonna eliminate deficit in the same timeline as we are going to eliminate it unless they find huge savings somewhere” and their claims of lowering taxes or the HST should be seen in this context.

Premier of Ontario is pushing for investments in infrastructure particularly in roads, bridges and public transit to increase productivity, so that employers get maximum efficiency and people get to their work places and homes quickly.

She writes in her op-ed piece in Generation Next:

“We need to find dedicated revenue for these projects, because the money cannot be found elsewhere.”

“Dedicated revenue” is a big bone of contention among not only average Ontario families but also among small businesses.

What does ‘dedicated revenue’ mean?

More taxes?

Road tolls?

Tolls on HOV lanes?

Regional sales tax?

Some other form of tax?

No one disagrees that gridlock is a problem, that traffic congestion has become unbearable and that sitting in traffic for over 82 minutes if you have to travel within the GTA and Hamilton Area is unacceptable.

However, there will be huge differences on how to pay to get rid of gridlock. Average Ontario families believe that they are already burdened by too many taxes that sometimes take a name of eco fee and other times take a name of updating aging infrastructure fee and the list can go on.

These hard working families do not care if the ‘dedicated revenue’ is imposed by their municipality or province or the federal government. All they know is that their paychecks are not seeing the raise that they deserve (in fact their jobs are quite shamelessly being shipped out of Canada), but their taxes, grocery store lists, child care costs etc are spiking up.

Many of these families are newcomers to Canada. They are trying to settle into a country and in a province that is paying them less and less and expecting them to do more and more. Consequently the man of the family is working two or three jobs to put food on the table, and mother in the family is working equally hard. Both parents are too busy to know what’s happening in the school with their kids and education. The result, in many cases is, plethora of social evils with kids joining gangs, doing drugs and so on.

Making these hard working families a ‘dedicated revenue’ source is not fair for a Premier who stands for fairness and equality.

Canada has launched a new visa program that is making many politicians and lobbyists in the United States green with envy.

Called the Start-Up Visa program, business gurus and venture capitalists here say it’s a win for Canada, but many in the United States lament the lack of action in their country to fix what many consider a broken immigration system. Previous attempts to develop a similar program in the U.S. have so far failed, including one that currently is stalled in Congress.

“The general idea of taking someone who wants to come to your country and hire Americans or Canadians, it’s such an obvious good idea for the economy,” said Jeremy Robbins, director of the U.S.-based Partnership for a New American Economy.

Robbins and others fear if a start-up visa program isn’t started soon, the U.S. will lose out in attracting highly skilled entrepreneurial immigrants who could boost its stalled economy.

The partnership is so eager to have Washington adopt a Start-Up Visa program of its own that it is staging a virtual march on Washington later this spring to draw attention to the need for reforms in the U.S. immigration program.

The march will use social media to push Washington to create a smarter immigration program, one that includes a similar visa program, said Robbins, who is also policy adviser to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“In America, if someone wants to come to start a company, we say there is no visa for them so they can go elsewhere.”

That elsewhere not only includes Canada, where applicants, if accepted, obtain immediate permanent residency, but also the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore.

The pilot project will run for up to five years, according to Immigration Canada. If successful, the program could become a permanent new economic class in the immigration process. In 2011, Citizenship and Immigration placed a moratorium on new applications to the Federal Entrepreneur Program because the program is under review.

 http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2013/03/31/canadas_new_visa_program_to_attract_entrepreneurs_envied_in_us.html

After Bank of Montreal BMO brought back its controversial five-year fixed-rate mortgages to 2.99 per cent from 3.09 per cent, Canada’s Finance Minister was not too happy. He stated “Our government has taken action several times to make sure the housing market remains sound.”

“As for decisions by individual banks, as I have said repeatedly before, my expectation is that banks will engage in prudent lending — not the type of ‘race to the bottom’ practices that led to a mortgage crisis in the United States.”

The Bank of Canada has been warning that high household debt levels, the bulk of which come from mortgages, are the largest risk facing the country’s economy.

But when Manulife cancelled its low mortgage rate of 2.89 per cent after Minister Flaherty’s aid called the bank, there were concerns in many sectors that the government is meddling with the affairs of the banking industry. Not only that but why would a bank change its rate after hearing from Minister Flaherty’s office.

What’s more interesting is that between then and now, most big banks have been referring to mortgage rates one way or the other. They are trying to market it quietly and letting the public know in their own way that they can offer the best mortgage rate as well.

Billboard advertisements regarding mortgage rates have gone up from Scotia Bank , Royal Bank of Canada has also snuck ina word or two about mortgage rate in some of its advertisements.

Lower mortgage rates can attract more home buyers, and some buyers may be encouraged to take out larger mortgages. This is not what the Bank of Canada and Minister Flaherty want as Canadians are already under the record high debt levels. That’s not what policy-makers in Ottawa are hoping for. And that includes the official opposition.

Peggy Nash, the Finance Critic for the NDP said “I think it would not be helpful if we got into a mortgage rate war, because that obviously will get more people into the market, some of whom maybe shouldn’t be there.”

This year Earth Hour 2013 will be held on Saturday March 23rd.
According to utility provider PowerStream 2012, thousands of the customers it serves indicated “their willingness to help fight climate change by turning off their lights for 60 minutes to reduce electricity consumption”.
The company’s system control centre saw a 7.8-per-cent drop in electricity consumption between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. March 31, which was down from the 8.9-per-cent decrease seen the year before.
“The 2012 results represented a total savings of 74.5 megawatts (MW) in peak demand, or enough electricity to power 2,256 average-size homes over a 24-hour period.”
That’s a fair bit of power, to be sure.
The largest power reduction seen in PowerStream’s service territory, at 28 per cent, came from Essa Township, while Bradford West Gwillimbury saw demand for electricity dip by 8.1 per cent. That’s a little higher than the PowerStream average.
Of course, it’s fairly safe to say many of those who clicked off the lights at 8:30 flicked them back on the moment 9:30 rolled around, which leads to the question what’s the point of all this Earth Hour business?
Originally held in Sydney, Australia in 2007, the first international Earth Hour campaign was launched in 2008.
The World Wildlife Fund-organized event captured the public imagination and we were inundated in the days following with a steady stream of satellite images featuring previously glimmering corners of the globe gone dark.
It was an inspiring sight.
The Academy Award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, had been released just two years prior and injected the idea of man-made climate change and its impacts into the public discourse and suddenly, even for an hour, the world seemed united in its efforts to turn the tide against this truly global threat.
However, fast forward four years from that first worldwide campaign and Earth Hour just ain’t what it used to be.
Taking a look around Bradford at about 9 p.m. March 31, it appeared a fair number of people couldn’t be bothered with turning off the lights this year and PowerStream’s numbers seem to back up that observation.
In the lead-up to Earth Hour, many stressed the event is all about raising awareness and education about climate change, but we should be past that by now.
The people participating in Earth Hour and other eco-conscious events “get” the climate change issue and are probably the same folks who reduce, re-use and recycle almost every bit of waste they have and green bin the rest.
Having these people shut off their lights for an hour doesn’t really achieve that aim of raising awareness or educating people about climate change and the people who don’t participate by now are likely the same ones who could care less about climate change or simply don’t believe it’s real.
Shutting off your lights for a week won’t convince them otherwise.
In any event, it’s safe to say everyone has at least heard about the issue by now, so, again, it all comes back to why are we still doing this?
Earth Hour 2008 was a good global start, but it shouldn’t be the end. There has to be a next step besides patting ourselves on the back and then going back to business as usual for the rest of the year.
Otherwise, the event just begins to reek of “slacktivism”, which is the feeling of doing good when you’re not really doing anything. Turning off your lights for an hour once every year or clicking “like” on Facebook for a cause you believe in might make you feel good, but is it doing anything else?

Here we go again. The Mayor of the 4th largest city in North America is making headline news yet again. It’s like how Harry Potter said to Molly that trouble finds him for Mayor Rob Ford. On a national and international level, it’s embarrassing for the Mayor to be accused of anything remotely associated with a sexual attack. On a more personal level, it’s quite disgusting especially to surface on International Women’s Day.

Of course no one is suggesting that the Mayor is guilty but the seriousness of the allegations is not only appalling, it’s quite remarkable.

Sarah Thomson, the former Toronto Mayoral candidate and Mayor Ford’s opponent in the mayoral elections has accused the Mayor of grabbing her ass. She said that the Mayor “grabbed my ass.”

The Mayor has of course denied all such allegations stating “false allegations were made regarding a number of disgusting actions . . . I can say without hesitation that they are absolutely, completely false.

“What is more surprising is that a woman who has aspired to be a civic leader would cry wolf on a day where we should be celebrating women across the globe.”

What’s more disturbing about the Mayor being in the limelight is that the focus from issues turns to his and his personality only. The issues that need addressing and that Torontonians would like the Mayor to address take a back seat in the face of more juicy news such as the one he has caught himself in.

 Mayor Ford has failed to maintain good relationship with the media, not that it is terribly important for a man in his position, however good publicity never hurts, and bad publicity after bad publicity after bad publicity, after barely making it out of a conflict of interest trial and avoiding prosecution over campaign finance irregularities can make good projects come out as a self serving agenda.

Some people will discard the whole news as yet another attempt to taint his personality, character and career, yet others who still like him would want him out so that another Mayor of the City can get back to work for which he was elected.