:LPE:

I’m not sure whether to be surprised or not. The BBC has revealed that Bush II was commanded by God to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. In case you weren’t aware of his motivation.

The sooner he toodles off to Nova Scotia the better, and Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition can get around to rebuilding the party that Brian “I’m Innocent” Mulroney left for dead a decade ago, and Mackay stabbed through the heart when he hitched on with Stephen Harper-of-the-100o-foot-stare. Honestly, this man may know his rugby, but he’s left much room for speculation about his other faculties, not least that virtue once known as fidelity. I wouldn’t wish him on Nova Scotians, but they appear happy to re-elect him periodically, so perhaps its time for the old boy to consummate a meaningful political relationship. If it got him out of the papers for four years it would be a public service for which the whole country ought to pony up and buy gagging amounts of local N.S. beer.

There is a big push on now by industry to change the rules governing pension plans. The thrust of the industry lobbying is summarized in the Association of Canadian Pension Management’s report. It is a “surplus grab”, which I’ve written on in this space before. It is a typical case of employing a crisis (underfunded pensions) to push an special agenda, which, at times, it entirely unrelated to the crisis itself. There has to be a general theory of this type of activity, a Harveyite type of anlysis, and I’ve been trying to develop one in the context of law reform and natural disasters…but that is another story.

Speaking of natural disasters, David Dodge, Governor of the Bank of Canada and one of the most powerful unelected civil servants in the country, has contributed to the cause of the captains of industry by calling the rulings of the Supreme Court on pensions a call “to get out” of pension plans “as fast as they can” and “run a deficit at all times”. Translation: make your employees poorer in old age.

This is the man who has the single most power to affect macroencomic monetary policy in the country. We might expect him to take a more balanced and sanguine view of people’s rights as decided by the Supreme Court of Canada. Then again, this was the architect of the 1995 Martin budget that effectively capped and de-funded social programs in Canada. He has no business and fewer credentials for setting pension policy, and maybe even interest rate policy. Hopefully, saner minds will hold the day at the Department of Finance, David Dodges’ former perch atop the civil service, but don’t hold your breath.