David Akin’s On The Hill

Confidential information about millions of Canadians is not properly secured on federal government computer systems, the Auditor General of Canada said in a report tabled today in the House of Commons.

Senior federal government managers do not understand the risks to information technology security and do not understand how security breaches could affect their operations, said Auditor General Sheila Fraser (left).

“Government systems and the sensitive data they hold are vulnerable to security breaches,” she said.

“As more and more government services are offered on-line, individuals and businesses need to have confidence the information they share will be well protected”…. [ Full story with video at CTV.ca  . (Video links on the right side of the page)]

Before a business trip there, I once asked, “Where would you eat in Vancouver?” and got a tremendous response. What about Brussels, Belgium? Any Walloons who could recommend a decent meal in Brussels?

My favourite Newfoundland radical Greg Locke — who apparently also takes a heckuva photograph — has a link to this blog on the blogroll at his blog. He has that linked titled “David Akin – On the Hill” (and I don't think he meant Signal Hill).
It struck me that I've got a pretty dull title for this blog — this blog's title used to be “David Akin” — and that something like “On the Hill” at least gives a visitor here a quick snapshot of what I'm trying to do here. (See bio if you're confused). So, as of now, this blog is called “David Akin's On the Hill”. I like the fact that the title can go either way, as in, “David Akin is On the Hill” or “On the Hill belongs to David Akin”. Anyhow — thank you Greg for the inspiration.
Which got me to think — naming your blog is a tough proposition.
I've had precisely three columns (the closest thing to blogs I can think of) in my journalism life and I had to come up with names for each of them. At The Ontarion, where I was editor-in-chief, my column was called “Dance of the Wood Nymph” and I have no idea why.
(The radio show, incidentally, that I had while at the University of Guelph's CFRU, was called Hip City, something I took from the tune by Junior Walker and the All-Stars. The late Dan Gallagher, a friend and long-time DJ colleague while at Guelph, helped in a big way pick that title.)
Then I moved on to the Orangeville (Ont.) Banner where I covered city council and wrote a weekly column about municipal politics. The mayor at the time operated a furniture store that was directly opposite our offices at the Banner so I called my column “Across the Street”. I guess you needed the inside knowledge.
Then I went to the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal and I was told to be a business reporter and write a weekly column. I called it “All Business”. That was my favourite column title and I'm happy to see that my former National Post colleague and top notch business writer Steve Maich uses it as the title for his business blog at Maclean's Web site.
For those visitors to this blog who have the misfortune of not being Canadian, the Hill, in Canadian political life, refers to the Parliamentary Precinct which includes the Canadian House of Commons and the Senate. Most Canadians would simply know it as Parliament Hill — my new beat.

It’s not exactly the same kind of trophy that conservative bloggers bagged when they skewered some reports by Dan Rather and CBS News, but liberal bloggers in the U.S. have forced the resignation of a conservative online reporter.

Washington Post media reporter/critic Howard Kurtz writes:

The conservative reporter who asked President Bush a loaded question at a news conference last month resigned yesterday after liberal bloggers uncovered his real name and raised questions about his background.

Jeff Gannon, who had been writing for the Web sites Talon News and GOPUSA, is actually James Dale Guckert, 47, and has been linked to online domain addresses with sexually provocative names.

He has been under scrutiny since asking Bush how he could work with Senate Democratic leaders “who seem to have divorced themselves from reality.” The information about Gannon was posted on the liberal sites Daily Kos, Atrios and World o' Crap. … [Read the full story – registration required]

Talon News put up a brief statement on this.

Look out Mapquest and Yahoo! because Google has just taken the wraps off of a Maps product. GoogleMaps is still in a beta testing phase and Google guru Tara Calishain says it looks like Google right now just has maps and driving directions for the U.S. and Canada.

Still, the Google interface, it seems to me, is superior to either Mapquest and Yahoo. It’s search algorithm produces results much quicker than either Mapquest and Yahoo. And the maps are draggable. You’ll understand what I mean when you try out the service but basically, when you get to an edge of a map you can drag or scroll in near real-time past the edges of your map.

For those looking for Canadian addresses and directions, Google’s entry is a welcome one. Mapquest, in my experience, has a better and more recent database of Canadian addresses than Yahoo. But Mapquest forces you through too many extra steps before you can retrieve a Canadian address while Yahoo — again, this is my experience and yours may be substantially different — is a little easier to use for most Canadian addresses.

 

A little later than normal with the monthly round-up of what’s been hot here at the blog, but the statistics from which the following list is culled sit patiently on a server back at davidakin.com world headquarters until required. The most widely read post here was one suggested to me by blogger Chris Cummer. Friends of his were trying to find Canadian relatives in Thailand after the South Asian tsunami and Chris was trying to spread the word to find them. Sadly, John and Jackie Knill perished in the disaster.

Here, then, are links to the posts that attracted the widest readership here, listed in order of their popularity, followed by the date they were originally published:

1. Looking for John and Jackie Knill (12-30-2004) 
2. Air Canada and a new Celine Dion video — right here!  (11-1-2004) 
3. Dean paid bloggers  (1-15-2005) 
4. Mailing list established for tsunami survivors (12-31-2004) 
5. International Donut Wars: Tim Horton's vs Krispy Kreme (12-17-2004)  
6. Finally!! Airport Extreme and my LinkSys router are talking! (12-13-2003) 
7. Wade Peer (12-7-2004) 
8. A new job – and a blog transformation  (1-21-2005) 
9. [What they said] Blogs have little influence or effect on mainstream media  (1-6-2005) 
10. More on FOX News comes to Canada (11-18-2004)

Mississauga Liberal MPPaul Szabo (left) wants to make it the law in Canada that all beer, wine and whisky bottles have a label affixed to each warning consumers of the dangers of fetal alcohol syndrom and other side effects from excessive alcohol abuse. Szabo has been trying to get legislation to this effect passed in the House of Commons since he first became an MP more than 10 years ago.

But Szabo’s plan never became part of the official government legislative agenda. So, as many MPs do, he introduced a private member’s bill — 10 years ago. But without the sanction of the government-of-the-day, private member’s bill rarely see the light of day and only a small fraction ever get past first reading.

Well, tonight may be Szabo’s lucky night. In about 90 minutes, MPs will be asked to vote on second reading of Szabo’s bill. It will be a recorded vote and many that I spoke to on the Hill today believe it has a good chance of passing second reading –– a key hurdle for any piece of legislation.

If it passes second reading, the bill will be sent to a Commons committee for further study. It then has to come back to the House within 60 days for third and final reading before it gets sent to the Senate for royal assent. And if that happens, beer makers will soon start sticking extra labels on their bottles.

 

Environmental activists say they believe the federal Liberal government is on the verge of delivering on the promise of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“I think we're going to see one of the greenest, if not the greenest, budgets we've ever seen in this country,” Barry Turner, director of government relations for Ducks Unlimited, said today.

“We are at a moment where we may actually see, by the end of this month, the kind of credible, environmentally appropriate plan that gets us to Kyoto targets and does it in a way that enhances not just economic activity in Canada in the short term but does it in a way that creates the kind of momentum we need in Canada,” said Elizabeth May, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada.

Federal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale will table the federal budget on Feb. 23. On Tuesday, Goodale testified before the House of Commons Environment Committee. And while Goodale refused to reveal what will be in the budget when it comes to new environmental initiatives, he hinted that he would change tax laws to encourage individuals and businesses to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and would also commit the Canadian government to spending millions of dollars on projects in other countries that will help Canada earn “credits” that can be applied towards its Kyoto targets . . . [Read the full story at CTV.ca ]

Bell Globemedia, the company I work for, whose big media properties include CTV, The Sports Network and The Globe and Mail, just won the broadcasting rights for the 2010 Winter Olympics to be held in Calgary Vancouver and the 2012 Summer Olympics — location still to be announced by the International Olympic Committee. Needless to say, this is exciting news for us TV journalists.

 

On Thursday, outside the House of Commons, Federal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale (left) took questions from journalists on the federal budget. Here is an edited transcript of his discussions.

Question:   How much has the rise in the Canadian dollar changed your planning for the budget that you plan to do on [Feb] 23rd?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: Well, back in November when I released the fiscal framework and the update, I indicated that the single most troubling downside risk was the movement of currencies and that that could have an impact on our ability to export and therefore on growth, that that was a worry for the government and for the private sector economists.  It would appear from some of the statistics that some of that downside risk is materializing.  Now I hasten to say don't jump to conclusions but some of the statistics have indicated some weakness in export performance, for example.  So that just says to me as you put together a budget keep very tightly focussed on issues like fiscal responsibility and discipline and live within the requirements of prudence to make sure that the books of this country stay solidly balanced.

Question:   (Inaudible) so far with the opposition is it clear to you that you have enough support for your budget to pass?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: Oh, I wouldn't jump to conclusions on any future vote in the House of Commons.  This is a minority situation and you take each vote as it comes.  I've had very useful discussions with all three opposition political parties.  There are points upon which we agree.  There are obviously points upon which we disagree.  It's obviously clear too that there are many points upon which the opposition parties disagree with each other.  So trying to bring that all together in a coherent package that reflects the right kind of balance is a real challenge but the discussion thus far has been very cordial and very constructive.

Question:   Will there be any broad-based tax cuts?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: Oh, I can't comment on any particular element whether it's in or whether it's not.  I think you'll just have to wait and see. 

Question:   Does it help you politically to get this tabled as quickly as possible?  Does it help you politically with negotiations?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: The budget?

Question:   Yeah, negotiating — does it help you to table the budget earlier?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: Oh, this is in the normal cycle.  The budget is usually the last week or so of February or the first couple of weeks of March.  So the date that I've selected on the 23rd of February is completely within the normal pattern. It's important to have the federal budget within that cycle because a lot of people in the country are depending on it – provinces, for example, for transfer payments, municipalities anticipating what may be in the budget for them, various groups.  So it's important to stick, unless there are truly extraordinary circumstances, to the normal pattern for the presentation of the budget and this is it.

Question:   Given your comments about then being focussed and prudent, isn't this going to put a hamper on these spending plans that you and the prime minister have talked about?

Hon. Ralph Goodale: No, I believe it's very important for the government to deliver on its commitments to Canadians and that is very much on my mind as I put together the budget package.  The real challenge for me is the projected profile of our revenue flows over the next five years.  We have, as you know, our normal prudence and contingency factors that go into the calculation of the flows but we have a good number for this year, as we indicated in the fall update.  Then we have two years in which our margin to manouevre really skinnies out and then it gets better again in year three and year four and year five.  The challenge is not, to my mind, the challenge is not the global amount of flexibility over the five-year period.  The challenge is the rate at which that flexibility appears. It's not a straight line projection one year after the next after the next.  It's a U shape and that's what makes the challenge of this budget for me particularly acute. I've got to somehow make our investment plans and our fiscal plans fit within an unusual flow of revenue that's not progressively moving on from one year to the next.