Remarks by Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario

Posted on September 17, 2004 by urbanrenaissanceinst

Address To The Big City Mayors Summit   September 17 2004

“Toronto means a great deal to Ontario. And to Canada. That’s why it needs a new deal. As a first step, I am announcing this evening that the province and the city will undertake a joint review of the City of Toronto Act.”

“Thank you for that kind introduction.

I am delighted to be with you this evening.

I want to particularly welcome all the mayors here tonight, from across Canada and across Ontario.

I hope you are enjoying your visit to Canada’s largest city.

We all know that the City of Toronto is an economic colossus, an international home of commerce, media and the arts . . . a site for world-class science and medical research . . . and a great place to live, too.

In this past week alone, you could see the world’s most famous filmmakers and movie stars here, or catch the world’s greatest hockey players, or just down the road, in Oakville, rub shoulders with the greatest golfers on the planet.

I want to thank Mayor Miller for hosting such a valuable meeting.

I’m proud to be working with David, and all the other Ontario mayors here tonight, to renew urban life in our province.

That work is part of the mature new partnership our government is building with Ontario’s cities.

We’re building strong communities today – and far into the future.

Because when our communities are stronger, our province is stronger.

In the past few years, the 92 per cent of Canadians who live in urban areas have pushed their concerns onto the national stage.

That’s because, while we’re proud of our country, and we identify with our province, we actually live in cities.

And while no two Canadian cities are alike, Canadians who live in cities share many things in common.

From coast to coast, Canadians want cities that work.

They want cities in which they can live, dream and put down roots.

They share a desire for clean air and water, greenspace and stress-free commuting.

They want livable downtowns, great neighbourhoods, fabulous arts and culture, and ample parks and recreation.

They seek quality public transit, affordable and decent housing, social diversity and civic tolerance.

They want great public schools, colleges and universities, accessible health care and plenty of economic opportunity.

And they expect governments at all levels to work together to provide reliable local public services.

Above all, each generation that rediscovers our cities wants the creative and social buzz that goes with being at the heart of the action.

It wasn’t always this way.

A deep aversion to city life runs through history and popular literature right into the 20th century.

In Victorian times, cities were deemed to be cesspools of corruption, greed and temptation.

The English poet William Cowper said in 1785 that “God made the country, and man the city.”

Now, the vast majority of us call the city home.

We are an urban people. And we know that the most innovative and thriving economies are found in cities where there is a rich diversity of people, skills and knowledge.

The result is that our cities are driving our economy – and they are doing so in competition with a continent of worthy rivals.

For the first time in our history, our cities are firmly in the economic driver’s seat.

And Canada, and the provinces, will only do well if our big cities are doing well.

Our government came to office firmly conscious of this new dynamic.

Our commitment to build strong communities tapped into our people’s desire to ensure Ontario’s cities have everything they need to compete.

And it reflects a growing desire among our people for an improved urban experience.

Over the last 10 years, Ontarians watched their cities grow with a mixture of fascination and concern.

With growth has come gridlock.

With rising property values came urban sprawl.

With more housing starts came a lack of affordable housing and a need for infrastructure.

Ontarians decided they want growth, but not sprawl.

The kind of growth that respects the environment, preserves greenspace, builds on what we have, attracts new investment, spreads prosperity and improves quality of life.

No level of government can deliver everything on that list.

And none of us can even start to tackle that list on our own.

That’s what our mature new partnership with municipalities is all about.

It recognizes that only by working together can we make our cities even greater places to live, work and enjoy.

That’s why, when the federal government gave municipalities a GST rebate earlier this year, we were quick to say we would not claw it back.

It’s why we scrapped the backward plan that would have required municipalities to hold a referendum before raising new revenue.

It’s why we gave municipalities greater flexibility last year to determine tax rates for homeowners and businesses.

It’s why we’re giving them more funds to meet increased recycling and diversion targets.

And it’s why, by 2007, we’ll fund 75 per cent of municipal public health costs, up from 50 per cent.

That’s a $127-million upload.

When we talk about partnership, we’re not just talking the talk.

We’re walking the walk.

We’re providing up to $965 million in low-cost, longer-term loans to help 90 municipalities renew their public infrastructure.

And, we’re meeting one of the most pressing issues in our cities by helping them build affordable housing.

Since last October, we’ve announced funding to create more than 2,300 units of affordable housing.

That’s eight times more funding in our first year than the previous government committed in eight-and-a-half years.

We’re determined to tackle pollution, reduce commuting times, and unlock some of the gridlock that frustrates our people and stalls our economy.

With the help of leading municipal politicians we’re creating a greenbelt across the Golden Horseshoe.

And beginning this fall, we’ll start delivering on our commitment to make two cents of the existing provincial gas tax available to cities for public transit.

We will begin with one cent this October, increasing to one-and-a-half cents in October 2005 and two cents in October 2006.

That represents a potential total transfer of up to $700 million over the next three years to support transit in Ontario cities.

And that’s on top of the $448 million we’re spending on transit in our cities this year.

These are some of the things we’re taking action on now.

But if we want to make sure the next 30 years in our big cities are not like the last 10, we’ve got more work to do.

That’s why since taking office we’ve been planning for the next wave of growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

We’re asking the tough questions about transit, infrastructure, housing, development and investment now, rather than scrambling to catch up later.

And we’ve put it all together in a draft plan entitled Places To Grow: Better Choices. Brighter Future.

We’re planning for growth.

Not managing growth. Not limiting growth. Not stunting growth.

But planning for growth – not just reacting to it.

The Greater Golden Horseshoe is one of the fastest growing regions on the entire continent.

Over the next 30 years, almost four million people will move to Ontario . . . most into central Ontario.

That’s like having every single person in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Halifax load up the truck and head this way.

This is good news.

People are coming here because of the economic opportunities and quality of life we offer.

That makes Toronto stronger. And it makes Canada and Ontario stronger, too.

But it’s bad news if we don’t plan for it.

By 2031, at the rate we’re going, average automobile travel times would increase by 44 percent due to congestion. Greenhouse gas emissions would increase by 42 percent.

New development will consume more than 1,000 square kilometres of valuable farmland . . . that’s almost double the size of Toronto.

Our goal is to take control of the steering wheel and direct this growth – instead of allowing it to steamroller us.

At the heart of the Greater Golden Horseshoe lies the City of Toronto.

Home to more than 2.5 million people from all corners of the world, living in harmony, pursuing incredible opportunities.

A city with a mighty downtown, and mighty neighbourhoods.

Toronto is the source of more than 46 per cent of provincial GDP and almost 20 per cent of national GDP.

It’s an international centre of finance and insurance, law, media and publishing.

It’s home to world renowned health care, universities and colleges carrying out ground breaking research in life sciences and bio-technology and other emerging fields.

Toronto is the engine of economic growth in Ontario and much of Canada.

Its continued economic prosperity and quality of life has to be a priority for all of us.

It’s a miracle it has delivered prosperity for so long and to so many – despite living in a legislative and fiscal straightjacket that would baffle Houdini.

Toronto sets the pace in so many ways, yet it can’t set the size of its own city council, or in many cases, its own speed limits.

It lacks the power to establish a code of conduct, appoint an integrity commissioner, create a lobbyist registry or enhance the powers of its auditor general.

And a city that hosts the largest public film festival in the world has to first get permission from Queen’s Park to offer extended bar and hospitality hours.

Toronto means a great deal to Ontario. And to Canada.

That’s why it needs a new deal.

As a first step, I am announcing this evening that the province and the city will undertake a joint review of the City of Toronto Act.

The object of this review is to:

  • Make the City of Toronto more fiscally sustainable, autonomous and accountable.
  • Give it the tools it needs to thrive in the global economy and
  • Reshape the relationship between Ontario and its capital city.A modernized City of Toronto Act could be introduced at Queen’s Park by the end of next year.

    We have come a long way together, in less than a year.

    But there is so much more we can and must do, together, in the years ahead.

    Even in a strong and productive partnership, we can’t do it all alone.

    We need the federal government’s help.

    Because we can strengthen this new partnership between Queen’s Park and our cities, but it will only be strong enough when it fully includes the federal government.

    On this front, too, there are encouraging signs.

    This year, the Martin government joined us in making major funding announcements for the TTC in Toronto, and for GO Transit across the Golden Horseshoe.

    And we’re looking forward to working with them on new projects in Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo.

    It’s a good start.

    But these have to be just the beginning.

    Instead of clinging to old jurisdictional boundaries, we need to look for new ideas.

    If the U.S. enthusiastically supports urban renewal projects, then so can Canada.

    If Washington can help revive a brownfield in Cleveland or Portland, Ottawa can certainly consider the same sort of project in Toronto or Windsor or Guelph.

    At the very least, we can ensure that cities are at the table when we’re discussing national changes that affect them.

    Because the best way to achieve positive change – to get results – is by working together.

    If we are united – whether we sit in Queen’s Park, Parliament or local council . . .

    If we are focused – on the challenges facing urban Canada today . . .

    If we truly build our partnership, with dialogue and respect and understanding …

    Then we can have cities, provinces and Ottawa truly working together.

    And we can truly do our best job of serving the people who sent us here.

    The people of Ontario – the people of Canada – deserve to live in cities that are strong and safe and solid.

    People who deserve a quality of life that is second to none.

    Thank you very much.”

 

Posted in Cities, Regulation | Leave a comment

Book Reviews

Posted on August 5, 2004 by Other News Sources

The Next City
August 5, 2004

The Millionaire Next Door:
The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy

by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
(Longstreet Press, 1996. 258 pages) US$22

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO SUCCEED in America these days? For starters, it helps to have parents who never made it rich. Over 80 per cent of millionaires receive no money from a trust fund or an estate, and their inheritance, if they got one at all, accounts in over 80 per cent of cases for 10 per cent or less of their wealth. Over half didn’t receive a penny in inheritance, and over 90 per cent believe they won’t receive an inheritance in future. Over 90 per cent didn’t get, as a gift, a penny of their family’s business.

But family stock does matter. If your ancestry or ethnic origin is from Russia or Scotland, chances are a whopping 1 in 5 that you’re in a millionaire household; Hungarian backgrounds aren’t far behind the scale of privilege, at 1 in 7. Americans of English origin, at 1 in 14, don’t fare poorly — they’re twice as likely to be millionaires as the general population — but their success generally had little to do with their origins on the Mayflower. The fortunes built up by rich Americans are typically dissipated by the second or third generation.

Not only do minorities do well, the smaller the minority, the better it tends to do. All of the 15 small-population ancestry groups that the authors surveyed have at least twice their share of millionaires given their percentage of U.S. households. Large ancestry groups contain smaller proportions of millionaires on average than smaller groups. The largest ancestry group in the United States — Germans, who form almost 20 per cent of the population — are underrepresented in the ranks of millionaires.

The longer that an ancestry group has been in America, the less likely it is to produce a disproportionately large number of millionaires. According to the authors, descendants of immigrants become increasingly socialized to the high-consumption American lifestyle and to working for others instead of themselves, leading to their financial decline. Nothing is likelier to lead to success than self-employment. Twelve per cent of Inc. magazine’s top 500 business entrepreneurs are first generation Americans. Their children, encumbered by success, will fare less well than they.

The Millionaire Next Door isn’t put out by a think tank engaged in the politically correct wars of this generation — its authors seem more interested in being millionaires themselves and showing others how to do it through a wholly uninspiring how-to book. But their book will undermine the arguments of those urging class war by painting a picture of the blue-collar millionaire. The phonies in this saga are high flyers who live beyond their means and often get caught — the stock promoters, gold-chained lawyers, and other wheeler-dealers who wear $5,000 watches, drive Porsches and live in the tony mansions in the ritziest part of town. The hero is the guy next door: He’s a paving contractor or the owner of a trailer park. He drives a used car and buys clothes from cut-rate clothiers. His wife either doesn’t work outside the home or is a teacher if she does. Unknown to his neighbors, this 57-year-old lump of a guy who has lived in the same house in the same middle-class district for 20 years, who’s been married to the same girl for most of his adult life, who has an undergraduate degree from a lowly local college and who orders a Bud and a club sandwich when he eats out, is the typical American millionaire.

WHILE SMARTS DON’T NECESSARILY LEAD to financial security, having the discipline to save does: What these average joes do best is put aside money — they average 15 per cent of their income — bringing millionairehood within the reach of almost any simple soul willing to forgo flashy cars. A 20-year-old waiter who sets aside $2,000 and each year increases the previous year’s amount by $200, investing it all at an unremarkable six per cent, will be worth a million dollars by age 65.

How many of us would never pay $100 for a pair of shoes, at least once in our lifetime? Twenty-five per cent of millionaires, it turns out, have never spent that much. Ten per cent of millionaires have never even spent $50 on a wrist watch, and another 15 per cent have splurged for one with a price tag between $47 and $100. Ten per cent of millionaires spent less than $13,500 for their last car; your average millionaire spent under $25,000.

Put another way, many if not most middle-class people live better than most millionaires. Being a millionaire is a lifestyle choice that’s well within our reach, but that most of us reject. We claim “life’s too short” to pass up pleasure today for security tomorrow. We rationalize that “you can’t take it with you” to explain why we indulge ourselves with a sleek car, or a trendy vacation, or a big tip to impress a date.

THAT FORTUNES ARE EARNED and not inherited has always been so in American society. In 1892, the U.S. boasted 4,047 millionaires, and, of these, 84 per cent were nouveau riche, having reached the top without the benefit of inherited wealth. A major study completed last year by economists for the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank shows that American society continues to churn out rags-to-riches stories.

Using data of some 50,000 Americans compiled by the University of Michigan, the economists tracked people who, in 1975, inhabited the bottom rungs — the lowest fifth of American society as measured by income. By 1991, most had made it to the middle class and 29 per cent had made it to the very highest quintile. Only five per cent of those poor in 1975 stayed poor.

The moral of this story, in the end, isn’t all that new. The Millionaire Next Door is but a sequel, with numbers, to Aesop’s The Ant and The Grasshopper. Dress the ant in a polyester suit and the grasshopper in pinstripes, and you’ve recreated Aesop’s for the 1990s. Only today much of society sides with the grasshopper when the lean times come and his storehouse is empty.

Larry Solomon

Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline

by Robert H. Bork
(ReganBooks, 1996. 382 pages) $35.50

SLOUCHING TOWARDS GOMORRAH by Robert Bork is not a pleasant read. Bork has a pompous, braying tone, and his prose is too ornate. The merits of his ideas and argument do not, on the whole, compensate for these failings. Bork’s ideas for saving society from itself are familiar conservative prescriptions. Reading Bork feels the same as reading gender feminist tracts; the author’s bias makes every paragraph an insidious trick.

Bork’s target is “modern liberalism,” the dissolute but inevitable offspring of classical liberalism. While reiterating telling criticisms of the left such as increased bureaucracy, excesses of political correctness and divisive features of multiculturalism, Slouching Towards Gomorrah is deficient in four respects.

First, there are inconsistencies of reasoning. Bork wants to save America, but he also says its problems were built-in at its inception, making it difficult to see what America he wants to save. Moreover, he claims that “modern liberal” cultural and intellectual elites suppress a great conservative populism, but nevertheless he dismisses society as generally and pervasively decadent.

Second, Bork denounces long lists of perceived social ills including animal rights, homosexuality, vulgar entertainment and erotic expression, without bothering to explain why they are bad. Maybe they are, but if so, Bork should justify his assertions. An amusing passage occurs when Bork, inveighing against “obscenity,” describes encountering sexually explicit material on television in a New York hotel: “I watched for some time — riveted by the sociological significance of it all.”

Third, Bork makes numerous unsupported assertions, such as: When “Nixon came to office, the opportunity to win [the Vietnam War] was gone,” and “Fascism and Nazism were faith systems of the Left.” He offers bizarre characterizations such as: First World War soldiers were “capable of admiring courage,” while Second World War soldiers were not. Neither does he hesitate to offer begged questions, “Is abortion always the killing of a human being? . . . there can be no doubt that the answer is yes,” twists of logic, “Why there is a right for adults to enjoy pornography remains unexplained and unexplainable,” and gratuitous slurs, “Some professors were radicals themselves, a few were emotionally unstable.”

Fourth and most disappointingly, Bork fails to refute any of the left’s sometimes persuasive criticisms against the traditional society he espouses. While he laments the diminished importance of religion, for example, those failings of religion that left it susceptible to marginalization go unaddressed. Thus, when Bork prescribes a return to “the better aspects of the 1950s,” he gives the reader no reason to believe that all the worst aspects won’t come along as well. Bork suggests that society discarded valuable institutions on pure whim. He makes no counterargument to the possibility that some were flawed and proper candidates for reform.

These four failings typify the lack of reasoned discourse society labors under. While Bork is quick (and accurate) in puncturing leftist obfuscation, he employs the same tactics in blaming the left for problems that are clearly related to polarization, rather than to one of the poles. He has chosen rhetoric over proof, and so Slouching Towards Gomorrah does not stand up as a useful contribution to social thought.

Nils R. Connor

Zero Tolerance: Hot Button Politics in Canada’s Universities

by Peter C. Emberley
(Penguin Books, 1996. 313 pages) $19.99

THE RIPPLES OF the “Framework Regarding Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination in Ontario Universities,” issued in 1993 by the Ontario NDP government, are felt well beyond Ontario and perhaps even beyond Canada. This document, immediately nicknamed Zero Tolerance Policy, is Ontario’s best contribution to social engineering. For Peter Emberley, Professor of Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, zero tolerance is only one of many phantoms haunting the university. They include the corporate right of the privileged Old Boys network and the cultural and feminist left; the demands of “all-inclusivity,” accessibility and financial self-sufficiency; the hyperbolized notions of excellence, performance indicators and total quality management — and this is only the short list. Emberley concludes that the university as a social institution is on the verge of spiritual, political and financial collapse and recommends a return to scholarship to salvage the university from complete demise.

Alexander A. Berezin

Canada from Afar: The Daily Telegraph Book of Canadian Obituaries

Edited by David Twiston Davies
(Dundurn Press, 1996. 270 pages) $16.99

CANADA FROM AFAR: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF CANADIAN OBITUARIES reminds Canadians of our ties to Britain, the mother country. As Conrad Black, publisher of the Daily Telegraph, writes in this odd book’s foreword, “this volume will make a modest contribution to the valued and historic cause of close and good Anglo-Canadian relations.” Black’s Anglo patrician background suggests a natural bond with the United Kingdom. Of 100 obits, this London paper manages approximately 12 on non-Anglos. The obituaries are more biographical sketches than mere announcements and cover a broad spectrum, from political figures like Roland Michener, Joey Smallwood and René Lévesque to Victoria Cross winners such as Charlie Rutherford, Reverend John Foote and Colonel Fred Tilston.

Basil Stevens

Posted in Culture | Leave a comment

The revolutionary myth that won’t die

Posted on July 9, 2004 by Other News Sources

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
July 9, 2004

Yes, Cubans do face shortages of fuel, and yes, Cubans do suffer from shortages in medicine, supporters of Fidel Castro’s regime concede. Yes, some will also acknowledge, the island nation – once the most prosperous by far in the Caribbean – has become one of the region’s most impoverished since Castro took over.

But don’t overlook the impressive gains that Cuba has made in eradicating hunger and redistributing wealth, in health, education, literacy and social justice, Castro’s supporters retort. And don’t forget that the U.S. embargo is at the root of Cuba’s economic hardships. If the embargo hadn’t crushed Cuba’s economy, Cuba would be an economic as well as a social exemplar.

In fact, the Cuban embargo did hurt the Cuban economy but only marginally – by an estimated US$84-million to US$167-million in lost annual exports, according to the best economic estimates. The U.S. embargo has had such a modest effect because Cuba has still been able to trade with Canada, the European Union, Mexico, Japan, Russia, China and others, as well as receiving in excess of US$3-billion a year in foreign aid from the U.S.S.R. (during the Cold War) – and lesser amounts from other nations. Only a true believer could attribute Cuba’s economic collapse to an inability to trade with the U.S. In fact, Cuba’s economic collapse preceded the U.S. embargo of 1962. Shortly after Castro seized power in 1959, an immense number of talented managers and professionals fled the country, crippling Cuba’s ability to perform efficiently. To complete the job, Castro brought in his central economic plan – the ruinous First Economic and Social Plan of a Socialist Nature of 1962. With its market system in shambles, the country was forced to introduce food rationing that same year, and has never been able to restore its pre-revolution levels of production.

This once-important rice producer now produces less than it did half a century ago, its rice fields being half as productive as those of neighbouring Dominican Republic.

Similarly, Cuba now produces less sugar than before the Revolution – in fact, less than at any time since the Great Depression. Castro’s economic miracle was always a hoax, his rhetoric never succeeding to either exhort or inspire Cubans to produce for the cause of socialism.

Castro’s sham economy became evident after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, costing his economy his chief underwriter. Within three years, the Cuban economy shrank by one-third, never to recover. With Cuba refusing to make interest payments on its massive US$12-billion in foreign debts, its legions of once-supportive creditors have been cutting it off. In 2002, Moody’s debt-rating service reduced Cuba’s rating to Caa1 – “speculative grade, very poor.”

The U.S. embargo did not eviscerate the Cuban economy, Castro’s policies did. Cubans now consume less food than before the Revolution, and less food than citizens of any other Latin American country. With real wages down about 50% since 1989, leaving workers with an average pay of 50 cents per day, one person in eight is now clinically undernourished. Cuba’s food rations meet less than half of the recipients’ nutritional needs. Items the state deems to be non-essential, such as fresh milk for children, have been cut out.

To make ends meet, almost everyone in Cuba has become an operator – “making business,” as they put it. Pensioners, whose monthly stipend has been slashed to $4, often sell sweets on street corners. Young girls often sell themselves.

As for the Revolution’s great gains in health and literacy, those, too, are public-relations shams. Castro declared illiteracy to be eradicated in 1961, after a one-year Great Campaign that ended “four centuries of ignorance.” Health care is good in Cuba, but only for tourists and the government elite, who want for nothing. The poor do not have access to good hospitals, or to almost any drug – unless they carry dollars.

Cuba has consistently excelled only in the number of people it has imprisoned for political crimes. An estimated 100,000 are now imprisoned – 500,000 in all since 1959, with thousands executed, according to human rights agencies. Earlier this summer, Cuban courts convicted three activists on charges of “contempt of authority, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest” after they had been caught studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They were treated leniently: a three-year sentence. The organizer of the study session, a physician and civil rights leader, had earlier received a 25-year prison term.

In Cuba, a crime is whatever Castro wants it to be. He has criminalized not only the discussion of human rights but also the discussion of the economy; not only letters of complaint to the international press but letters of complaint to the Cuban government. It is a crime to visit a friend or relative in a neighbouring jurisdiction without government permission. To give the Cuban criminal code flexibility, Castro has amended it to provide for the arrest of Cubans for their “dangerousness” and “other acts against state security.”

Sadly, none of this matters to Castro’s supporters. For them, no amount of suffering by the Cuban people can wipe away the romantic myth of the Cuban Revolution.

Readers’ responses

Re: The Revolutionary Myth, July 9.

It seems odd that any time these types of articles are produced to argue both sides of a political difference of opinion, the writer of the left always seems to use hysteria and fear-mongering and very little fact to support his side, whilst the writer from the right always has facts and figures to back up his argument.

Witness Nino Pagliccia’s points: “The Bush administration has proven to have lied about weapons of mass destruction and been unable to deliver a peaceful transition to democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan.” None of this, of course has been proven one way or another yet and likely won’t be for quite a few years.

And then there’s this, condemning U.S. foreign policy as little more than a plan to take over every country on this continent: “Will Canada with a government that may now depend on the NDP be on the list?” Well this of course is too ludicrous to lend itself to any rational response.

On the other side Lawrence Solomon quotes provable facts and official figures to support his arguments and his condemnation of human rights violations in Cuba are well documented by every human rights organization, including that of the UN.

Charles Reid, Nanaimo, B.C.

Posted in Culture, Regulation | Leave a comment

Propping up a tropical tyranny

Posted on July 9, 2004 by Other News Sources

National Post
July 9, 2004

For those Canadians who cling to the conceit that Cuba’s socialist system presents a humane and economically viable alternative to Western capitalism, this week’s Post series on Fidel Castro’s tropical tyranny should be required reading.

As reporter Isabel Vincent has shown, universal access to quality health care may be official policy in Cuba. And indeed foreigners flashing around U.S. dollars can fly to Havana and obtain prompt, first-class treatment. But Cuba has a “two-tier” system – the kind most of Cuba’s Canadian supporters would angrily decry if it were implemented here at home. Those Cubans who lack connections to high-ranking government officials must endure long waiting lists and indifferent treatment in poorly equipped hospitals.

Moreover, Cuba is hardly a workers’ paradise: Even middle-class Cubans and professionals find it difficult to get ahead without working second and third jobs selling trinkets to tourists or driving taxis. When foreign investors set up shop, the Cuban government converts their local workers into de facto slaves. Friends of the ruling party siphon off the bulk of their foreign-source wages, and bureaucrats tax away most of the rest.

All of these facts are well known to even a casual observer of Cuban affairs. But this being Canada, it is useful to point them out all the same. Since the Trudeau era, elites in this country have been eager to cozy up to Fidel Castro’s regime. Even today, as the dictatorial Mr. Castro continues to stifle dissent and imprison his political enemies, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) remains actively engaged in projects aimed at bolstering Cuba’s infrastructure.

The reason mostly boils down to national hubris. For decades, the United States has pursued a hard-line policy of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Cuba. Canadian nationalism, inevitably defined in reflex opposition to what Washington does, therefore argues for Canadian-Cuban rapprochement.

We are not arguing that Canada should join the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba – which, to our minds, has been counterproductive because it allows Mr. Castro to blame his country’s many problems on the United States. But that doesn’t mean our government should be actively helping Cuba, either. CIDA has a limited amount of funds at its disposal, and can help only a small fraction of the world’s impoverished billions. Given the unmet humanitarian needs of such struggling democracies as, say, Afghanistan, Nigeria and India, why on earth would we divert any funds to prop up a dictatorship?

This is hardly the first time such a question has been put to CIDA. And in response to its critics, the agency has posted a document on its Web site entitled “Why is CIDA involved in Cuba?”

“Considerable progress has been made in improving the social conditions of the Cuban people, as reflected in the country’s high literacy levels and low infant mortality rates,” the document states. “In 1989, Cuba lost its main trade partner and major source of financial subsidy, the Soviet Union. The break-up of its former ally, combined with the ongoing U.S. trade embargo, led to a deep recession . . . CIDA can assist Cuba through an exchange of technology and expertise to encourage economic reforms that will both help preserve the significant investments that Cuba has made in its people and assist in Cuba’s efforts to stimulate economic growth.”

In regard to the improving “social conditions” that so impress CIDA, we refer the agency’s officials to Lawrence Solomon‘s fine essay . . . As for “Cuba’s efforts to stimulate economic growth and activity,” we would be interested to see CIDA expand on what fate befell Cuba’s “former ally,” Soviet Russia. Having cast off dictatorship and embraced democracy, recall, the Russians went through a lean decade. But the country is now booming in a way that the average Cuban could scarcely comprehend. So is China, another nation that – economically at least – has cast off the dogmas of communism.

The lesson is plain: Prosperity is impossible without freedom. And in the long term, all of CIDA’s band-aids will do little to “stimulate economic growth and activity” until Mr. Castro’s Soviet-style dictatorship is overthrown.

Posted in Culture, Regulation | Leave a comment

Here comes the sun

Posted on June 24, 2004 by Other News Sources

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
June 24, 2004

Go to YouTube and you can see a corporate video of a printing press running at 100 feet per minute, applying a nanoparticle ink to foil and producing solar cells. This machine is owned by Nanosolar Inc., which in turn is partly owned by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google. This one printing machine, Nanosolar claims, can produce solar cells with a capacity of 1,000 MW per year, the equivalent of a nuclear reactor at Indian Point outside Manhattan or two nuclear reactors at Pickering outside Toronto.

Unlike nuclear reactors, which take a decade to build and billions of dollars in capital costs before delivering a single kilowatt-hour to a home or business, Nanosolar’s breakthrough technology can help meet society’s power needs soon after its ink has dried, and the press’s capital costs amount to a mere $1.65-million. Put another way, we can wait 10 years to get nuclear power up and running. Or, by relying on a single Nanosolar press, we can have the solar equivalent of a major nuclear plant in one year, and the equivalent of 10 major plants in a decade. Soon, says Nanosolar, its printing presses will be operating much faster — perhaps 20 times faster. Should this prove feasible, a single Nanosolar press would pump out in a single decade the equivalent of 200 nuclear plants — far more than now exist in all of North America.

To add to the slam-dunk superiority of Nanosolar-type technology over nuclear, solar cells produce power when we especially need it — when people are awake and industries are humming. During the low-value off-peak hours when power is in great surplus, the solar cells sleep, too. Nuclear reactors, by contrast, can’t ratchet down or turn off when their output isn’t needed. Off-peak nuclear power, in fact, is sometimes produced at a loss because its operating costs exceeds the pittance earned at, say, 3 a.m.

To get bang for the buck, and obtain the power that a growing economy needs, nuclear and solar are as different as night and day. Nuclear power, a half-century after the launch of the first generation of nuclear reactors, remains an immature technology, each successive generation proving to be not only unreliable but also subject to ever-higher costs. Solar technology, in contrast, becomes ever more reliable and ever less costly, and is only immature in the same way that computer technology is immature — there is no end in sight yet to how far and fast it can go.

Nanosolar, founded in 2002 by two Stanford PhD candidates applying Silicon Valley smarts, is a case in point. By the end of 2003, it had obtained 60 patents, By 2004, it had developed its printing method. By 2006, it had published its results in a peer-reviewed journal and, within months, raised $100-million. By the end of 2007 it had made its first commercial shipment. Now Nanosolar can’t keep up with the demand — its factory’s output for the next 12-months is pre-sold.

Nanosolar’s solar panels could go on rooftops but the company recommends against this — at least until building codes become flexible enough to accommodate panels without the need to battle municipal bureaucracies. Besides, it says, it is developing a residential product sure to wow the homeowner.

In the meantime, it touts small municipal solar power plants that can be up and running in one year on the outskirts of cities and towns, where land is readily available. Each would be between 2 MW and 10 MW in size — enough to power 1,000 to 5,000 homes. Put one of these in several hundred cities and a nuclear plant’s worth of power would be delivered, locally and in a decentralized manner, and without the expensive and unsightly transmission towers that accompany large nuclear plants.

As impressive as Nanosolar is, here’s something more impressive still: This company is but one of several with solar breakthroughs that stand to revolutionize the energy world. Some of the competing solar technologies are designed for large-scale applications, some small. In this dynamic new energy marketplace, some will prosper and, doubtless, some will fail, just as many of the computer pioneers in the 1970s and 1980s failed for one reason or another. But large or small, well capitalized or not, the solar technologies are working more impressively than anyone could have dreamed a decade ago and seem certain to overtake nuclear as a provider of additional power to our electricity systems. If the projections from Nanosolar and others prove accurate, in fact, they will become the most economic power source of all, besting even coal.

Clean, limitless power is now within grasp, courtesy of those who have reached for the sun.

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