According to last week's polling, Albertans are far more likely to support the student protests than Quebecers.

Rack9 · 2012-05-25T21:12:50.396775+00:00

That's not how equalization payments work.

I find it odd that you single out Quebec and Quebec only for a financial audit when PEI and New Brunswick and Manitoba and Nova Scotia all receive far more per capita in equalization payments than Quebec.

gerntoronto · 5 days

and for the unilingual's in the house...?

Oh, the irony.

ParnsipPeatree · 5 days

Yeah, when dealing with issuing public services, per capita is all that matters since provinces with more people will also have greater costs to overcome. The funny thing though is that since equalization payments are funded out of federal revenue, most of Quebec and Ontario's equalization payments actually comes from Quebec and Ontario. I find it funny how people seem to think transfer payments are "transferred" from the government of Alberta to the Government of Quebec.

Anyway, the surest sign that the people who complain about Quebec transfers aren't actually being genuine about their concerns is the reality that they never complain about PEI's transfer payments, Nova Scotia's transfer payaments, New Brunswick's transfer payments or Manitoba's transfer payments. Don't you think that's odd? I do. What do you think accounts for the fact that only Quebec gets attacked for qualifying for receiving $934 per person in transfer payments but right wingers like Ezra Levant seem to have no objection to Manitoba getting $1,353 per person?

ParnsipPeatree · 5 days

while drawing the most in transfer payments of any province

Actually, that's not entirely accurate. Quebec isn't anywhere near the largest per capita recipient of transfer payments.

Per capita benefit (2012)

PEI = $2,350
Nova Scotia = $1,342
New Brunswick = $1,985
Manitoba = $1,353
Quebec = $934

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments_in_Canada

canadianleftie · 12 days

OAS isn't though. Most people would consider that splitting hairs.

canadianleftie · 13 days

I think fucking with pensions probably had more to do with it.

scouter0 · 13 days

No, I drew that comparison to illustrate the point to you that there's a difference between it being an official platform/policy endorsed by the party executive/leadership and something that was voted on in a policy convention.

scouter0 · 13 days

I don't agree with this attitude that sure they say they support legalization but we'll just choose not to believe them.

Where did I say anything even remotely along those lines?

scouter0 · 13 days

The Liberals aren't technically pro-legalization yet. It was voted on at their policy convention, but it hasn't been adopted by the party executive/leader as an official party platform.

To put this in perspective: The Liberals had voted at their policy convention before the 1993 election to eliminate the GST and to stop NAFTA. How well did that work out?

Troll_Dad · 15 days

You said the article misrepresented the survey results and it doesn't. More importantly though, regarding the MoE you initially said "it's 'plus or minus' not 'plus and minus'" which is plainly and simply false. Not only can the actual error be positive for one party and negative for another (which you claimed was not the case),

Okay, I understand where the source of our disagreement stems. You think that my initial statement was meant to say that it is not possible for the error to be positive for one party and negative for another.

This was not what I was saying at all. In fact, an error that was positive for one party would actually make it more likely that it would be negative to any one of the other given parties due to the nature of the polling data being zero-sum. I'm not sure how you got that assertion from what I wrote, but if there was miscommunication on my part, I do apologize.

What I meant by the "it's 'plus or minus' not 'plus and minus'" comment was that you cannot merely add the margin of error to one party and then subtract the margin of error to the other party because the probability of Party A being 2.2% off in the positive direction and Party B being 2.2% off in the negative direction are not mutually exclusive events (hence why we need Bayes).

If you were as informed about statistics as you claim to be

Huh? Where is that attitude coming from? I never made any appeal to authority here nor did I make any claims one way or another about my level of information about statistics. My statements stand on their own merits and everything I've said has been true. You merely misinterpreted my first statement and construed it to mean something I never intended it to mean.

Troll_Dad · 15 days

Incidentally, if you're interested, there are other reasons why I asserted that this was some of the "worst" writing I've read recently.

This was a CP wire story, however the author failed to follow a number of the industry's own CP-sponsored guidelines and best practices for reporting on polling data.

If you're interested in going through the industry's guidelines to see how many were broken in this story (I can think of at least three off the top of my head, though I'm sure there are more), you can read more about that here:

http://mria-arim.ca/NEWS/PDF/091511ResponseToIpsosCPStyleGuide.pdf

Troll_Dad · 15 days

could [emphasis yours]

If "could" is your only criterion, then the Communist Party could technically be tied with the Conservatives even with a margin of error of 2.2% and a confidence interval of 95%. It would be a vanishingly unlikely chance, but it could still happen.

The fact of the matter is that I am correct when I tell you that you would need Bayes' Theorem in order to make this assertion. I trust that you do not disagree with this statement. Indeed, if this author had used Bayes theorem, he would have found that it is highly unlikely given these data that the NDP and Conservatives are tied. Also, incidentally, my original statement is therefore still correct and I am not, as you initially wrongly asserted, misinformed about how MOEs work.

Troll_Dad · 15 days

Actually, to make an assertion that the NDP and Conservatives are still statistically tied, you would need to use Bayes' Theorem since we are talking about the probability that the NDP are 2.2 percent lower than 34% given that the Tories are 2.2 percent higher than their reported 30%. To get this value, you cannot simply double the margin of error (which is what this author has done).

Troll_Dad · 15 days

That was one of the worst-written articles I've ever read.

From the article:

The Canadian Press Harris Decima survey indicates that the NDP have 34 per cent of popular support, compared to 30 per cent for the Conservatives.

With a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points, support for the two parties could be equally split.

The author is so horribly informed about statistics, they should not be drawing a salary from writing about polling results. No, a 2.2 percent margin of error does NOT mean that parties 4% apart are statistically tied. It's "plus or minus" not "plus and minus".

sb_78 · 17 days

I think you replied to the wrong comment.

sb_78 · 17 days

Do you just generally assume that everybody on Earth is American or do you think your American Senator Black gave the 40 hour work week to the whole world?

Troll_Dad · 23 days

It's not my parallel. I'm not the one who drew it nor was I the one to bring up Patton in the first place.

Also: you're the one whose amazing contribution to the debate was to repeat three times that my germane and on-topic comments were not what the discussion was about. I think we can both agree that that neither of us showed any particular interest in listening to the other guy.

Troll_Dad · 23 days

Read through my comment history if you like, I regularly criticize the NDP on a number of fronts. I even attacked their patron saint Jack Layton saying I didn't feel he deserved to be newsmaker of the year since he didn't do anything and since he's not offering Canadians anything substantially new.

I've also previously talked about how the NDP is often eager to abandon their principles (more so than either the Liberals or the Conservatives) and I've detailed quite extensively how regularly they break their election promises when they're elected to provincial government.

TL;DR: if I'm an NDP shill, that party is in serious trouble. I have a love/hate relationship with the party.

Troll_Dad · 23 days

Where did I say I couldn't understand your position? I understand it fully well and I think it's an appropriate approach for some positions, but not these ones.

I base this on, what's that word, knowledge of how agents of parliament actually work and the extreme constraints placed upon them which would be a serious liability for non-bilingual people. You see, there's a difference between not understanding what you're saying and arguing that you need a bit more nuance.

Troll_Dad · 23 days

I've been very clear and on message this whole time. Just because you seem to be confused doesn't mean I've changed my message at all.

Troll_Dad · 23 days

Ha. Yes, an American soldier commanding unilingual American WWII troops is more in need of bilingualism than an agent of parliament that has no access to Translation Bureau services and has to report and answer queries to press and a number of other organs of government to say nothing of chairing meetings with staff of varying linguistic background.

You really should learn a little bit about government first before commenting. Makes you look like you're uninformed.

Troll_Dad · 23 days

Not the point of this conversation.

Sorry, you're mistaken. It is entirely the point of this conversation. This conversation is about the appropriateness of certain positions being bilingual and others not.

Troll_Dad · 23 days

Sigh, and you've missed the point.

There's a slight difference between killing Nazis and being an agent of Parliament. There's a reason we don't ask one to do the job of the other.

Just so we're clear: you do understand that a commissioned officer in the military isn't the same thing as an officer of Parliament? You also realize that, for some jobs, being bilingual is a necessity. For instance, you'd be a pretty shitty translator if you weren't bilingual. Similarly, for other jobs, being bilingual is utterly unnecessary (such as being a wartime general for English-speaking Americans during WWII).

I'm wondering, have you ever worked for an agent of Parliament or do you even know what they do? Most of them do not have access or an SLA for Translation Bureau services (nor are they permitted to have one in many cases because it would be considered jeopardizing their independence). I highly doubt you've ever worked in one of those offices before, but I'd submit to you—as somebody who's had a past client who was an agent of parliament—they would have been utterly unable to do their job without being bilingual.

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canadianleftie

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