Mining and NL Lakes

What struck me most when I started hearing about this a while ago was how absurd it seemed. You see, Environment Canada has the ability to rename lakes and bodies of water as waste facilities. At first I though this seemed a little crazy -- when I hear the word facility I think of a building of some sort. You know, something that has an element of man-made-ness to it. Wilderness is not what you have in mind. 

What's even more disturbing is that this change in classification is done through Environment Canada, who are apparently abandoning normal bureaucratic procedures to speed up the lakes' destruction. Then, after the destruction of the lake, they plan on building a new one!

It's shocking that finding less disastrous, if more costly options are not chosen for mining. In NL there's a tradition of selling ourselves short development projects, looks like this might be the next on a long list.  The shareholders must be happy...

Marriage

I certainly mean to post more than I have , and am trying to switch into high gears to get a few up a week. Here's something that needs little commentary but that I'm sure will ruffle the feathers of any conservatives out there: Traditonal Marriage

That entire site often has some great stuff -- especially from Charles Taylor.

Minimum wage increase in NL

Today at CBC they're running this story in NL, which opens:

"Newfoundland and Labrador's minimum wage rose Tuesday, although it's expected to have little effect on employers who are already desperate to find workers."

Ok. First of all, I know the CBC has faced some pretty severe cuts in NL but this is a little absurd. The goal of a minimum wage is to keep people from starving too quickly, not, as the title suggests, to help employers. They can increase their wages to a point where employees can even survive reasonably well if they decide to do so. That this Timmy Hoes owner needs a gun put to his head to start paying his employees? He can give them the whole store if he wants to and they can run it. There, problem solved.

Secondly, that the wage's floor is so low in NL (and throughout Canada and the US generally) is appalling. In the service sector especially and McJobs especially -- where capital flight cannot be as great a problem (they can't mail you your double-double from India or Mexico (for everything else thanks NAFTA), the minimum wage can help keep money in the province (cash to employees and not to the profit margin), redistribute wealth and create more economic activity as these lower income persons by some of the things they desperately need. Even in non-service sectors the minimum wage has a negligible impact on the economy at worst (even using neoclassical methods of classifying the economy) while benefiting those who need it most. I spent half a year researching minimum wage policy, and unless you work with a (group)think-tank like the Fraser Institute the results are pretty clear.

Personally these people need to unionize to make their working conditions worthwhile (Newfoundland and Labrador's labour laws are not the friendliest), but until then surely the government can index the minimum wage and increase it to a livable level. They owe it to the people they represent.