It started with a series of attacks along a shared border on the Sinai Peninsula that left eight Israelis dead. The five Egyptian officers were caught in the crossfire of the retaliation. Despite the expression by the Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, the Egyptian cabinet feels that the sentiment does not go far enough. There has been an offer of a joint Egyptian-Israeli inquiry into the incident, which both sides seem eager to accept.

The revolution is Egypt which toppled Mubarak’s pro-Israel government has shifted the foundations of politics in the Middle East. The anger of Egyptians also stems from the poor treatment of Palestinians by Israel. The new regime has recently opened the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, which is currently the only way in and out of the area that is otherwise surrounded by Israel. The Israeli blockade has led to extreme conditions in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The outbursts are also important because it is a show of legitimate public opinion in the once authoritarian country.

Israel has blamed Egypt for all but completely withdrawing its military from the border areas, which has led to several unexplained bombs attacking the natural gas lines which are a crucial part of Israel’s power supply. They maintain that the officers were killed on Egyptian soil in the crossfire, and that Palestinian fighters from the Gaza Strip slipped into Israel through the same territory. This accusation stung the Egyptian government, and they say that they have not lost control of the Sinai Peninsula.

The Camp David Accords limit Egyptian military presence in the area, but they have received Israeli permission to deploy 1,000 extra troops in the peninsula.

There have been protests in Cairo outside of the Israeli consulate. More than a thousand people have participated so far. One of the protestors climbed up the flagpole in the embassy and replaced the Israeli flag with an Egyptian one, prompting chants of “Long Live Egypt”. The protestors say they will continue until Egypt expels the Israeli ambassador.

Elsewhere, the Arab League has spoken out against “the Israeli attack on Egyptian forces.” This announcement came Sunday after a meeting of permanent members of the League, as they feel that Israel “bears full responsibility for the attack.”

gIn Guatemala former general Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes has been charged with ordering the killing of more than 10,000 people of Mayan descent in the early 1980s. As the head of the army Fuentes would have signed the warrants that made up the heart of the ‘scorched earth’ policy mandated by Efrain Rios Montt, then president of the country. No effort was made to bring these criminals to justice during the 1990s and 2000s, so survivors applied to Spanish courts to have the crimes prosecuted. This battle is still on-going, but the one against Fuentes has begun to snowball.

Goran Hadzic was captured on July 20, 2011 in a small village in northern Serbia and now stands before the United Nation’s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. Hadzic was the last of the 161 military and political leaders of the war in the Balkans indicted by the tribunal to be seized. He has not pled in court in response to the 14 counts against him. His alleged crimes include destruction of the town of Vukovar and the seizure of 260 patients of the hospital there, who were taken to a farm close by to be tortured and killed. Hadzic was the last person that needed to be tried by the UN tribunal, but many more still need to be prosecuted by national courts.

The Ivory Coast is setting up a commission of inquiry to deal with war crimes that occurred in the wake of the most recent election. Violence erupted in the African nation when the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to accept his loss to Alassane Ouattara. This commission will have six months to discover the truth of the violence and who perpetrated it, and take action where necessary to bring criminals to justice. The International Criminal Court has also started preliminary work on the same subject.

Three suspected war criminals have been arrested in Canada, where the federal government has launched a website listing information and pictures of 30 suspects who they say are in Canada illegally. Manuel de la Torre Herrera has followed Arshad Muhammad and Cristobal Gonzalez-Ramirez into custody on July 25, 2011. The website has come under fire itself, as it states that “It has been determined that [these suspects] violated human or international rights under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act or under international law.” This statement presumes each suspect is guilty while none have ever stood before a court on these charges.

The buildings attacked were close to where the prime minister’s administration resides. The area was rather empty as it is a public holiday in the country. The prime minister was working from home and was unharmed by the attack. The windows were blasted out of several buildings around the blast site. It is suspected that a car bomb was used to light the explosion. As well, a man in a police uniform was seen loitering around the area, similar to the one reported in the subsequent attack on Utoya. This man is suspected to be 32 year old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik. TV 2, a Norwegian broadcaster, was shut down after a suspicious package was found outside its studios.

The camp, an annual trip held for the youth wing of the Labour Party, was being held on Utoya Island. Hundreds of youth attended the camp. The suspect who opened fire on the camp was wearing a police uniform, but it is as yet unconfirmed if he was in fact an officer. Some youths swam for the mainland, which is far from the island. Most hid in trees and in buildings. Emergency crews had a tough time getting to the island through the continued gunfire.

A group called Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami has taken responsibility for the attacks. The statement said that the attacks were in retaliation for Norwegian forces present in Afghanistan and insults to Muhammad made by reprinting the Dutch cartoon depicting the prophet. Norway has been grappling with domestic terrorist activities linked to al-Qaeda. Just last week charges were filed against Mullah Krekar, founder and former leader of the group Ansar al-Islam (which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations). He is accused of making death threats against the leader of the Conservative Party. As well, three men were arrested a year ago in connection to al-Qaeda.

Despite these claims the attack was most likely committed by Breivik, a right-wing Christian. He wrote a 1,500 page manifesto railing against Islam and multiculturalism as well as made his views known on Christian websites. The suspect had access to fertilizer to make the bomb.

Name: Michelle Bachmann
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: U.S. Representative of Minnesota’s sixth Congressional district, first woman representative to Minnesota in Congress. She is a supporter of the Tea Party movement,
She has accused Tim Pawlenty of being a Marxist and increasingly called Obama out over a variety of issues. Bachmann positions herself, however extreme her views, as a bipartisan who works with both Republicans and Democrats to make Congress better.
Platform: Unannounced. However, Bachmann does oppose minimum wage increases, any sort of taxes, health care, welfare assistance, same-sex marriage, and abortion (although thinks it should be allowed in cases of rape and incest). She supports increases in domestic oil production, nuclear power, free-market health care insurance, state-developed education curriculums, cutting wasteful spending, and disclosing committed government spending.
Prediction: Survives until the end of voting, 60% chance she receives the nomination.

Name: Herman Cain
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Cain has worked in all levels of various restaurants, turning many of them around at the brink of bankruptcy. He touts himself as a family man from humble beginnings.
Platform: Plans include reining in public spending, securing borders against illegal immigrants, alternative energies, ‘meaningful’ tax reform, repeal universal healthcare, remove medicare and social security, remove excessive regulations, and decentralize control of education.
Prediction: Drops out after voting starts, endorses Sarah Palin.

Name: Newt Gingrich
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Gingrich is a disciple of Ronald Reagan, quoting him often and adhering to his economic theories. He has been in the news with the revelation that he once had a million dollar line of credit at Tiffany’s and Co. As well, basically his entire campaign team has quit over financial worries that the campaign will end in arrears.
Platform: Stop tax increases, strengthen the dollar, remove bureaucratic red tape, control spending, repeal ‘Obamacare’, fundamental reform of entitlement programs, nominate conservative judges, combat judicial activism, protect religious expression in public, diversify health care insurance, create a High Risk Pool of insurance for those already too sick to afford health insurance, reform the Food and Drug Administration, replace the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency, end ban on oil shale development, differentiate between radical Islam and the majority of Muslims, and secure American borders. He is also opposed to euthanasia and abortion.
Prediction: Drops out before voting starts, endorses Gary Johnson.

Name: Gary Johnson
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Former Governor of New Mexico, one of the most fiscally conservative governors in the last twenty years. He is an expressed libertarian and often used his veto power to block legislation that increased spending.
Platform: Johnson is committed to bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, using ‘soft power’ to influence the world, internet freedom, ending stimulus programs, ending excessive spending and earmarks, reforms to Medicare and Social Security, auditing the Federal Reserve, cutting taxes, removing the government from the economy, local control of education, ending the Department of Education, simplifying legal immigration procedures, legalization marijuana, making government neutral on personal beliefs, and allowing the Patriot Act to expire.
Prediction: Concedes during voting, gains 15% of the vote. Johnson is my personal choice.

Name: Fred Karger
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: The first openly gay presidential candidate in U.S. history, Karger has worked on nine presidential campaigns. He is a gay rights activist, including running his own organization Rights Equal Rights.
Platform: Topics include keeping jobs in America, transformation and revitalization of public education, create a plan for granting citizenship to illegal immigrants, end dependence on foreign oil, gay rights, lower the voting age to 16 or 17, entrench pro-choice values, and legalize and tax marijuana.
Prediction: Drops out of the race before voting starts, endorses Gary Johnson.

Name: Andy Martin
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Graduated from Law at University of Illinois, he has run 16 times unsuccessfully for public office at varying levels. He has a history of filing ‘vexatious’ and frivolous lawsuits, many of which have been anti-Semitic in nature. He was likely the source of the rumours that President Obama was a Muslim and was the one who filed the petition to the State of Hawaii to release Obama’s birth certificate, claiming that Obama was not actually American.
Platform: Martin touts himself as a corruption fighter, having exposed corruption in courts and through politics. He claims to be an internationally recognized expert on Middle Eastern and foreign affairs. He is opposed to cap-and-trade and mandated coverage for abortion, and in favour of the right to bear arms and freedom of speech.
Prediction: Drops out of the race before voting starts, endorses Michelle Bachmann.

Name: Mitt Romney
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Former governor of Massachusetts, Romney ran in the Republic Primary in the 2008 election. He is a Mormon, which marginalized his campaign in the last election. He made it to voting, receiving 4.7 million votes and 280 Electoral College delegates.
Platform: Smaller, less intrusive government and freedom of enterprise, lower business taxes, limit influence of union bosses, increase nuclear power and use of domestic fossil fuels, end deficit spending, cut spending on entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, repeal ‘Obamacare’, open market health care, more military spending, and revitalize current alliances.
Prediction: Survives through voting, does about the same as 2008.

Name: Rick Perry
Status: Undeclared.
Background: current governor of Texas, serving his third term. Although he has not declared candidacy, he is apparently leaning increasingly towards it as supporters urge him to do so.
Platform: None yet. In the past has campaigned on the stances of tough on crime, fiscal conservatism (he would not accept $555 million from the Obama administration in stimulus spending for unemployment), opposition to gay rights and opposition to the theory of global warming.
Prediction: Drops out as voting starts, and endorses Sarah Palin.

Name: Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Status: Declared candidate
Background: Former governor of Utah. A self-confessed conservative, Huntsman’s claim to fame is that he balanced the Utah budget when it seemed impossible and passed a conservative, free market health care model bill that he thinks can be the basis for all health care in America. He has also been the U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Trade Development Bureau of the Commerce Department and Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. Trade Ambassador and Ambassador to China. He has also served at different levels of Huntsman Corporation, started by his father. Huntsman has 5 biological children and 2 adopted children from India and Taiwan.
Platform: None as of yet. One can only speculate that it will involve massive budget cuts, rollback of ‘Obamacare’ and introduction of free market health care, and corporate tax cuts.
Prediction: Survives until the end of voting, garners 20% of the vote.

Name: Jimmy McMillan
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: McMillan has run in elections for the Rent’s Too Damn High Party at various levels of government. He is humorous, and one cannot decide if his campaign is serious or a farce. However, his message does resonate with ordinary Americans.
Platform: McMillan is against home and property taxes and federal bailouts of corporations. He believes in same-sex marriage but thinks that global warming is ‘punk science’. He wants to write off all taxes owed to the state, as well as free college tuition, reforming the state court system, and seizing unoccupied apartment buildings. McMillan wants to create a system of fixed rents across the country to help the poor afford housing.
Prediction: Drops out before voting, endorses Sarah Palin.

Name: Dr. Ron Paul
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Ron Paul has been a medical doctor and a congressman from the state of Texas. He was a candidate in the 2008 GOP primary.
Platform: Ron Paul wants to remove federal barriers to drilling for domestic oil as well as repeal the federal tax on gasoline, eliminate the EPA, end birthright citizenship, abolish the welfare state, enforce border security, streamline the process for legal immigration, and enact a $5,000 tax credit for home schooling. Dr. Paul is pro-life and believes that life starts at conception. He wants to stop unions from being able to force members of a particular trade to pay dues, to repeal any infringements of the 2nd amendment, to repeal ‘Obamacare’, and to provide health care tax credits and other help for those who are seriously ill. Dr. Paul wants to eliminate income and death taxes, and increase the number of tax credits and deductions available. He also wants to get rid of the Federal Reserve.
Prediction: Drops out during voting, endorses Jon Huntsman, Jr.

***This is a work in progress. More will be added as it comes out.***

Just think about it. The Canadian Pension Plan (investment) offers returns that hitherto could not be offered by other forms of savings (investments). CPP does not pay out returns from investments, but from the original money that was contributed by the individual. Often, more money is required to support that person, and this comes from money contributed by other individuals who are not yet drawing on the CPP. The young workers of Canada essentially subsidize the elderly through their contributions.

This system has been working up until now, but its success is dependent on a few factors. These include the assumption that the Canadian work force is constantly growing, as are CPP contributions. This pyramid is about to collapse with the retirement of a large generation, the baby boomers. With so much being drawn from the fund at once, there may not be enough in it to keep the CPP afloat.

There may be some hope, in the form of the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, which was created in 1997. The CPPIB operates as a Crown Corporation, and invests money from the Reserve Fund, which it created. The CPPIB has slowly evolved in its investments, going from non-market government bonds to passive index fund strategies to finally active market investment. It has been criticized by some groups for the ‘unethical’ choices it has made in terms of industries to invest in as well as certain companies who are known to have less than desirable business practices.

Whatever they are doing there, it is working. The CPPIB bought a 15% stock in Skype in 2009 for $300 million only to sell this year for $1 billion to Google. While they are slightly off their growth targets (posting $127.6 billion in the Reserve Fund in March 2010 vs. a projection of $140 billion for the same time), they are manageable goals for the future. The change in the way that the CPP acquires funds may be what saves it from coming down around Canada’s head.

The process started in November 2010 when the government started talking about making the marijuana cafes ‘members only’, effectively barring tourists from purchasing pot. This could potentially create massive problems for the cafes, as they would need access to government databases to know who is a citizen and who is not. There is also a European law stating that citizens of Europe must be treated the same throughout all European countries.

This has been done previously in Maastricht in 2005. In December 2010 the European Court of Justice ruled that the city was within its rights to ban foreigners from purchasing cannabis. The judge felt that the goal of combating narco-tourism was worth the restriction. Neighbouring countries such as Belgium and Germany have also cited drug tourism as a source of petty nuisances.

The current plan, which will be implemented later this year, will require all those who want to obtain cannabis to first get an official pass. Although the Supreme Court still needs to rule if foreigners can be banned entirely the limited number of permits will force café owners to choose who makes up their clientele.
The extent that this will affect the Dutch tourist trade is unknown, but it definitely will not improve it. It will more than likely increase the size of the black market for marijuana in the country, jeopardizing the safety of tourists and residents alike. In trying to curb petty disturbances associated with narco-tourism the Dutch government may have created a bigger problem. There have already been problems with organized crime, which will only get bigger as this conservative government continues to roll back the liberal laws that the Netherlands has become known for. It will be interesting to see how long these measures last before they are revoked.

The twenty page report details how success in repressing one area of narcotics use and trafficking is immediately offset by the emergence of another avenue. It talks about the skyrocketing costs not only in terms of dollars but of human lives and suffering. It also discusses movement away from ideologically driven drug policies to ones that are fiscally responsible. The report then discusses how a global strategy is needed, keeping in mind the diverse political and physical circumstances of individual countries.

The committee recommends the end of criminalization of narcotics and the end of marginalization of users. They also recommend that changes be made in the way that drug policy is made and how people view drug use. They encourage governments to experiment with models of decriminalization and legalization. They also recommend that educational materials step away from ‘just say no’ and zero tolerance maxims and instead use fact based, credible information to allow people, especially youth, learn about the effects of drugs. There is also a thought given to rescheduling the classes of narcotics, which is currently flawed. The general focus of their comments leans towards harm reduction rather than use reduction.

Although brief, the report does justice to the arguments against prohibition of narcotics. The theory behind the information is strong, but there is a lack of concrete data to back up many of its claims. This data is available out in the world, with a significant portion being located on this website in other articles, if one were to search it out. It will be interesting to see if this report changes anything. From my experience it will do little to sway the minds’ of governments.

The report can be found at http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report

The charges can be summed up in a few sentences to make things simple. The Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section alleges that Edwards received campaign contributions from two individuals (Fred Baron and Rachel “Bunny” Mellon) in 2007 and 2008 to cover up the existence of his mistress and her pregnancy amounting to $925,000.This amount alone contravenes campaign donation limits, which are set at $2,300 per individual as per the Federal Election Act, 1971. They also allege that Edwards lied to the Federal Election Commission about campaign contributions to cover up the money passing from the donors to him to Hunter.

His lawyer, Gregory B. Craig, is still denying that John Edwards did anything legally wrong, although he does admit that having a mistress was morally wrong on the part of Edwards. Craig was quoted saying “No one has ever been charged, either civilly or criminally, with the claims that have been brought against Senator Edwards today. This is an unprecedented prosecution.” Edwards himself is denying any knowledge that aides in his campaign were spending the money to hide his relationship with Hunter.

The former Federal Elections Chairman Scott E. Thomas wrote that the payments received by Edwards for this purpose should not be seen as campaign contributions, nor should the expenditures be treated as such. He also repeated the theory that ‘Team Edwards’ has made, saying that the federal government is trying to prosecute without precedent.

The small Public Integrity Section will be closely watched during this case. Its last high profile case was against Ted Stevens, where prosecutors failed to disclose key evidence to the defence. This voided the verdict and led to the suicide of one of the young prosecutors on the case. Other bungles have led to reorganization of the unit with a new head, and new concrete rules. One will have to wait to see how they handle what could be a defining and pivotal case in their existence.

We will continue our coverage of the case as it goes to trial this year.

On one hand, people have the right to personal autonomy. If we do not allow individuals autonomy we cannot say that they are morally responsible for anything that they do. Without autonomy a person cannot retain their dignity as a human being, and without their ability to determine their personal behavior people cannot be considered to be free in the customary sense of the liberal-democratic heritage. In Canada this heritage is expressly acknowledged by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which in §.7, guarantees the right to life, liberty, and the security of persons. There is, however, a limit to what the Charter provides, and as a society we give up parts of our liberty for rules to help protect us from the actions of others. The question is where to draw the line in surrendering aspects of our freedom. It is useful here to consider the “harm principle” that is inherent in §.7 cited by the liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, where he stresses the economic and moral autonomy of the citizen from the state. As long as a citizen is in their right mind, and their actions are not harming anyone but themself, they should be allowed to do whatever they want. This would include the use of drugs. As much as the state would like to protect everyone from everything, including harm inflicted by the use of drugs, prohibition goes against the principle of individual liberty and thus impinges on fundamental rights.

A hard paternalist would argue that all people should be protected from harm, even harm they inflict on themselves, and that people who are not informed about their choices should not be allowed to make them. Children should be protected by the wisdom of their elders, just as those who cannot make decisions for themselves should be protected by those appointed for such purposes. Yet if we stopped every uninformed person from making a choice we would limit the number of people consuming any number of items, including over-the-counter drugs, and could by similar logic stop much of the population from voting in any election.
A soft paternalist would also insist that some groups of people are more vulnerable to the pressures of their peers or more easily suggestible in general. These people need to be protected, since without protection they could hurt themselves even without meaning to. This is more or less how many of our laws work today – persons under a certain age are not allowed to consume alcohol or tobacco because we believe that they have neither the foresight nor experience to decide whether the risk of using these drugs outweighs the utility or pleasure derived from them. In this way the government influences decisions without substituting itself for the decision-maker, based on an implicit understanding that prohibition will often be violated without sanction but also on an assumption that the deterrence provided by possible punishment will hold abuse to an acceptable level.

A classical liberal argument maintains that when government prohibits outright certain products and activities, it is treating mentally-competent adult citizens as children and denying them an inherent right to self-regulation. If the government wants to continue to prevent healthy, sane adults from putting drugs in their bodies, it should also extend such concerns to other areas, such as preventing people from having too much sugar or fat in their diets, which leads to obesity, risk of heart disease and other deadly health complications. The government would be more effective in reducing drug use if it took a stance more like that taken to reduce the number of cigarettes smoked. This has been accomplished through prevention campaigns, regulation, dissemination of information about side effects, and increasing taxes of tobacco products. While some people still choose to smoke, many more have quit or chosen not to start. Public opinion has shifted from thinking that smoking is ‘cool’ to thinking that it is dangerous, repulsive and stupid. What is more, these people take steps to quit by themselves without being coerced by the government or anyone else to do so.

Today almost every area of life has some sort of regulation governing what we can and cannot do or under what conditions it can be done. More often now Parliament is passing inchoate laws, i.e. laws proscribing conduct that has the possibility to lead to harm. The difference between a regular law and an inchoate law is thus: a law preventing assault stops the obvious and direct harm that comes from violence against another person, while an inchoate law, such as that against driving under the influence, prevents behavior that can lead to but does not always lead to harm to others. An argument put forward by Douglas N. Husak is that we have entered into a state of overcriminalization, whereby the purpose of the criminal system has shifted from punishing offenders for the harm they have done to preventing future harm that could possibly occur by criminalizing the behavior that could lead to it. The justice system of many advanced democracies has become something of a nanny to individuals, trying to keep them safe from harm by any means necessary. This has made the legal system and judicial process large, slow and very costly. More importantly, our system now uses severe punishments routinely, without understanding of how much these sentences affect lives and future conduct of those it convicts.

Sentences for drug offenses are grossly out of proportion to punishments for other crimes. For instance, in cases where possession is treated as an indictable offense, possession of a schedule II substance (in excess of 30g of cannabis or 1g of hashish) carries the possibility of five years in prison. This is the same maximum sentence set for assault or assaulting a police officer. It is hard to accept that possessing approximately an ounce of marijuana holds the same danger to society as committing assault. Trafficking in schedule I or II substances carries a maximum of life in prison, a punishment higher than theft over $5000 (10 years maximum), use of a stolen credit card (10 years), breaking and entering a non-dwelling building (10 years), perjury (14 years), or sexual assault (10 years). Trafficking of any amount of cocaine or heroin, or more than 30g of cannabis or 1g of hashish has a harsher sentence than rape. One might argue that this simply means that the penalties for rape are too low, but that would spark a debate about the entire criminal code, which is not the aim of this article. However, the practical utility of incarcerating non-violent criminals for periods longer than the sentence given individuals whose menace to their fellow citizens has been established by due process is, at the very least, highly questionable; the fiscal burden of their lengthy incarceration alone makes a strong case for revisiting the logic of these laws.

One thing to consider when reviewing sentences is the reality of the punishments. Ten years is a long time to spend locked up in jail, deprived of family and friends. It puts strains on families by taking parents away from children, spouses away from each other and breadwinners away from those who need them. Time in prison is a hard thing to bear, and it mixes violent felons with non-violent inmates, drug users with non-drug users and criminals with people who simply made mistakes, until they all come out resembling one another. Prisoners can come out of jail with disrespect for authority, a lack of self-worth, and newly-learned anti-social behaviors along with newly-acquired criminal skills. Jail is not a rehabilitative place but a place of punishment, meant to visit hardships on inmates as they have done so on society.

There are also many other ways that a person’s freedoms are impeded once they get out of prison. There are many studies showing that those who are given prison time as a sentence can often develop psychological damage, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), alienation from the population, emotional distancing, social withdrawal, diminishment of self-worth, and dependence on institutional structure and contingencies. Someone with a criminal record has a very hard time travelling abroad, obtaining and holding a job, and therefore attaining a standard of living for themselves and their dependents. The social stigma that comes from having been in jail can be crippling.

Mill writes that the only reason that can be given to interfere with the liberty of a person is to prevent harm to others in the society, that “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” This concept rejects the idea of legal paternalism as a legitimate reason to intervene in the affairs of others. Mill reasons without individual autonomy one’s peculiar characteristics could be swept up in the uniformity that democracy tended to encourage. As well, he maintains that only through making one’s own decisions that a person could develop into a proper individual, and that a government’s main goal should be to “promote autonomy by ensuring that it could be maximally exercised.” He therefore concludes that the “only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” Mill does not assert that harm must be prevented, only that it can be in this context. In this way the harm principle is a necessary, but not sufficient, reason for legal enforcement.
Mill felt that governments should not punish people for committing ‘victimless crimes,’ the responsibility of proving that a law prevents an action that violates the harm principle being with the government enacting said law. That is, the government must prove that it is in fact helping society by limiting actions with a specific law, rather than opponents of a law having to demonstrate that the law does not work. The harm principle is meant to defend against the tyranny of the majority, and to prevent that majority from imposing their morality on minorities in the population, as the legal application of the majority opinion may be revealed, upon closer examination, to do the greater damage to liberty.

Mill thought that this principle was absolute even in case of intoxicants such as alcohol, which one can use as an analogy to how Mill might have reasoned about narcotics. Mill felt that consumption of alcohol should not be punished, although violent acts committed under its influence should be, as such acts do harm to others. The act of being intoxicated does not of itself harm anyone other than the individual who is intoxicated. For example,

“If… a man, through intemperance or extravagance, becomes unable to pay his debts, or, having undertaken the moral responsibility of a family, becomes from the same cause incapable of supporting or educating them, he is deservedly reprobated, and might be justly punished; but it is for the breach of duty to his family or creditors, not for the extravagance.”

For the legal system the morality of the use of intoxicants is beside the point. Civilized societies commonly regard a broad array of behaviors as immoral yet do not impose legal sanctions against them. Nor, by Mill’s logic, does the harm that comes to the consumer of alcohol or narcotics justify a violation of their freedom, as people have the right to do what they want to their own bodies.

Although Mill was fighting for less regulation on the individual, his principle worked too well, and has essentially collapsed under its own success. There has been a notable shift in how policies are defended. Instead of focusing on the immorality of pornography, homosexuality, and prostitution those who wish to create prohibitions look to the harms that are caused by the acts themselves. This argument has also typified the shift in the debate over decriminalization, with the focus moving towards the harms that drug use does or does not cause society. This means that the harm principle does not serve its original purpose, as inconsequential harms are now discussed as part of these debates. It also does not instruct one on how to compare different harms, as there is little of the traditional opposition over use of the harm principle that used to typify what has become known as the Hart-Devlin debate. This has disarmed progressive arguments for decriminalization of any number of things. It has been illustrated in the context of narcotics decriminalization, as proponents of relaxing drug laws argue that the current prohibition causes more harm than it stops, even as opponents argue that even greater harm would be caused by decriminalization.

This does not mean that the harm principle cannot be used to defend decriminalization or legalization of narcotics. But it must be used in pragmatic terms. Weighing measurable harms for and against criminalization would be a way to do this. It is through a cost-based analysis that moral considerations, whether disguised as practical concerns or not, can be removed from the equation. As well, it must be remembered that the harm principle is a necessary but not sufficient condition for criminalization. There must be a method set out to determine which harms should be considered and how to measure them against each other. But above all there must be a weighing of evidence among the various aspects of the debate, which did not happen in the Supreme Court during the constitutional challenges in the 1990s.

If the Canadian government were to apply the harm principle it would be difficult to prove that current narcotics policies protect society sufficiently to validate infringing on individual rights as much as the current laws do. This would mean proving that the use of narcotics by some is significantly detrimental to the general population. The government would also have to demonstrate that its policy is not based on moral objections to narcotics, but prevent real harm from occurring and thus have a utilitarian benefit to society.

Some were in part a response to a political backlash against the import of foreign labor. Following an influx of Chinese labor in the mid-nineteenth century there was a downturn in the number of jobs available, because Chinese laborers without families could work for lower wages than Canadians. They were in effect prohibited from bringing women over from China by the Chinese Head Tax levied between 1885 and 1923 of $50, which they could not afford to pay. This was done to protect white laborers, but it did not slow the immigration from China, just limited it to mainly men. These same workers brought with them opium, which they had become accustomed to smoking in China. Opium use had become a problem back in China after two ‘Opium Wars’ with Britain in 1839-1842 and 1856-1860 where British merchants imported mass amounts of Indian opium and the British government forced the Chinese government to let them conduct free trade throughout the entire country. It is only natural that use would follow immigrant labor, especially in large communities of mainly men.

In 1907 there was a large demonstration against Asian immigrants in Vancouver, to which Mackenzie King, then Minister of Labor, felt there must be a response. There was also an element of appeasement involved, as China was at the same time trying to stamp out the internal opium trade, and both Canada and the United States wanted to nurture favorable trade relations with the East. Because there were also fears that opium use would spread from Chinese to Canadian workers, King’s legislative response was the Opium Act, 1908 which “made it an indictable offence to import, manufacture, offer to sell, sell, or possess to sell opium for non-medical purposes, but prohibited neither simple possession nor use”. This act was repealed for an even harsher version in 1911, after a large black market for opium appeared, which included new punishments such as whipping and deportation as some of the penalties for violation of the law. It was revised in 1923 to include other drugs, such as morphine, cocaine and cannabis. These changes were consolidated in the Opium and Narcotics Act, 1929.

The increased media attention on drug use in the 1950s, when in fact drug use was declining, resulted in the Narcotics Control Act being passed in 1961. This attention came from the rise of the idea in the United States that the high rates of addiction especially in minority groups were not attributed to flaws in the U.S. system but affected by circumstances outside American control. Therefore, once the United States had acted against drugs at home, the problem would be solved provided that foreign governments did as well. Following World War II the United States exercised extraordinary diplomatic influence, especially over its wartime allies and new multilateral institutions, resulting ultimately in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs passed by the United Nations in 1961 and ratified by Canada that same year. This international treaty was the result of an effort to consolidate the various international treaties concerning narcotics that had been passed previously. It was also an effort to include new drugs such as cannabis, and synthetic opioids. By signing this treaty Canada has been required to enact laws that implement its provisions. This change made narcotics laws wider, encompassing for the first time cannabis as well as drugs that have effects similar to the drugs already under control (e.g. synthesized drugs). This was also the first time that narcotics had been laid out in a schedule system, which has been followed to the present day.

Along with Canada’s legislation on illicit drugs there are three additional international conventions of which Canada is a signatory. The UN’s Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs brought together the various pieces of international legislation that had been enacted before. It also expanded the scope of drugs controlled under international law, adding substances such as cannabis. Additionally, it allowed the World Health Organization and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to add, remove and transfer drugs between the act’s schedules. This act was supplemented in 1971 with the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which added psychoactive drugs such as amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and other psychedelics that had not been developed at the signing of the Single Convention. Additional enforcement measures were laid out in the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances in 1988. This treaty mandated cooperation for international drug seizures and provides a legal basis for extraditions. These treaties require signatory countries to enact legislation based on the contents of each convention. Thus, the foundations of Canadian narcotics policies have been strongly influenced by international laws and conventions in an effort to suppress the international drug trade rather than by legislative or regulatory responses to any national problem with the use or abuse of drugs. These pieces of international legislation have ever since been instrumental in shaping Canada’s narcotics policies.

The Le Dain Commission from 1969 to 1972 published two reports, an interim report on non-medical use of drugs and the final report on cannabis. The interim report outlines different classes of illicit drugs, their use across Canada as compared to use of licit drugs and alcohol, as well as some causes as to why drugs are used. The interim report also identifies the lack of information about non-medical drug use and the lack of dissemination of information as two of the biggest problems facing narcotics policy makers as well as drug users. It additionally identified negative responses such as moral condemnation from government officials and other individuals to drug use as one of the problems facing policy makers. In conclusion the interim report recommended that non-medical use of drugs should be controlled but not be condemned in principle, and the extent to which drugs are controlled should be based on their relative potential for physiological harm to the user. In other words, it advised that the Canadian government regulate rather than prohibit the use of non-medical drugs. The final report of the Committee, simply titled Cannabis, had more than 12,000 Canadians from all walks of life participate in the fact finding. The main conclusions of the Committee were that prohibition against cannabis should be reformed, specifically that possession and personal cultivation should be legalized and that other crimes such as trafficking and production should be penalized by no more than five years of prison time. Nothing was ever done to implement these recommendations.

Many parallels can be drawn between the current prohibition of narcotic drugs and the prohibition of alcohol in Canada and the United States in the early twentieth century. Although prohibition was enacted in both countries, Canada repealed the laws by and large in the mid-1920s. The situation that arose during the Prohibitions era, especially in the United States, was very similar to the current state of the drug prohibition. The Temperance movement dating to the early nineteenth century used much of the same rhetoric that opponents of decriminalization use today, arguing that alcohol, mostly beer and wine, was inherently addictive and directly related to social problems such as poverty, unemployment, crime, mental illness, and business failures.

Under Prohibition, the consumption of alcohol nevertheless skyrocketed. Organized crime activity rose, with bootleg alcohol being produced and imported across Canadian-US and Mexican-US borders. Because violators were breaking one law, they were more likely to resort to activities such as violence and murder to protect their stake in the black market alcohol trade against the predations of competitors in the supply and sale of illegal substances. This also precipitated the rise of hard liquor as a substantial portion of overall public alcohol consumption. Although before Prohibition most people drank beer and wine, both were bulky and hard to transport. It was therefore both safer and more profitable for bootleggers to transport hard alcohol, which was worth more at much smaller quantities and easier to hide. This led indirectly to an increase in health problems such as cirrhosis and death, as people overindulged in a variety of more potent alcoholic beverages. There were also deaths from people drinking adulterated industrial alcohol. Prohibition worked far less as a method of controlling alcohol consumption than regulation has since its repeal. In some instances, in fact, the regime led indirectly to higher instances of addiction along with the attendant social consequences. The supply and sale of alcohol was a major factor in the spread and sophistication of organized crime and many legislators were afraid that the entire justice system was facing an imminent collapse as a result of a broad yet unworkable regime of prohibition.

The political argument made for repealing prohibition was made against the backdrop of the Depression. The anti-prohibitionists said that repealing the law would “provide jobs, stimulate the economy, increase tax revenue, and reduce the “lawlessness” stimulated by and characteristic of the illegal liquor industry.” The Depression undermined support from large employers and the economic elite, as they had thought that prohibition would increase workers’ productivity. Social problems were not alleviated by prohibition and many became more pronounced as the Depression went on and riots started to become commonplace. The political elite felt that while they could not stop the Depression, they could do something to help raise morale and show that the government could be responsive in at least one way. As time went on more influential economic and political leaders came to support repeal until it was enacted in for 3.4% alcoholic beer in 1933 and in full in 1934.

One of the principal reasons for opposition to regulation of alcohol was that people felt that creating a system to regulate it would be too complex an undertaking and that it would not work. Although they were correct in one respect – it was a massive undertaking to create liquor regulation – the critics were wrong to say that it could not be done. Both the United States and Canada were able to fashion working alcohol regulations that are not only comprehensive, but that are for the most part obeyed and thus more effective in containing the aggregate consumption of alcohol. One does not often notice the many layers of restrictions imposed on those businesses holding liquor licenses but these regulations are not seen as especially restrictive by customers.

Regulation has in other words been more effective than prohibition in curbing alcohol consumption. It has succeeded in turning alcohol use from hard liquor back to beer and wine and tempered use in general. It also moved alcohol from the margins of society to an invisible thread in the fabric of Western life. The repeal of prohibition brought the alcohol industry into the economic fold, and ended the lawlessness that led to violence, the development of crime syndicates and the corruption of public officials. By investing the leaders of the alcohol industry in maintaining law and order regulators were able to ensure that the new regulations would be followed. It accomplished for government a critical goal that any regulatory regime seeks, namely to make an industry a co-regulator of a popular activity and thereby to lighten the direct regulatory burden of the government.

As the current prohibition of illicit narcotics is in many ways so much like that of former prohibition of alcohol, one can draw simple provisional conclusions as to what might be done to reduce the abuse of non-medical drugs along with related criminal activity. While some of the problems that society experiences come directly from drug use, many others are consequences of prohibition itself. The very act of prohibition pushes drug commerce and society outside the law, creating problems in the areas of health, organized crime, petty crime, and corrections. These problems are nearly identical to those faced during alcohol prohibition, and it stands to reason that they may be mitigated in similar ways by decriminalization or legalization.

The latest version of drug prohibition is regulated by the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, 1997 which stands as Canada’s legislative implementation of all United Nations conventions against illicit drug use. It details eight schedules of substances that are controlled. Schedule VI is divided into two classes of substances considered to be precursors for production of illicit narcotics. These schedules are used to simplify the various punitive sentences associated with different classifications of materials for different offenses. For example, in cases of possession Schedule I substances carry a maximum of seven years imprisonment whereas schedule III substances carry a maximum of three years imprisonment.

The current laws prohibit possession, trafficking, production and exportation, with sentences ranging from a $1000 fine and maximum six months in jail to life in prison. Although the substances are too numerous to be listed exhaustively here, this act controls and prohibits, and is not limited to, the following: Coca and its derivatives, Ketamine, Opium poppy derivatives, PCP, Methamphetamine, Codeine when not in a medicine with at least two other active ingredients, Cannabis in all its forms, LSD, GHB, Mescaline, Quaaludes, Barbiturates, Anabolic Steroids, Acetone, Ethyl Ether, Hydrochloric Acid, Red Phosphorus and White Phosphorus. This list is far from complete yet illustrates how extensive the act is.

Before the Industrial Revolution families were structured very differently, especially in the working class. Men, women and children used to work side by side in the fields and at first in the factories. As a whole they were considered a basic social and economic unit. In fact, labor contracts usually stipulated that the male laborers bring their wives and children along with them. At the beginning of the Revolution, because there was a shortage of workers, women and children were employed in the factory setting. This was new, as before both groups had rarely worked outside the home for real wages. After the Industrial Revolution, however, women were forced into the home by male-led unions. The bonds of the family unit had been loosened, as members of families started to work in different places. Many children also exited the workforce, as the idealization of children and the idea of ‘childhood’ came to be popular. This was especially true of the middle and upper classes of society. As real wages rose for both men and women after 1815 and the standard of living steadily increased, the infant and child mortality rate decreased, so that there was less money that had to go into creating and raising ‘quality’ children. This led to an increase in the funding available for health care and schooling for the offspring of the family. Another thing that definitely helped in the decline of child labor was the introduction of legislation in the form of the revised Factory Act in 1833 in Britain, which was the first effective statute passed, which limited the number of hours a child could work in a day. Subsequent revisions required children to go to school for half a day (1844), and finally barring children younger than twelve from working all together (1874). These changes, moving women’s primary place to the home and children to school, reinforced the notion of the male breadwinner.

Because of the changes made socially in the Industrial Revolution, women were greatly affected. Whereas women had been part a unit before, they were increasingly excluded from working in the trades of their fathers and husbands, which they had been trained in. Instead of being able to hold the same jobs as men at the same pay rate, many young women were forced into long hours that paid them less. While the introduction of heavy machinery decreased the advantage held by men over women, the labor unions increasingly pushed women into more ‘domestic’ trades such as textiles, an industry that was increasingly mechanized. They were also forced into what we consider today to be the gender stereotype – women who stayed at home, cooking, cleaning and taking care the of children. As women stopped working en masse, it reinforced the concept of the male breadwinner, as well as the notion that if a woman were to work it was for a little bit of spending money not because she had dependents to support. As women increasingly stayed at home, the number of chores they were expected to do rose. They also had to accomplish more because few could afford to keep either paid or unpaid servants such as “unmarried daughters, maiden aunts and grandparents” any longer. Whether or not women’s place in society was bettered or not is debatable, but it is undeniable that their position was altered.

Until the Industrial Revolution most of the increase in production happened through the multiplying workforce. It was not until the 1800s that productivity started to increase exponentially to population. Because the industrialization of many industries created so many jobs, businesses had to start competing for workers, to the point where they employed young women and children as laborers. Because there were so many new enterprises, they competed for capital. And because materials were limited, they competed for the resources to create their products. The Industrial Revolution did not create the financial markets, but it took them from their meager beginnings and blew them up into one of the most important industries of the time, as well as of today. It was especially easy for Britain to get cheap raw materials from its colonies, and hold them as a captive market for the subsequent manufactured goods that were produced. The improvements in technology boosted the productivity of workers, allowing for massive outputs and the other changes that are discussed in this work.

Before the Revolution the populations of Europe and the United States were mainly rural based, and worked mostly at farming. Less than ten percent of the population lived in an urban setting. As more and more people went to work in factories and mining operations to supply the growing industrial sector, the population started to shift towards urban centers such as Arsenal, England. The population was at this point much more fluid, and workers no longer spent most of their lives in one place. Many young women went to work in factories until they were married, going back to the country side to marry farmers and have their children. Slowly people stopped returning to the countryside, and just stayed living in the cities, where they could make better money working in the factories.

Perhaps the most important thing to come out of the Industrial Revolution was the change to the world power structure that occurred. Britain was increasingly seeing competition from places it hadn’t before: America, Germany, Russia and Japan. The United States profited from favorable conditions, including having a war economy early on from the Civil War that erupted between the North and the South. Germany benefited greatly from the war with France in 1871, where it acquired Lorraine, a province rich in iron, as well as having many iron and coal deposits within the country itself. Germany was also the leader in what we would call today ‘Big Business’. Although Russia and Japan started their revolutions later, it does not discount them. Russia embarked on a process of mechanizing their world – by 1905 34% of the millions of workers in Russia worked in a factory that had 1,000 or more people. Japan’s development was sustained by an abundance of government involvement, and much of its industry lay in the shipping business. The growth of other countries decentralized much of Britain’s economic power. This was also taken down another notch by the fact that Britain was now dependant on her colonies to provide raw materials for the manufacturing industry. In some areas the flood of cheap goods killed fledgling markets such as the textile industry in Latin America. The Industrial Revolution had leveled the colonial playing field yet again.

It is not the Industrial Revolution itself, so much as the implications of such, which make it one of the most significant times in chronology of history. Because of the alterations made to society during this era, we have much of our social structure today. This period is responsible for the concept of childhood and stay-at-home wives in the lower classes. It is also responsible for a majority of the repression that women have faced in the last 200 years. Without the Industrial Revolution it would have taken centuries to progress even a fraction of the way that the world has since. It also changed the political landscape, and allowed other countries to challenge the dominance of the British Empire, which was in decline by the end of the Industrial Revolution. Overall, while many people today would not say that the Industrial Revolution is worthy of the significance that we have given it in the past, I would say that it is just as important as ever.

Negative option rebilling, the simple concept of which is a “free trial” which places you on a subscription list if you do not cancel, has been considered a quasi-legitimate business practice in some industries for decades. Companies in areas such as mail order book clubs or the new mail order DVDs are good examples.

A California company called “Family Products” marketed alleged “get rich quick scams,” such as the “John Beck Free and Clear Real Estate System” was targeted by the FTC for making “bogus claims through DVDs and infomercials” about the effectiveness of their product. Family Products allegedly duped over 600,000 Americans out of $300 million.

The traditional concept of negative option rebilling has effectively been outlawed in Canada, but remains a viable business plan in much of the rest of the world.

Operation Short Change, as the movement is called, was announced between the FTC and the Justice Department yesterday and includes dozens of cases brought forward in at least 13 states.

A quick Google search demonstrates to reporters that “weight loss” is another niche heavily effected by negative option rebilling. With products like “Nature’s Colon Cleanse” (do not order from this site — at least, not without reading the terms) which appears to sell little more than the concept of doing a “cleanse” offering “limited” free trials to customers in exchange for adding them to their rebill list. Some of these companies provide proper customer support to allow users to cancel, but the majority do not.

Attorney General of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, told the Associated Press that he has received a huge upswing of complaints regarding these scams. “In the down economy, the scam artists crawl out from under rocks. If they want money up-front, then they’re up to no good.”

The embargo has taken many forms over the years, restricting travel to the tiny island as well as trade. One law passed in 1963 prohibited companies that did business in Cuba from doing business in the United States. The result of the blockade was decades of Cuban poverty as the economy adjusted from the shock of losing a major trading partner. It also led to the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Cubans to the state of Florida, including more than 10,000 people who left during the Mariel Boatlift in 1980.

The sanctions that are going to be repealed are numerous. All restrictions on remittances and travel by Cuban-Americans will be removed, allowing them to send money to the island for the first time. Certain businesses will be allowed to offer services to Cuba, such as telecommunications firms. These actions come days before the Summit of the Americas, which is expected to call on Mr. Obama to remove all sanctions on Cuba and to restore diplomatic relations with the country.

There are still many other restrictions for the United States Congress to change, including travel for other Americans and opening up trade for the entire business world. Hopefully these new moves push them in the right direction.

The political and economic situation in Somalia is anything but stable. Since 1991 a civil war has been raging as different warlord factions attempt to take control of the country. What’s more, a number of states within Somalia have self-declared themselves as autonomous, yet not independent. There is no government, and as much as 73% of the country is thought to be living on less than $2 US a day. The conflict is now between several Islamist military factions, African Union military troops and clan militias. The condition of the area is dire at best.

It is no wonder, then, that as many as 1,000 men now run in pirate gangs along the coast. Somalia is situated on the Horn of Africa, making it a prime area to attack passing ships. At first the intent was to deter fishing boats from poaching in Somali waters, but as time progressed it became its own lucrative business. It does, however, threaten the stream of humanitarian aid into the region, with as much as 90% of the World Food Programme’s deliveries are moved via ship, which now require a costly military escort. This rise in cost of transporting the food means that there is less to spend on the food itself.

The first reported incident of piracy was April 10, 2005, when a Hong Kong ship was held for ransom and promptly returned upon receipt. One more unsuccessful attack was made that year, and another was completed in 2006. After that the number of piracy incidents exploded, with eight in 2007 and 38 in 2008 not including ships that managed to evade capture. This was due to the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December 2006.

In 2009 so far there have been 19 ships that have succumbed to the pirates’ invasions. The latest of these attacked happened on April 8, 2009 with the hijacking of the US container vessel Maersk Alabama. The 20 person crew is believed to be safe. Among the cargo was UN aid food for Somalia and Uganda. The ransom request is yet to be issued, but it is thought to be about the same as previous hijackings – about $1 million US.

The pirates currently hold 9 ships captive. The success of the pirates can be directly linked to the fact that once a ransom is paid, they turn over the ships and crew quickly and generally unharmed. It has also been said that the pirates even hire caterers to cook western style dishes such as spaghetti for the captives while they are waiting to be ransomed.

Another aspect of the state of affairs in Somalia has been the existence of thousands of tons of nuclear and toxic waste. European and Asian companies signed contracts with the ruling warlords of the time and had been dumping the waste there for years. In December 2004 a massive tsunami hit the coast, stirring it all into the ocean. This has lead to an increase in respiratory problems in the population and

The current solution to this menace has been the deployment of the Combined Task Force 150, a US initiative that has become the patrol force of the Horn of Africa after 9/11. The task force is composed of many different countries including Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Pakistan, the United States and the United Kingdom, although other nations have participated in the past. It serves as support for Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The CTF-150 established the Maritime Security Patrol Area on August 22, 2008 as a special force within the CTF-150 to attempt to combat piracy, especially off the coast of Somalia. They also now perform procedures called “Visit, Board, Search and Seizure”, which aim at further deterring piracy.

Since the employment rate peaked in October of last year, net job losses have totaled around 357,000, increasing each month — Statistics Canada has said the five-month decline is the most severe since the 1982 recession. Of all industries hit by the crisis, manufacturing is reportedly suffering the heaviest losses, with a 6.8 percent unemployment increase since October alone, the equivalent of 134,000 job cuts. In addition to manufacturing, losses have similarly been reported in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing, construction and natural resources.

Economists had previously, for the most part, predicted full-time job losses of around 50,000 for last month, whilst more fearful estimates pegged the number at around 90,000 — in actuality, 79,500 full-time jobs were lost, with 18,200 part-time positions created in their place. Similar trends have been seen over the past five months across all employment sectors, and only the public sector seems to remain relatively unscathed internationally.

No province is free from the increased unemployment, with British Columbia seeing the largest decline of 23,000 jobs; Alberta suffered 15,000 cuts and Ontario an additional 11,000 — the three provinces have accounted for the steepest drop in employment over the past five months. The natural resource sector was hit badly in recent months, in particular in Alberta where gas, oil and coal extraction play an important part in the economy.

TD Bank economist Grant Bishop predicted that the three-month contraction of jobs totaling 272,000 thus far in 2009 is only a portion of the total losses expected before the end of the year, which Bishop predicts could eventually exceed 520,000. Another school of thought on the issue suggests that though things may progress over the year, the rate at which they are doing so has decelerated.