Experienced Cop Shoots Self in Foot Raises Questions About Public Safety

An experienced police officer in Canada’s largest city accidentally shot himself in the foot during a routine training exercise yesterday, making you wonder just how safe it is to have this fellow wandering the streets with a gun.

The 33-year-old police officer’s gun accidentally went off as he put it back in his holster, after a gun range exercise at the Toronto Police College, in Toronto, Canada.

Rest assured, the cop is going to be okay, according to police, he was alert and breathing when taken to hospital, with non-life-threatening injuries. All that appears to really have suffered his is pride.

Or more likely, the public’s perception of just how safe it is to have gun wielding cops in the city.

All of “Toronto’s finest” have to go through the yearly gun range drills to carry their firearm – even the highest cop in the land, the chief must do the annual gun range.

Yet, there is no word as to what happens when a police officer – especially an experienced one – fails the drill.

Not that we are questioning the need for law enforcement officers to protect themselves and the public by carrying guns. One of the unfortunate ills of our modern society is the level of weaponry criminals have at their disposal – from pistols and sawed off shotguns, to fully automatic weapons with armour piercing rounds – crime reports read like movie scripts, but the firepower is anything but fiction.

However, when an experienced cop shoots himself during a regular drill, one must question just how effective the training is?

Most police in cities and towns across North America never have to draw their weapon. And those that have, often say they never want to do that ever again.
But when a police officer holsters his or her sidearm before heading out on their shift, we trust that police officer knows how to use that sidearm impeccably well. Because all it takes is one mistake, and innocent lives could end instantly.

We wish the officer from the Toronto Police Service well, and hope he gets better soon. And we hope that this incident alerts the top brass at that police service that maybe, just maybe, they should take a long, hard look at their weapons training program, to make sure embarrassing incidents like this don’t turn into public tragedies.

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Who’s Paying for the Stuff that Comes Out of Your Tap?

We drink it to sustain our bodies, bathe in it to stay clean and healthy, it is even part of the very molecular structure of what we breathe to live.

Water.

All life as we know it requires water. Life is so dependent on the liquid compound known as H2O that scientists use its existence on other planets as a determining factor in whether there is a possibility of life on worlds outside our own. That’s why they think their once may have been life on Mars, because of trace elements which indicate water once was on the red planet.

All civilizations throughout history have been built on or near water. Battles have ensued, and great wars have been fought over water.

A battle is heating up in Canada’s largest province over who should pay for the life sustaining substance.

Ontario Liberal Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) David Caplan has proposed a private members bill which would require all residents of that province to pay the full price for safe, clean, water flowing into their homes.

Caplan’s no slouch, he’s a veteran politician. He’s been a health minister and an infrastructure minister – on separate occasions – and now is known among his colleagues as a backbencher because he’s no longer a minister of anything.

And his private members bill isn’t anything to take one flush at and look away either. Not only would Ontarians on average have to fork over about $50 per month for the right to continue to access their safe and clean municipal water supply, the bill would put into law the public ownership of water.

Maybe Caplan is planning ahead to the next election -- today he announced yet another private member's bill to make Toronto's public transit system legally an essential service. This debate has gone on for years, because every time the over-powerful and greedy union calls for a transit strike, the City of Toronto essentially shuts down due to the massive traffic jams.

Who does own the stuff that flows through your taps? If Caplan’s bill passes – it is already at Second Reading – legally you would.

But wait a sec . . . if you own something, why would you need to pay for it – you already own it?

Caplan’s water bill stems from the Walkerton tragedy a decade ago. Back in 2000, seven people died in Walkerton, Ontario, Canada due to a tainted water supply. The money collected by this new tax on water would go towards ensuring municipal water sources and the systems in place to get those water sources to us our safe and well managed.

In some Canadian municipalities, the water supply systems are well over 100-years-old.

Despite the additional cost to Ontario residents, this water bill really boils down to two issues – the ownership of a natural resource, and whether or not the money collected for the right to access that resource will really go towards maintaining it.

Far more than being cynical, we’ve seen governments create new taxes and user fees for specific projects, only to learn that those monies have gone to other things.

When the Liberals were last in power federally in Canada, millions of dollars were collected to keep track of legal gun owners, and to remove unregistered fire arms.
However, all the money collected was spent long before the Gun Registry was completed, leaving a political mine field for the Liberals, and a mishandled and mismanaged partial list of registered gun owners.

That additional gas tax you pay when you fill up your car is supposed to fund road and highway repairs, public transit systems and other infrastructure costs.

Yet most of these funds have gone into other government programs, leaving our roads and highways full of potholes, and our constantly underfunded public transit systems crushing their very users, by constantly increasing their fares.

Clearly, we just can’t take a politicians word when they tell us specific user fees or taxes collected will go to the specific costs they claim they will.

So should we let the slow meandering wheels of governments declare our water systems publicly owned?

The alternative, unfortunately isn’t all that better – having a privately owned water system, run by the filthy hands of greedy big business.

Although the funds collected by big business would most likely go into maintaining the water supply system, the primary goal of big business is making money. So the costs would constantly increase, as the powers-that-be wanted more and more profits – even if the cost to maintain the system didn’t rise.

We’ve seen this happen with the once provincially owned 407 Express Toll Highway in Ontario, which has seen constant toll increases ever since it was sold off to a private company which now handles all maintenance.

Whatever happens, we’re stuck in the middle of two evils – a mismanaged public system, or an overpriced private system – because water is the one thing none of us can go without.

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U. S. Economy Heading Towards Another Crash

Both Canadian and American governments have boldly declared the worst economic downturn since The Great Depression over, finished, D.O.A.

Don’t know what the economists in those countries are smoking, but the facts don’t backup that claim.

Unemployment in both countries actually rose last month over previous ones, and in the United States, there are other faltering factors all pointing to the possibility of another credit crunch and crash.

American consumer spending is still contracting, and although the price of

Image via Wikipedia

homes rose slightly in the summer in the States, those prices are falling again – mainly because people aren’t buying homes – or any big ticket items. Credit card rates in the States have also dramatically increased, despite the U.S. Federal Reserve’s extension of generous interest rates to banks.

All of these symptoms were part of the problem which led to the original economic slump, and could easily be the cause of another one – just as bad or worse. If the American economy fails again so quickly, the recession (some might call it a depression) would be far worse, as many still haven’t recovered from the current economic mess.

So what is going on in one of the most powerful nation’s on the planet? Why is the economy heading back into the depths of fiscal hell?

U.S. President Barack Obama’s own economic recovery plan is partly to blame – despite its intent to revive the ailing American economy.

Image via Wikipedia

Credit card rates were suddenly jacked up recently, even for many Americans who had excellent credit, and pay their bills on time. Thanks to a law passed in May by Congress, requiring banks to give 45-days notice before raising rates – to give the banks time to abide by the new regulations, Congress didn’t make the law effective until February 2010. Naturally, all the banks hiked their rates well before the new law took effect.

This meant many people who weren’t expecting their rates to increase, suddenly were hit with major credit card rate increases.

Though this new law will also go further to harm the economy, by severely restricting the available credit issued to consumers. As banks are more limited in terms of their ability to raise their rates, many who can’t pay their bills on time will have their credit cards canceled. Many more with less than stellar credit histories will be turned away.

The faltering economy has already reduced the available amount of credit issued to consumers. In the third quarter of 2006, banks sent 2.1 billion direct mail credit card offers, according to research firm Mintel, this year in the same quarter that number was only 391 million.

Clearly credit card companies and banks are monitoring current and potential customer spending habits more closely. Some credit card companies have even gone as far as to cancel customer cards just for using their credit cards at businesses which typically are used by consumers with poor credit histories – even if they themselves have excellent credit ratings.

President Obama’s economic recovery plan was supposed to build consumer confidence, which in turn would get people spending, and that would charge the economic engine, driving us out of the global economic downturn.

Instead, many of the policies are doing just the opposite, creating fear – on the part of banks and credit issuers – which reduces the amount of money consumers have available to spend. This slows the economy down, as consumer spending drops – as it has.

Image by Stickbob via Flickr

Although the credit card freeze wasn’t the best issued legislation by the American government – they should have included some plan to ensure credit card issuers wouldn’t hike rates immediately to avoid the new law – part of the blame does go to the credit card issuers themselves.

These credit issuing companies intentionally raised their rates to avoid a new law, geared towards protecting their customers. By forcing credit card companies and banks to provide 45-days notice prior to a rate increase, it gives the card holders an opportunity to determine if they can continue to afford the credit card, and if not, to cancel it before they get into serious financial trouble.

By jumping the line by raising rates ahead of the 45-day notice period law, these credit card issuers have taken away their customer’s right to choose the best route to take for their own financial well being.

Still, all the warning signs are screaming that the American economy is heading towards another dive – whether this one will be as dire as the one we’re still in remains to be seen. But all the positive hoopla the American government is spreading is pure propaganda – we are not out of fiscal hell – not yet.

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Surfing the Net in Canada – Watch Where You Click

A proposed new law is being introduced in Canada’s House of Commons today, which would grant police the power to force your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to hand over all records of your online activities without a warrant.

Imagine having someone go through all your personal emails, chat room conversations, website histories, file transfers and surfing habits, without your knowledge, and for reasons which may or may not be justified.

The proposed law, a Bill called “An Act Regulating Telecommunications Facilities to Support Investigations,” gives Canadian law enforcement agencies unprecedented sweeping powers to dig up all this dirt, without justifying their reasons.

Simply cut off a cop on the highway, and next thing you know, they b

reak down your door because you downloaded last summer’s block buster movie off the net.

Supporters of the Bill – including police forces across the country – say situations like these aren’t likely, because they will only use these new rights to investigate criminal activates. They say the Internet has become an easy and important tool by criminals, pedophiles, terrorists, drug dealers and scam artists.

However, Canada’s Federal Privacy Commissioner and other privacy watchdogs are very worried about this proposed legislation, because it allows police to have carte blanche access to your complete online life, with nothing more than a hunch.

Currently, law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant – by providing reasonable and probable grounds to a judge to get that warrant – just to listen in on your phone conversations, or to search your places of work or residence. They don’t presently have any rights to access your online usage from your ISP.

Police and other law enforcement agencies across Canada have been demanding this type of law for years, to help in their criminal investigations.

Granting law enforcement agencies the right to gather this information from ISPs isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but allowing them to have this information without a warrant is.

Being a police officer is a tough job, but being a cop also means having a certain element of power and responsibility.

Placing the responsibility in those that have the power is a dangerous combination – that’s why the proposed Bill is a bad Bill. It allows police to regulate themselves in terms of what prompts them to order an ISP to hand over personal online information.

You could be out at a restaurant with a group of friends, one joke taken the wrong way by a police officer in earshot, and that cop goes off and starts searching through your online life – and you may never know about this, especially if there is nothing incriminating against you.

If the police and other law enforcement agencies want to have laws allowing them to access the personal information of suspected criminals online – fine. But giving them unfettered access, based on what may just be a best-guess, is a step closer to living in a country like China, where the government regularly blocks Internet access under the guise of “protecting its citizens.”

Like when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported during last summer’s Olympic Games that some of the ceremonies broadcast “live” from China, were actually pre-recorded and edited by the Chinese government. Within hours of CBC reporting that story, the Chinese government had blocked all CBC sites within China.

It would take a long time, and many more similar Bills proposed and passed in Canada, before such a controlled online world were to happen. But this Bill is the first step towards just that.

Is that the type of society we want here in Canada?

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