Doe, Roe Poe: Oh Know!

How are these for names, John Doe, Jane Roe, Richard Poe and Sally Yoe? Pick one that peaks your fancy, that is if you are one of over a million Canadians who are interactive on the Internet. Interactive here refers to those, like me, who converse on the Internet with people on many topics. It could be discussing a horrid movie on the Internet Movie Database website (IMDB.com) that you spent good money renting, or it could be responding to a story posted on CBC's website. Or you could be posting your opinion in a health care news forum responding to a new snake-oil product that just does not work.

Yes, many Canadians log onto these types of websites and use anonymous monikers like BigTrucker49 or SweetSixteen72. This anonymity tends to allow someone to express themselves freely, and for many get a sense that they can say anything without getting their face slapped or knuckles rapped. Many are lulled into a false sense of security when responding to a news story from a well known television station or newspaper. After-all, they are agreeing with something that has been published by the media, who should have the professionalism to be careful and not defame anyone.

The names John Doe, Jane Roe, Richard Poe and Sally Yoe are common names attributed to ‘yet to be identified’ defendants on a Writ of Summon when one files a lawsuit.

In Canada, there are two interesting cases that have been brought to our attention this month which could set a new precedent in law. In each one, additional defendants have been drawn in from those who leave seemingly innocent comments on blogs, news articles and opinion pieces.

The first one comes to us from Nova Scotia where a judge has ordered a newspaper and Google Inc. to provide details on the identity of people who posted anonymous comments about Halifax's top firefighters. Sally Roe in this instance posted critical comments about these firefighters while responding to news stories on a discussion forum over issues of racism. It would be fair to say that the newspaper who published the stories may be in court in the future and those who responded to the stories may not be able to hide behind a name something like FireStalker22.

Then in Vancouver a lawsuit was filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court against a national newspaper from Toronto, where a reporter wrote four opinion pieces and allegedly made libelous comments defaming a well-known and respected Canadian climatologist. The court document claims that the reporter attributed statements to the scientist that was “grossly irresponsible falsehoods.” In this case, not only is the newspaper reporter, editor and publisher named as defendants, but the Writ makes room for a John Doe, Jane Roe, Richard Poe and Sally Yoe. Four anonymous comment-posters that responded to the reporter's stories.

At first glance one could say, “Good Luck” in locating the casual Internet user that chimed-up and supported the opinions of the defendants. Because everyone knows that if you're chatting up with a SexyGirl32 on the Internet at the other end of the keyboard you may find a sweaty, hairy, 320 lbs cigar smoking 50-something dude with a tattoo of ‘Bo loves mommy’ painted on his biceps.

However, tracking down an anonymous moniker is not really that hard, because you are NEVER ANONYMOUS on the Internet. As you travel the Internet your IP ADDRESS is recorded on every site you visit, and as you research using search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing all your queries plus your IP Address is logged and stored for up to 18 months.

An IP Address is four sets of three digits numbers that electronically locates your computer terminal on the world wide web. In the case of WIFI, a method that many laptops connect the internet with  the IP Address is associated to your wireless router. So, if your router is not WEP coded (security locked) anyone within the range of the signal can connect to your network and browse the Internet. In those cases their activity can be traced back to the owner of the router, that being you.

So, yes, law enforcement or anyone acting under the authority of a court can get access to your activity.  In the case of this John Doe family, they can track them to their door.

All this smacks of big brother looking over your shoulder.  It is a sobering thought for people who interact on the Internet. Open discussion and free speech is what makes the Internet a revolutionary communication tool. However, just because you are not face to face with those you discuss does not give us an open door to slander.

Commenting on news items and opinion columns on the Internet should be a careful practice, as these two court cases have demonstrated. Just because the press has put it out there does not necessarily mean that the article is free of any liability.

Bottom line, on the internet, there is no such thing as Anonymity.

The Measure of a Business

Philosophers have been formulating ethics for centuries,  and for the most part, thinkers such as Plato and Socrates have provided mankind with the basis for humanistic ethical conduct.  For the religious, the code by which we are to interact and treat each other are found in sacred text such as the Bible, Torah or Quaran, where the prophets have written chapters and verses covering how we are to love our enemies and how we are to be measured as Gods creatures.

A good way of understanding ethics are to formalize a set of  societal rules, laws, regulations, and yes, business rules. When we break an ethical rule, there are consequences or punishments which come along with a violation. With ethics, there is right and there is wrong. Flip the coin and you find Integrity, which refers to the quality of one's character and a persons guiding behaviour. In other words, integrity is a choice, and when we're acting with integrity, we do the right thing, even when nobody is watching us. Simply put, we can't have ethics without integrity.

However, when it comes to business, ethics and integrity are defined more so under the circumstances of a company's vision and mission statement, where the goals of the company fold, bend and in some cases mutilate the ethical landscape.

The standard understanding of ethics, that being black and white, good over bad, right over wrong, don't always apply to some in businesses.  In a capitalistic society, the goal is to make money and the financial survival takes over the bridge steering the behaviour of a business.

Preston Townley the former Dean of the Carlson School of Management once said, "...it ought to be fairly easy to choose between right and wrong by relying on principles, but business activity often demands that we select from alternatives that are neither wholly right or wholly wrong.”

Over the past few weeks, the City of Wetaskiwin has given our publication the opportunity to service Wetaskiwin in a more vital role, by placing the legal notices in our community newspaper.  To say that this family run newspaper was elated with this blessing, is an understatement.  But what we did not fully understand was the level of vitriol politics that this decision was about to unleash.

The privilege of featuring these notices has been in the hands of other city newspapers for over 100 years.  Suffice to say that residents of Wetaskiwin have read in the other city newspaper their reaction to this decision. The articles written have been terse, and the level of anger was skillfully conveyed by the publication, even going as far as using their media as a platform to stir anger in the readership.

However, last week a reporter from a Toronto Daily Newspaper contacted our Publisher advising that he was doing a story on the City of Wetaskiwin trying out the Pipestone Flyer for one year. The results of this published story was unfortunate because the reporter from this reputable daily newspaper employed misquotes, wrong statements of facts and referred to our weekly newspaper as a shopper, which is not only untruthful, but damaging.   The article in essence attempted to reduce our publication down to a glorified business insert, stripping our community newspaper status in the eye of our readers and potential media buyers.

Combined with the references to our publication in the other city newspaper, it would be fair to say that the Flyer has been properly trounced.   All this attention for offering a service for which any community newspaper provides.  And yet, we are still very proud to be referred to as your community newspaper.  The Pipestone Flyer will not change.  We are still the newspaper that goes out of its way to provide as many people in our community with 15 minutes of fame and at the same time provide coverage of the largest geographical circulation area of nearby community newspapers.

It is important for any business leader to remember that their behaviour is a strong influence on the behaviour of employees in their organization. Inversely, you can always assess the integrity of an organization by the way their employees represent it.

In the print world, integrity is key to gaining the trust of the readership, for trust is a scale by which we are all measured.

It's No Laughing Matter

A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette, wing tucked behind his back. The egg, looking a bit pissed off, grabs the sheet, rolls over and says, "Well, I guess we finally answered THAT question."

The whole image of a person smoking after an intimate moment seems to makes smoking cool, or at least tension relieving.  Not that the chickens in this scenario really feels tension.  But as society's experience has proven, smoking is nothing less than a health hazard, and a recent ten year study out of Toronto, Ontario has gleaned some interesting data.

Toronto is just one of many cities that implemented a non-smoking bylaw years before the Provincial Governments began passing smoking legislation that banned smoking in public places, and workplaces.  Of course much to the chagrin of restaurant and bar operators Alberta followed suit even going as far as prohibiting smoking within 5 metres of building entrances, plus removed the sale of cigarettes from pharmacies and instigated a curtain requirement hiding cigarettes from public view in convenience stores.

Suffice to say that for the past ten years smoking has been prohibited in one form or other in 90 countries worldwide.  Notable exceptions include Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, and many other countries in Central and Western Africa, where people smoke wherever they want.  This includes the strict kingdom of Saudi Arabia where their government has been silent on smoking bans.

However, this study out of Toronto has shown that smoking bans have lead to drops in hospital admissions due to cardiovascular and respiratory conditions.  The  drop was significant, and amounted to 39% fewer hospital admissions.
In the same period, statistics have shown that smoking has also decreased, with the exception of some witless teens where smoking in the age group from 15 to 19 years old have shown an increase.  Oddly the biggest increase in this age-group are among immigrants who light-up in an effort to make new friends to truly become a Canadian teenager.

The authors of this study stated that their findings were, “consistent with the evidence that exposure to second-hand smoke is detrimental to health and legitimizes legislative efforts to further reduce exposure.”

Reducing smoking further is something that many jurisdictions  have been exploring which can include such actions as prohibiting smoking in personal vehicles where children are present and legislating smoking in personal residences under the same circumstances.

This all seems extreme, and I am the first to cheer any law that protects the health of citizens where bad habits from some impose risks to the populous.  I personally have never smoked so when these bans started to come about I was the last person to feel bad seeing grown people puffing on a cigarette standing outside their workplace in -40C temperatures.

Yes, it appears that the drop in hospital admissions is a result of non-smokers getting less recycled second-hand chemical and tar infested air into their lungs.   Why it would take a ten year study to try to prove an obvious point boggles the mind since we have plenty of statistics to drive the point home.

The facts are clear, where here in Canada smoking has been proven to be responsible for one in five deaths.  Which is close to five times the number of deaths caused by car accidents, suicides, drug abuse, murder and AIDS combined.  The chance of dying from smoking for long-time smokers is one person for every two.

In Canada over 45,000 people die from illnesses directly linked to tobacco smoking, which sadly includes an average of 100 infants yearly.  Among those deaths it has been shown that over 800 non-smokers in Canada die as a result of fatal illnesses caused by second hand smoke.

Just to drive the point further, it has been proven that death by stroke is five times higher in woman who smoke.  That is if cervical cancer has not set in, a risk that doubles as a result of smoking.

In Canada heart disease kills four in ten woman.  But for woman who smoke, this statistic triples the risk of dying from heart disease.

In light of the statistics that show woman at risk the numbers show that more men die every year from smoking than do woman.

Sobering statistics, but these facts have been drilled into people in our country since the 70's, from stark messages on the side of cigarette cartons, television advertising, magazine advertisement to ultimately visiting a loved one falling into renal shutdown at the Cross Cancer Clinic in Edmonton as a result of lung or esophagus cancer.

This image has been with me for more than ten years now, when I witnessed my mother-in-law dying as a result of cancer scourging through her body.  She smoked all of her adult life and many of her children are smokers.  I saw my wife, who I have been with since 1980, deal with her mother passing slowly over a three weeks period  before her eyes.

The grief of losing your parents to old-age is one thing.  But when you see a woman die before you from cancer who did not heed to the messages from the medical community, the grief is almost unbearable.

Not a week goes by that my wife's mother is not brought up in discussion.  And for my wife, it has left a hole that not even a loving husband can fill.  So the real message here is that smoking is no laughing matter.

Throwing Good after Bad

In theory, governments throwing stimulus money into what we have  told are shovel-ready projects have a way of keeping people employed during hard economic times. Shovel-ready projects like road construction, overpass development, public building improvements, new schools and hospitals come to mind when we are told our government has spent $47.2 billions dollars towards their Economic Action Plan.

We are again made to feel better when Federal Finance Minister Flaherty reminds us that for every dollar spent on economic stimulus we receive a Gross Domestic Product return of  $1.5 dollars. Not bad considering that when the average investor looks for a return, 11% would be considered a good bang for the buck.

So while the average Canadian goes about their business thinking that the government is doing all it can to lessen the blow of a sharp recession, public funds are being poured into private enterprise at an alarming rate. Building a deficit that will only translate into higher taxes for the average wage earner, a burden that we will feel for decades to come.

So, has this money stimulated the economy? Have we seen an increase in job openings as a result of the stimulus money? Has the business sector seen an increase in sales as a results of more jobs and increase demand of materials as a result of shovel-ready projects?

If the government is right and their research on the GDP return on investment is sound, we should have felt the joy of $23.6 billions dollars filling our pants.

Recent news has been filling the airways with talk of us being in a 'post recession' Canada. And, certainly with the exception of a sharper than normal slow-down in the Alberta Oil patch, Alberta's economy has been the envy of North America.

If anything, most Canadians look to their own micro view of the economy by browsing real estate listings to see if housing costs have reduced, or have spoken to their local small business person to 'see how things have been.' Although with the government keeping interest rates down, the real estate market has slumped, but for the most part housing costs have only corrected on an average of 20%. Much less than the economic pundits were predicting.

No matter how your view, every Canadian, whether their politics lean left or right, or teeter on the fence, should be rather concerned on how the Federal Government spent our $47.2 billions dollars. Because a stimulus package can be only one method employed by a government to encourage economic growth. And, we should at least be asking of our elected officials if the stimulus spending has had the effect our federal Minister of Finance advised it would. Have Canadians benefited a $1.5 dollars for every dollar spent towards stimulus?

Recent studies from reputable think-tanks have shown that public funded stimulus packages do not have a recovery effect on recessional economies. University of Stanford Professor John Taylor concluded in a recent study that there was little empirical evidence to show that government spending is a method of ending a recession or inversely accelerate an economic recovery. Further, Harvard economist Alberto Alsina in a 2007 study has found that FAILED stimulus initiatives almost exclusively relied on government spending.

So where did our government get this magical economic multiplier of 1.5/1 that seemed be a strong influence on opening the public purse? That figure comes out of a political document co-authored by the chair of the U.S.. President Barack Obama's council of Economic Advisers. A document that purports a multiplier of 1.57 without any data to back it up. The same foreign office that put together a stimulus package that has cost the American taxpayer $2.8 trillion so far this year, with another $8.2 trillion in commitments for the balance of 2010.

With the rapid solidification of Globalization, each country involved in providing bailout money are connected at the hip, and in most cases are heavily influenced by the biggest player on the field. In the case of the USA, they not only influence how their money is doled out, but it is fair to say influences the actions of neighbouring nations. In Canada it is reported that a $3.5 billion dollar auto-industry bailout was allocated for the Canadian subsidiaries of the Big Three. One of which General Motors has already pledged all its assets worldwide to the U.S. government in order to secure the first American installment of a US $30-billion loan, leaving no assets to collateralize a $6-billion loan reported coming from our Federal government.

When it came to stimulus spending the auto industry has been been quick with palms-up. General Motors aside, Chrysler has also been seen requesting billions of dollars from our Federal government.

It would appear that when it came to softening the blow of spending billions of tax-payer dollars the promise of a 50% return helps justify throwing good money after bad. It would also be fair to say that our Federal government have allowed themselves to be bullied by the U.S.A. who once again pursue to pad their interests in-part to bail out their auto-industry.  An industry where the U.S. Government have become vested shareholders. It would have bolstered a bit of Canadian pride if our government had done their own homework instead of relying on faulty data provided by the same compromised U.S. Government, and come up with a true Canadian plan to tackle our own economy.

Don't hold your breath waiting for funds to build new schools or hospitals, but there may be a new shiny sedan in your future. That is if our government stops throwing good money after bad.