Canada to pay out $4.3-billion to farmers in wake of TPP deal

…

Ottawa said Monday it will spend $4.3-billion* over 15 years to compensate dairy, chicken and egg farmers, who are ceding what Canadian officials called “limited access” to their now highly protected markets under the TPP deal and the earlier free trade deal with Europe. The subsidies will “keep producers whole,” according to a government press release.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tpp-trade-deal-reached/article26648472/

* – Money that will be extorted from Canadians under implicit threats of violence (a.k.a. taxes)

• 4.1 Aboriginal law
• 4.2 Administrative law
• 4.3 Human rights in Canada
• 4.4 Contract law
• 4.5 Constitutional law
• 4.6 Copyright law
• 4.7 Criminal law
• 4.8 Evidence law
• 4.9 Family law
• 4.10 Immigration and refugee law
• 4.11 Inheritance law
• 4.12 Insolvency law of Canada
• 4.13 Labour and employment law
  …

“…there are too many Statutes to even begin to count.”

“Presumed knowledge of the law is the principle in jurisprudence that one is bound by a law even if one does not know of it. It has also been defined as the “prohibition of ignorance of the law”.”
…

This principle is also stated into law:

• Canada: Criminal Code (RSC 1985, c. C-46), section 19″

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Canada

https://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080814144358AAJUeLM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_excusat

“Health colleges routinely cut deals to shorten suspensions for members caught making fake billings if certain conditions are met, the Star found.

These conditions include ethics and accounting courses, remedial training and requiring the health professional to pay the college’s costs in building the discipline case.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/10/03/web-of-deceit-pharmacist-billed-province-for-dead-patients.html

http://www.ocpinfo.com/about/

“In the last five years, nearly 350 officers from police services in the Greater Toronto Area — Toronto, Peel, York, Halton and Durham — and the OPP have been disciplined for what their own services call “serious” misconduct, a Star investigation has found.

Roughly one in five of those officers was disciplined because he or she had been found guilty of criminal offences, including assaulting his or her spouse, drunk driving, possessing drugs and theft.

Nearly 50 of the officers were disciplined more than once; some were nailed for new offences just months after being penalized for past misconduct. One officer was busted for being drunk behind the wheel twice in one week.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/19/hundreds-of-officers-in-the-greater-toronto-area-disciplined-for-serious-misconduct-in-past-five-years.html

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/21/police-officers-caught-using-their-position-for-personal-gain-in-recent-years.html

“Twice in the last six months, CRA agents have admitted to me that Canada’s tax collector agency has broken Canada’s privacy laws.

Nobody seems to notice.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-did-revenue-canada-get-away-with-breaching-my-privacy/article22061423/

“According to officials at the ministry of public safety, which releases the report each year on RCMP’s crimes, most of the laws are broken during undercover operations.

The police immunity stems from a 1999 Supreme Court ruling that found that while police officers are not immune from criminal liability, Parliament could decide on some immunity if it were in the “public interest.”

In 2003, Parliament tabled an amendment to the criminal code that allowed officers and agents to break laws – with permission – on the condition the acts “were subject to a legal requirement of reasonableness and proportionality,” the 2012 report said.

In addition to the RCMP, the law breaking privileges extend to customs officers and immigration officers.”

http://ipolitics.ca/2013/06/07/undercover-civilians-allowed-to-break-law-during-cra-corruption-probe/

“For example, the rights and immunities accorded to [Parliament] Members individually are generally categorized under the following headings:

• freedom of speech;
• freedom from arrest in civil actions;
• exemption from jury duty;
• exemption from attendance as a witness.
  …”

http://www.parl.gc.ca/marleaumontpetit/DocumentViewer.aspx?Language=E&Print=2&Sec=Ch03&Seq=2

“…there was no chance for public input before rookie Councillor Justin Di Ciano proposed that Toronto reverse its stand. The motion, part of debate on proposed changes to the City of Toronto Act, passed 25-18, with the support of seven councillors who reversed their earlier support for ranked ballots.

…

Under ranked ballots, a candidate with a majority of first-place votes — 50 per cent plus one — wins, just as in the current system. If nobody meets that threshold, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is knocked out. The second-place choices of that candidate’s supporters are added to the totals of the remaining hopefuls, and so on, until somebody has a majority.

“The way it happened was entirely undemocratic; it really feels underhanded,” said Katherine Skene, of Ranked Ballot Initiative. “But we’re hopeful that there is still the possibility for change.””

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2015/10/02/toronto-council-reversal-on-ranked-ballots-criticized.html

Slavery: involuntary subjection to another or others. Slavery emphasizes the idea of complete ownership and control by a master…

“The federal government and the provincial and territorial governments all have laws that provide rights and freedoms: laws against discrimination in employment and accommodation, consumer protection laws, environmental laws and, in the area of criminal law, laws that give rights to witnesses, victims and persons accused of crimes, to name only a few.

…

Section 1 of the Charter says that governments may limit Charter rights so long as those limits are ones that a free and democratic society would accept as reasonable*. It is also possible for governments to pass laws that take away some rights under the Charter. Under section 33 of the Charter (sometimes called the “notwithstanding clause”), Parliament or a legislature can make a particular law exempt from certain sections of the Charter – the fundamental freedoms (in section 2), the legal rights (in sections 7 to 14) and the equality rights (in section 15).”

http://www.pch.gc.ca/eng/1355760105725/1355760725223

* – Do you remember the “democratic” vote that took place for this? And exactly how “free” are Canadians when they need to be “granted” rights and freedoms, need to ask government for permission to marry someone, may not ingest anything that government doesn’t allow, do anything to their bodies that’s not government approved, are indebted to the government for their entire lives (and beyond) based on some non-existent “social contract” that they implicitly agreed to the moment that they popped out of the womb, and so on?

A few weeks ago when the HR lady called me and told me that I too was now among a number of people who had been laid off as a result of “business decisions”, I could scarcely contain my enthusiasm. “That’s great!”, I replied giddily. There was a moment of silence before I caught myself. “I mean, that sucks … terrible .. but it’s great that I know about it sooner rather than later”, I sputtered. Good save.

I clumsily explained that, having spoken to colleagues and being aware of the changes, I could now live without the uncertainty, then swung the conversation back around to me getting fired.

“Yeah, no, that’s bad news,” I assured her but added that the severance would be helpful.

I was lying – I was elated.

Thing is, I’d been working on a project in my spare time that it was probably best to keep hush-hush. So it was. The main complication was the fact that the project is an online poker game and I was – until recently – working for a company that had bought PokerStars. It wasn’t that I was “borrowing” code or secrets or clients or anything like that, and I genuinely liked working for them, it’s just that the whole situation felt complicated.

Besides I just thought that the idea was too damn good to risk any potential roadblocks, especially early on. So I assumed an alias and toned down my writing style.

I was asked why I included a cryptographic identity when I first announced the project on Reddit, and this is why. I was probably being a little too paranoid but so far everyone I’ve discussed it with thinks it’s a pretty darned good idea. I’ve even seen it suggested that if such a thing could be built it would be “super revolutionary“, “so obviously disruptive“, “a killer app“, and other encouraging adjectives, so protecting the work by keeping my identity hidden seemed wise.

I hope you can see how one might foresake blogging for a bit in order to concentrate on such a project, but I did at least hint at it when I was starting to see some solid first results. I wasn’t just talking out of my ass there.

So since we’re at the part of the story where I’m unveiled as the guy behind the project I might as well call it by its real name: CypherPoker.

Okay, so it’s an online poker game, right? So what?

Well, for starters, it really is quite unique, disruptive, and revolutionary – it’s almost entirely bass-ackwards to the way that online poker currently works.

I’m sure that I’m not giving anything away when I say that most online gaming sites operate under a “client-server” model. This means that they own and operate computers with big internet connections that “serve” game information to the players’  computers or “clients”. In effect, games take place almost entirely on the operators’ computers; clients are used mostly to display the results of the games in a nice way.

This makes sense. You can see how it’d be problematic if the clients (players/peers) were to decide how cards should be dealt – someone would just need to hack the software to enable all sorts of cheating. In the client-server approach hackers would have to get at the servers which is much more difficult (but not impossible).

Players must also trust that operators are being fair and honest, and when they are, that they are able to properly monitor their systems for cheating. This has not always been the case.

With CypherPoker this approach is turned almost entirely on its head and in a way that seems paradoxical. For example, players play directly with each other (a.k.a. peer-to-peer) – no servers are needed.

But didn’t I just finish talking about how problematic it’d be if players were allowed to “deal” each other cards over the internet?

Yeah. In fact, the problem was described much more succinctly in a somewhat obscure MIT paper entitled “Mental Poker“:

Can two potentially dishonest players play a fair game of poker without using any cards … over the phone?

Even though this question seems like a real mind fuck, there’s actually a viable solution to the problem and the authors go on to show you how it’s done.

Because the answer uses math (cryptography), and since we’re no longer living in the Dark Ages, substituting “phone” with “networked computing device” is a simple but necessary step; I ain’t doing the calculations on paper!

Back when “Mental Poker” was still a fresh and new idea, computers just weren’t capable of handling the kinds of computations needed to play a decent game. I remember reading that a card “shuffle” operation in an early Mental Poker implementation required hours of calculation. Can you imagine how long a single game would last? Yikes! Well, it’s 2015 and modern hardware is finally capable of crunching the numbers in a reasonable amount of time.

Paradoxically, visualizing how the game works requires no math skills whatsoever.

First we need to get our hands on 52 identical, peek-proof lock boxes with a miraculous ability to repel any markings (scratches, dents, paints, decals, etc.) In addition we’ll need 52 identical locks with the same miraculous abilities and one master key to open them all. My opponent, you, also has 52 miracle locks and a key to go with them.

Now I start by distributing the cards in my card deck into the boxes – one per – and lock them all. I mix up the boxes for good measure and call Larry’s Super Courier service to deliver them to you. You soon get the boxes and apply your own locks so that now all of the boxes are double-locked. With the way that each box is secured, either lock can come off first. Even though this is easy to achieve using physical lock boxes (just use a big latch), it’s a very important property – we need to be able to add or remove locks in any order for this process to work.

After being mixed up again the 52 double-locked boxes are returned to me.

Since we’re playing Texas Hold’em, I need to select two private (hole) cards for myself so I simply pick two boxes and send them to you. You remove your locks from them so that only my locks remain. When the boxes are returned to me I remove my locks and extract my cards – simple. Notice that even though I locked all the boxes first, I had to unlock these two boxes last – after you removed your locks. Without the ability to add or remove locks in any order this all wouldn’t work.

Of course you need to repeat this process in order to “unlock” other cards, and there are other types of exchanges that are required for a full card game, but that’s the gist of it.

If we use numbers to represent physical cards – 1=Ace of Spades, 2=Two of Spades, etc. – we can use cryptography to “lock” and “unlock” them. As long as the cryptography is “commutative”, or can be applied and removed in any order, we can effectively play a fair game of poker over a telephone. Or maybe over the internet with a computer to do the calculations and display the results.

The “Mental Poker” idea is plenty cool all by itself but if you throw the serendipitous rise of Bitcoin into the mix, the whole thing starts to take on new dimensions. When you add anonymity via something like Tor or I2P to the game and the associated services (for example, introducing random internet players to each other), the possibilities absolutely blossom.

CypherPoker is well beyond the idea stage; the game exists and is available to play today. I spent the time writing versatile and solid code so the game is functional but the user interface sucks. However, now that I can drop the alias I can also drop the hammer so we’ll see about getting that and other shortcomings rectified forthwith.

In addition, I’m going to spend more quality time with TCL and my other blog again, partially to prevent any future fears regarding my freedom and well-being, partially to put my new camera to good use (other one disappeared a while back), but also to document and discuss the project’s progress more closely and regularly now that I don’t have to censor my output. I haven’t found any “Mental Poker” implementations that are as far along as mine so it’s hard to say exactly what lies ahead but that tingly feeling in my gut tells me that it’s probably going to be awesome.

From 2009:

“…I also had visions of a Hindenburg-like execution that, on top of stretching the project out to a future when the apes have taken over, includes cost overruns that are certain to result in another new tax.”

From today:

“Renovations to Toronto’s Union Station will not be completed until 2017 at the earliest – two years behind schedule and $160-million over the original budget.

The city’s government management committee met Monday to approve an additional $4-million for the project, bringing the total cost of the renovations to $800-million – up from its original $640-million price-tag. And the project, originally expected to reach “substantial completion” in 2015, now won’t be ready until 2017.”

Although it’s lacking teeth,  an op-ed piece in the National Post fairly succinctly summarizes what I’ve been blathering on about for God-only-knows how long now. You don’t need to have a PoliSci degree to see what’s happening but although I doubt I’ll ever be able to shake my ageing parents’ (and many of their generation’s) scorn at my “naiveté”, “ignorance”, and “radical” views on government, at least I know I’m in fine scholarly company.

…the prime minister seems to have the unchecked power to decide when the House should be in session, when elections should occur, and even, in some circumstances, when their governments do or do not have the confidence of the House.

In the past I’ve referred to this as fascism, sometimes as a dictatorship, and often as a tyranny, but as I’ve tried to point out labels ultimately matter far less than deeds.

In the House, the prime minister and government have considerable control over day-to-day operations. This allows governments not only to set the agenda, but to carry it out with ease. The prime minister commands the steadfast loyalty of his MPs, largely through a carrot-and-stick approach; co-operative MPs might be rewarded with cabinet posts or coveted committee positions, while rogues can be — and at times are — punished with removal from caucus or even barred from running as a candidate for the party in future elections. All of these are vestiges of prime ministerial power. The party caucus has little leverage with which to counterbalance the prime minister’s power because party leaders are chosen (and replaced) by the party at large, rather than by the caucus. Thus, the government’s MPs have no effective mechanism through which to stand their ground against a very powerful leader or effectively represent his or her constituents.

Critics regularly cite our seemingly dizzying array of market choices as proof that government has little control in our day-to-day lives. Although they can hardly provide a straight and articulate answer without sneering derision, state supporters are often stumped by simple facts. For example, all of the so-called “choices” that the so-called “free market” offers are all directly controlled by government.

No?

Okay, name any product or service in Canada that doesn’t require government legal authorization, licensing, approval, etc. In other words, you have only the choices that government allows and you’re coerced, backed by threats of violence and imprisonment, into paying for this through taxes. Yes, you can buy things on the black market but you face the wrath of government if you decide thusly to exercise your “free choice” and of course you’re guilty until you can prove otherwise (which they can still arbitrarily reject).

Because they’re now stumped, government lackeys immediately pivot their argument to deflect by claiming that this is necessary to “keep us safe”. To this I would simply suggest cracking open a newspaper – the evidence of how government doesn’t keep us safe is in the news pretty much on a daily basis. Whether this involves food, health, personal safety, privacy, and a litany of other claims about protections, there are regular and glaring examples of how this simply isn’t true.

The statist argument typically changes course once again at this point to demand that nothing – our hospitals, roads, water and electrical systems, etc. – would exist without government. I’ve addressed these obviously specious arguments a number of times in the past but I will concede that government vehicles with government employees do sometimes drive up to a pothole, and one labourer and three supervisors spend three to four weeks filling it with a cop or two gladly accepting extorted taxpayer money to text or browse the web on their cell phones or chat with the crew, while out of sight pedestrians and cars are left to their own devices to share the dangerous inches left for them. Sounds an awful lot like the lazy welfare whores that government is keen to trot out to justify how we should receive even less state “benefits”, doesn’t it?

In other words, government supplies a few services through a wasteful, overpriced, badly (if at all) regulated process, something that is typically done far more efficiently by the private sector. This makes sense – the private business has to look out for their bottom line, government can just raise taxes and you’ll be brutalized or extorted by “authorities” and go to jail if you don’t like it. There’s no incentive for government to be efficient or benefit citizens in any way, and every single government institution behaves according to this.

Don’t believe? Just try and apply for any government “benefits” to see how hard your loving, benign government works for you. Call up a government “service” phone line and see for yourself how much service you receive. While you’re at it, try calling the cops when you actually need them – I have and that’s why I know better.

Rather than becoming more like a system of presidential executive authority, this situation has left Canadian prime ministers in a position more akin to historical monarchs. The evolution of Westminster democracy in Canada is very much a story about the struggle to wrestle power away from the Crown and shift it to Parliament, and specifically the House of Commons, our primary democratic body and check on unfettered prime ministerial power. The ability of prime ministers to retain and use these Crown powers, alongside other powers over MPs and the House of Commons, is resulting in a situation where prime ministers have the power to make decisions, partisan and otherwise, that limit or negate Parliament’s role as a guardian for accountability in our democratic system.

This is not simply about politics or even personalities. Almost all recent prime ministers have used these powers to try to advance their partisan interests. What it is about is the erosion of our democratic institutions and the effect on democratic governance.

The next rhetorical recourse of any good government lapdog is to state that, yeah, okay, maybe government isn’t perfect but we have “checks and balances” to ensure that things more or less work out for most people. And if we don’t like it we can vote in someone else!

These are other points I’ve addressed at length and are yet more claims that can be factually rebutted with a mountain of evidence to the contrary (this blog is filled with it). And while it’s claimed that the media would surely alert us to these issues it’s easy to demonstrate that this is highly unlikely to be the case. Unless you seek out increasingly derided alternative sources you will only know what government and friends want you to know.

If your final argument is that people are too stupid to know what’s good for them, hence the need for unquestionable government, then kindly shut your ignorance hole – you’ve just brilliantly insisted that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

Put this all together and the will of the people is entirely irrelevant and, in fact, something to be suppressed.

It’s at this point when state defenders throw up their hands and exasperatedly exclaim, “Oh well! Then I guess we must be living under a King or Queen then, huh?!”

Yeah, smart guy. Flip over your Canadian money or do a Wikipedia search – Canada is a monarchy and whether the titular head is the queen or Harper the effect is the same.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/05/21/more-money-from-stephen-harper-for-rcmp-and-border-services-to-fight-terrorism.html