While Vellacott's message may have been accurate, his words were not. He paid the price for disrespecting, as the media is wont to say, "the most respected institution in Canada". Yeah, whatever. I personally think the guy is a wing-nut and have for quite a while, definitely a loose cannon.

However, paraphrasing some appointed lackey who believes it's her job to see the common-law vs. the written law via some power bestowed is no where near as bad as this.

The RCMP are a much more respected institution in Canada than any lawyer-cum-judge, even if they are supreme.

I wonder if the press will be calling for Nathan Cullen's head? Nah, I didn't think so either.

Hopefully we'll get to see, as Nathan says on his diary

Another critical week in the House as we saw how this government acts
with controversy and the challenge of ministers and the prime minister
making some ill-advised decisions.
	

Except, of course, substitute "ministers" with "back-bench nobodies", and "prime minister" with "Jack Layton". Oh, and Nathan, "Prime Minister" is capitalized.

Update:Robert takes the ball and runs with it.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 23:08 | Comments (2) | [politics] | G

In a comment in this post on SDA, poster "maryjane" says this:

I'm not sure what you're refering to re: 5000 new civil servants,
Kate, but far be it from me to defend wasteful spending. If the civil
service is bloated, then by all means, it should be downsized. I would
suggest we start by eliminating the Dept. of Agriculture and the farm
subsidies that go with it.
		

I've seen that 5000 number thrown around a lot, so I decided to check up on it. Stats Canada to the rescue.

So I found the chart I wanted: Employment by age, sex, type of work, class of worker and province (monthly) (Saskatchewan) but that is a monthly snapshot and I wanted to compare across several years.

So I had to pay StatsCan 3 bucks for a specific dig into their database. Pretty small price to pay . . . but I despise giving them money for information that should be free.

The results of the query were interesting. I asked for monthlies between 1987 and 2006. Here are the results. These are the April numbers:

Table 282-00891,5,6

Labour force survey estimates (LFS), employment by class of worker and
sex, seasonally adjusted and unadjusted, monthly (Persons x 1,000)

Survey or program details:
Labour Force Survey - 3701

Geography=Saskatchewan
Class of worker=Public sector employees2
Sex=Both sexes
Seasonal adjustment=Unadjusted

(in thousands)
Apr 87 - 104.9
Apr 88 - 104.5
Apr 89 - 105.1
Apr 90 - 101.9
Apr 91 - 102.1
Apr 92 - 103.4
Apr 93 - 106.0
Apr 94 - 101.5
Apr 95 - 103.9
Apr 96 - 100.8
Apr 97 - 104.2
Apr 98 - 102.0
Apr 99 - 106.3
Apr 00 - 108.8
Apr 01 - 109.7
Apr 02 - 109.8
Apr 03 - 112.8
Apr 04 - 115.6
Apr 05 - 118.9
Apr 06 - 120.4
		  

Now, remember, Calvert took over the NDP in Feb. 2001. Let's look at those numbers again!

Apr 01 - 109.7
Apr 02 - 109.8
Apr 03 - 112.8
Apr 04 - 115.6
Apr 05 - 118.9
Apr 06 - 120.4
		

120.4 - 109.7 = 10.7

So the 5000 new civil servants is a blatant lie. It's mis-information spread by the vast right-wing conspiracy.

The real number of new gov't workers is actually 10, 700.

As I explained here these people don't pay into the Saskatchewan tax base. To quote me:

...when 100% of a salary is generated from the tax system, any smaller
percentage given back as tax is actually a net detraction from
tax. What that means is that public servants do not pay tax from the
perspective of the tax base.. If Joe civil-servant makes $100 paid by
the tax base, and gives his $40 dollars back to the tax system, the
tax system isn't $40 richer, it's lost $60 dollars.
		

So that's 10.7 thousand more people skimming off of the rest of us in just five years. That number increases, the 'us' number decreases.

This is not a good way to grow the province you NDP and union dips.

And people wonder why stuff like this tends to really piss us off.

Cheers,
lance

Posted at: 14:00 | Comments (6) | [sask] | G