A free public service offered by Paul Kemp - Central Nova - Nova Scotia There are ten steps, or stages, to the evolution of a practical and efficient form of representative government, and these are: 1. Freedom of the person. Slavery, serfdom, and all forms of human bondage must disappear. 2. Freedom of the mind. Unless a free people are educated -- taught to think intelligently and plan wisely -- freedom usually does more harm than good. 3. The reign of law. Liberty can be enjoyed only when the will and whims of human rulers are replaced by legislative enactments in accordance with accepted fundamental law. 4. Freedom of speech. Representative government is unthinkable without freedom of all forms of expression for human aspirations and opinions. 5. Security of property. No government can long endure if it fails to provide for the right to enjoy personal property in some form. Man craves the right to use, control, bestow, sell, lease, and bequeath his personal property. 6. The right of petition. Representative government assumes the right of citizens to be heard. The privilege of petition is inherent in free citizenship. 7. The right to rule. It is not enough to be heard; the power of petition must progress to the actual management of the government. 8. Universal suffrage. Representative government presupposes an intelligent, efficient, and universal electorate. The character of such a government will ever be determined by the character and caliber of those who compose it. As civilization progresses, suffrage, while remaining universal for both sexes, will be effectively modified, regrouped, and otherwise differentiated. 9. Control of public servants. No civil government will be serviceable and effective unless the citizenry possess and use wise techniques of guiding and controlling officeholders and public servants. 10. Intelligent and trained representation. The survival of democracy is dependent on successful representative government; and that is conditioned upon the practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and for the people be preserved.

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Government assets
could go on block

Please take a moment and read this article. I don’t see any Canadian thinking any of this is a good idea. I do see this information going into the memory hole as quickly as it came up unless we decide to do something about it.

Government assets could go on block

Finance Department looking at ways to keep deficit down

By Andrew Mayeda,

Canwest News Service

February 18, 2009

The Harper government, under pressure to prevent the federal deficit from ballooning, is pressing ahead with an asset review that could lead to the sale or privatization of several well-known Crown corporations, including Canada Post, Via Rail, the Royal Canadian Mint and the agency that oversees security at Canada's airports.

The government signalled its intent to sell Crown assets last fall, but it was only in the federal budget that it identified the four ministerial portfolios to be reviewed first: Finance, Indian and Northern Affairs, Natural Resources, and Transport and Infrastructure.

Some of the Crown corporations that fall under the authority of those departments have been known to be on the block for some time, such as Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

But the review also will cover some names likely to raise eyebrows, especially in the Transport portfolio, which includes Canada Post, Via Rail, the mint, and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

In the next few months, Finance Department officials will ask each of the four departments to identify assets that could be sold, including any real estate in their portfolios. Although the process is still at a preliminary stage, Finance officials have not ruled out any Crown corporations from the review.

"The corporate asset review is proceeding as planned," Mike Storeshaw, a spokesman for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, said in an e-mail. "Departmental officials will be working over the coming year to analyze the relevance of specific assets to the government's core responsibilities."

The budget states that Finance officials could conclude that "selling an asset to a private-sector entity may generate more economic activity and deliver greater value to taxpayers."

The challenge for the government is that its budget forecast is based on the aggressive assumption that officials will be able to raise as much as $4 billion through sales or privatizations by the end of March 2010.

Flaherty started musing publicly about selling Crown assets in November, but department officials only formally launched the review process after the budget was introduced on Jan. 27. That gives the government about 14 months to oversee a large-scale divestiture of assets, a complex process that will involve numerous layers of bureaucracy, might require major legislative amendments, and could create serious political headaches for the Harper cabinet.

If officials can't find enough assets to sell, the government could be forced to revise its forecast to show a bigger deficit for 2009-10, when the deficit is already expected to hit $34 billion.

In deciding which assets to put on the short list, Finance officials will consider a number of criteria, including whether Crown corporations are still meeting their stated policy objectives, whether assets can be sold within the tight time frame set by the budget, and how best to maximize returns for taxpayers. Eventually, the review will be expanded to include all government departments. The review of the Canadian Heritage portfolio, which includes the CBC and the Canada Council for the Arts, could be a political minefield.

Another option for the government will be to expedite the transfer of surplus real estate from departments to Canada Lands Co., a Crown corporation that sells rezoned federal lands to private developers.

"We have had calls from different people in the government who know our work and respect us and wanted to know . . . whether we thought we'd be able to take on more properties," said Canada Lands vice-president Gordon McIvor, adding that the company plans to sell numerous assets this year, including a residential development on a former military base in Calgary and parts of a harbour-front redevelopment in Montreal.

UNDER REVIEW

Finance

Bank of Canada

Canada Deposit Insurance Corp.

Canada Development Investment Corp.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

PPP Canada Inc.

Indian, Northern Affairs

First Nations Statistical Institute

Natural Resources

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

Cape Breton Development Corp.