Dead soldier's parents say military has left them hanging

More than a year ago, Cpl. Matthew Dinning was killed in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb. Today, at a press conference on Parliament Hill, his frustrated parents said that despite many promises, they are still waiting for the Department of National Defence to reimburse them for expenses associated with their son’s death and burial.

From a Canadian Press story:

The Defence Department says it compensated one family whose funeral expenses outstripped the military stipend, and O'Connor assured the House of Commons this week that the full cost of each service has been covered since he became minister in early 2006.

Lincoln Dinning said he and his wife were offended by O'Connor's insistence all had been cared for, saying they felt “our family's integrity was being called into question.''

“We stand here today telling you that we have not been fully reimbursed for Matthew's funeral costs, despite that Mr. O'Connor stood up in the House of Commons and told the Canadian people the exact opposite.''

Dinning said he submitted at least two written requests for reimbursement to National Defence last year.

Lincoln Dinning – a former Ontario Provincial Police Officer — and his wife made the eight-hour drive yesterday from their home in the southwestern Ontario town of Wingham to publicly tell O’Connor that his department is nont doing right by his son.

“It’s not about money. It’s about the principle of the thing. This should be a no-brainer,” Dinning said.

 

Study: Accountants are the moral beacon of the workplace

Now here’s a finding you don’t see every day:

Media Release – Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario

Study finds human resource managers not motivated by moral responsibility to implement workplace health programs, but finds accountants are

May 30, 2007

London, Ontario – A new study coming out of the Richard Ivey School of Business and the University of Lethbridge has examined human resource, accountants and senior general managers’ attitudes towards implementing workplace health programs (WHP) and what motivates these groups to implement them.  The study finds that surprisingly, while all were motivated by their belief that the programs reduce indirect costs of health failure, accountants were the group most motivated by their moral responsibility towards employees but surprisingly human resource managers were not. Senior general managers were somewhere in the middle.

The study, co-authored by David Sharp, Professor, Richard Ivey School of Business with Associate Professor Angela Downey at the University of Lethbridge also found that despite the benefits, societal expectation in Canada played no role in motivating senior management to provide workplace health promotion programs. 

….

In the study, human resource managers, who usually have responsibility for workplace health programs, felt constrained by a lack of power to commit resources.  But controllers’ motivations were driven by their perceived moral responsibility towards employees and their ability to control spending. 

“The inability of human resource managers to significantly influence discretionary spending may have important negative implications for the successful implementation of health promotion programs,” said co-author David Sharp. 

Whatever human resource managers’ views were about their moral responsibility towards their employees, these views had no impact on their plans to implement workplace health programs, perhaps researchers suggest because they have to be increasingly focused on bottom line outcomes. 

“Human resource managers are increasingly concerned with the bottom line and are less likely to be motivated by moral responsibility and more likely to be motivated by outcomes linked to cost savings,” said Sharp.

Liberals fight attack ads on the cheap

On Tuesday, the Conservative Party launched a new series of advertisements, which will air on mainstream television and radio stations, which attack Liberal leader Stephane Dion.

Today, the Young Liberals of Canada announced a plan to hit back but do not have the money to buy TV and radio ads. Instead, they will use online services such as Google’s YouTube, Facebook and a collection of sympathetic bloggers and instant messaging services.

Some of the Liberal ads (left) pick up on ads run by Apple Computer “I”m a Mac. I’m a PC.” In the YLC incarnation, “I’m a Liberal. I’m a P.C.”.

Here’s an excerpt from the Young Liberal press release:

“Look, it's no secret the Conservatives are a wealthy party who can afford all kinds of fancy marketing executives and focus groups,” admits (Youth National Director Scott) Pickup, “but within the Liberal family we've got talent, we've got dedication, and we've got a clear vision for Canada of which we're proud.”

The three parody ads will be promoted through a multi-pronged approach that utilizes youngliberals.ca, Facebook, youtube.com, instant-messenger programs, and bloggers. This cohesive online campaign provides an opportunity for members and supporters to disseminate and share their messages quickly and affordably.

“The internet isn't a magical playground in a computer,” says Youth Campaign Director and Online Campaign Co-chair Denise Brunsdon. “This is another layer of social interaction, and a far cheaper method of communication than t.v. and radio.”

“Our commission has always worked on a shoestring budget. I'm constantly impressed by what a few smart Liberals can accomplish when we put their heads together,” agreed Young Liberal President Cory Pike.

Peace be with you

The 2,500–plus men and women now serving with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan are not, technically, on a peacekeeping mission. Peacekeeping, so far as Canadian soldiers have experienced it, means inserting oneself in between two warring factions. In Afghanistan, of course, we are one of the warring factions.

That said, peacekeeping and peacekeepers have a noble history in Canada. Here’s an excerpt from the House of Commons today:

Mr. Rick Norlock (Northumberland—Quinte West, CPC) :
Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to pay tribute to the brave men and women, military and civilian, who have served on behalf of Canada in peacekeeping missions around the world.

Today is International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers and Canadians have much to be proud of. Canada has always been strongly committed to international peace and security and has a proud history in the United Nations peacekeeping, from Cyprus to Bosnia to the Golan Heights.

Today is no different. We currently have 129 Canadians serving nine United Nations missions, including 66 personnel with the UN stabilization mission in Haiti and 33 personnel in the UN mission in the Sudan. Canadians owe a great deal of debt to all Canadians who have so proudly represented our country around the world.

Finally, I call upon all members of this House to take a moment to remember Major Hess-von Kruedener, who died on July 25, 2006 while serving at the United Nations observations post in Lebanon.

This government extends its thanks to all those who are currently serving and those who have served in the past.

 

That distinct society thing

A Montreal Gazette reporter and headline writer sum things up nicely:

Again, Quebec’s distinct: we don’t want tax cuts

Even toughened pollsters are amazed by the sheer mass of Quebecers who don’t want lower taxes.

It might lead some people to think Quebecers are crazy, said Christian Bourque of Léger Marketing, whose firm ran a post-budget poll that found 70 per cent of Quebecers are opposed to the $950 million in tax cuts announced in last week’s provincial budget.

“One way to look at it is that we’re the only people in North America not to want a tax cut,” he said in a follow-up interview. But looked at another way, it’s perfectly rational, he said: merely people acting in self-interest – the most normal of political responses….

Washington Post: US Rejects G-8 Climate Proposal

The Washington Post reports yesterday that:

U.S. Rejects G-8 Climate Proposal

Germany Urges Limiting Emissions, Temperature Increase

U.S. officials have raised a second round of unusually bluntly worded objections to a proposed global-warming declaration that Germany prepared for next month's Group of Eight summit, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Representatives from the world's leading industrial nations met the past two days in Heiligendamm, Germany, to negotiate over German Chancellor Angela Merkel's proposed statement, which calls for limiting the worldwide temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 …

Federal Conservatives ban Facebook for staffers

My favourite unofficial pipeline to the Prime Minister’s Office — and I write that with tongue firmly-in-cheek — reports that Facebook has been banned by someone — the reporter here does not say who — within senior federal Conservative ranks. As a result, if you are an “exempt staff” for Conservative ministers, you are no longer allowed to use Facebook. The reporter tries hard to put the best spin on this message:

“Blogs understandably represented a communications challenge amongst a team that prides itself on tight messaging. Facebook not only represents this same challenge, but also has the potential for being a rich back-channel for opposition researchers, among others.”

And as is typical in this reporter’s posts-that-pose-as-reportage, no sources are quoted and no reaction is sought out.

This ban follows a ban on Facebook use at work that applies to all Ontario civil servants and to civil servants in many federal government departments.

I expect that the Conservative ban will — sadly, I’m forced to say — shorten my Facebook friends list. Happily, Dimitri Soudas, the deputy press secretary to the Prime Minister (who, I would assume, would be on Harper’s “exempt staff” is still my Facebook Friend.) But others are not.

Take, for example, the case of Jeffrey Kroeker. Kroeker, is among the exempt staff of Secretary of State Helena Guergis, but most recently was on the staff of Sen. Marjory LeBreton, the leader of the government in the Senate. Kroeker was identified in a report of a special Senate committee as the individual who leaked some documents to CTV National News about wasteful spending by mostly Liberal senators.  Kroeker wrote about this at his Facebook site but subsequently deleted his comments on the Senate issue and then de-activated his Facebook account. He has not indicated if he did this of his own accord or if he was so directed.

 

Drugs were promised. None were delivered.

In 2005, Canada fiddled with its patent laws so that developing countries — the reform initiative was called the “Jean Chretien Pledge To Africa Act” — could get cheap access to drugs that could help fight AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases. Since the passage of the “Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime” (CAMR) legislation, not one pill has ever been exported.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science, and Technology thinks that’s a rotten record of achievement and it wants to see what can be done about it. That committee’s chair, Conservative MP James Rajotte, has written a letter to Industry Minister Maxime Bernier about the problem:

I am writing on behalf of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology concerning Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR). The Committee is concerned that since the passage of the legislation that created CAMR in 2005, no pharmaceutical products have been exported to any country under the regime . . .

Here is an excerpt of testimony the committee heard last month from the CEO of generic drug maker, Apotex, Jack Kay:

  In Africa, hundreds of thousands of people die needlessly from HIV/AIDS every year because they do not have access to [the right] medicines. The reason is simple: the multinational pharmaceutical industry does not like to reduce its prices, and it's better to sell to industrialized countries, where it can charge higher prices.

After listening to a speech by Stephen Lewis, we made a corporate commitment to do something about the problem. In 2002 we made an offer to the federal government of the day that we would produce five antiretrovirals at our cost, as long as the government got them to where they could be used in Africa. The government never even offered to look at our proposal. Part of the problem was that there was no mechanism to facilitate the process, and there was a lack of infrastructure for effective distribution. In the meantime, millions continue to die from HIV and AIDS.

    Then in 2003 Bill C-9 was tabled, and hope was high that something was going to get done.

    Here is a recap of the Apotex experience. We worked in consultation with Médecins Sans Frontières, who outlined the HIV/AIDS medicines that were in critical need and advised us that a combination drug of Lamivudine, Zidovudine, plus Nevirapine was needed. We started working on Apo-TriAvir, and a special R and D team was assigned to this project. They doubled their efforts, working weekends and overtime to complete the submission dossier. Many worked on their own because they wanted to do something important for HIV/AIDS patients in Africa. This drug could potentially save millions of lives, and Apotex was committed to providing Apo-TriAvir at cost.

    At the same time, Health and Industry Canada defined an expedited approval route. Work on the fixed-dosage combination began in April 2005, and the submission dossier was finalized in December of that year. The dossier was approved by Health Canada in June 2006, and pre-qualification at the World Health Organization was achieved following the Canadian approval. This assured recipient countries of its efficacy and safety, authenticity and availability.

    Apotex has invested over $2 million to date on the research and development of this drug.

    Yet, having done ail of this to get this important HIV/AIDS medicine ready, the real problem for Apotex is the legislation, as the CAMR requirements are impossible to navigate. First, it's a voluntary license versus a compulsory license, requiring the recipient country to be identified up front, and the recipient country needs to initiate the request. The entire burden is left on the shoulders of the poor countries, who do not have the expertise or the resources. The legislation is designed for pharmaceutical companies doing business in the industrialized world, not Africa.

    The effectiveness of the legislation is compromised by its lack of clarity. Maybe the objective of CAMR has to be clearly defined: quality medicines for critical diseases in a timely manner.

    The current complex legislation tries to balance the interests of big pharma first. Why? We need to get our priorities right as Canadians and focus on those who are dying every day from AIDS in Africa.

Harper tops burger poll

Apparently it is or was National Hamburger Day and, to celebrate, the pollsters at Ipsos-Reid have found that more Canadians would like to sit down and have a burger with Stephen Harper than any other federal political leader:

Ipsos asked 1,000 Canadians “Which of the following would you be most likely to invite to have a burger with you?”. And here are the results:

  1. Stephen Harper – 35 per cent
  2. Jack Layton – 23 per cent
  3. Elizabeth May – 17 per cent
  4. Stephane Dion – 16 per cent
  5. Gilles Duceppe – 8 per cent

But more important, Ipsos found that 66 per cent of us will have fries with that burger; 12 per cent will have fries and a drink; while 22 per cent will have just the sandwich, thank you.

And we’d like our next burger to be pretty much the same way as the last burger. Of those surveyed, 61 per cent say they have the same toppings every time. The most popular toppings would be cheese (63 per cent), onions (37 per cent) and ketchup (36 per cent.)

The pollster says the results are accurate to within 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20 and was done April 13 to 17 on behalf of the Harvey’s hamburger chain.

Dion thanks his Facebook friends

Those of you on Facebook — I’m one! — likely know that the Prime Minister, Stephane Dion, Jack Layton, and Gilles Duceppe are all Facebook users. And, for those who are counting, Dion leads the way with 7,819 Facebook friends, Layton has 3,082, and Harper has 2,390.

Duceppe is the last federal leader to join Facebook as I just discovered a few minutes ago. I have asked to be his “Friend” and, until he accepts, I will not be able to view his profile and learn how many Friends he has.

Today, Dion posted a video at YouTube thanking all his Facebook friends and noting that he hit the maximum number of “Facebook Friends”. Facebook subsequently decided to allow Dion’s Facebook account to have an unlimited number of “Friends.”

And, also of some note, Facebook has decided that what in my account and most other Facebook users’ account are called “Friends”  are now called “Supporters” at the Facebook accounts of Dion, Layton, Harper and, presumably, Duceppe.