Canadian Liberals Discover Cost/Benefit Analysis

December 4, 2002 1:59 PM

Canadian Liberals Discover Cost/Benefit Analysis
posted by ZenMasterThis (28 comments total)

Note for non-Canadians here..in Canada "Liberal" does not mean the same thing as it does in the US.
posted by CrazyJub at 2:01 PM on December 4, 2002

As a gun nut, I support the gun registry, BUT, if I give someone 2 million dollars, how do they spend 500 times that amount? Perhaps someone needs to learn how to say "sorry, you've spent your budget for the year, you get no more". Or even "no soup for you!"
posted by blue_beetle at 2:04 PM on December 4, 2002

CrazyJub: Sorry to hear that. I was hoping they might send a few down to teach ours!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:09 PM on December 4, 2002

Well, if they used Linux with PostgreSQL. . .
posted by The Jesse Helms at 2:12 PM on December 4, 2002

I was hoping they might send a few down to teach ours!

Teach them what? How to run a really good boondoggle?
posted by timeistight at 2:13 PM on December 4, 2002

No, silly: teach them cost/benefit analysis! :)
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:14 PM on December 4, 2002

Just remember, y'all, that's a billion CANADIAN. No biggee.
posted by hackly_fracture at 2:14 PM on December 4, 2002

billion Canadian = about $0.35 and a fruit loop?

good title. somebody, likely very liberal, didn't care how much it cost or if it worked as long as it went through. cloudy liberal thinking...

not meaning to troll, of course...
posted by askheaves at 2:19 PM on December 4, 2002

Yeah hackly, that's what I was going to say. That's only, what, about $600 million US?
posted by Ufez Jones at 2:19 PM on December 4, 2002

...cost/benefit analysis...

I don't think those words mean what you think they mean, ZenMaster. I see no mention of benefits in the article you've linked to, and certainly no attempt to balance these benefits analytically against the unexpectedly high cost of the program. The Liberals' complaints about the program are based on management problems resulting in cost overruns, not on a cost/benefit analysis.

somebody, likely very liberal, didn't care how much it cost or if it worked as long as it went through. cloudy liberal thinking...

Yeah, well, your cloudy-thinking liberal strawman isn't nearly as evil as my baby-eating conservative strawman. Bah!
posted by mr_roboto at 2:26 PM on December 4, 2002

Liberal doesn't even always mean liberal in Canada. F'rinstance, we've got a so-called Liberal government running BC, but it's more like a far right-wing conservative party.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:36 PM on December 4, 2002

How hard can it be? According to Canadian Firearms Centre, there are 2,3 million firearm-owners in Canada. $1 billion canadian makes for about $260 real dollars per firearm-owner. Maybe they should have consulted some EU-countries on how to implement new regulations, there has been a lot of that going on.

The CFC if the agency administrating firearms in Canada, so they are the agency that have managed to spend all that money. At least they have an informative website.
posted by lazy-ville at 2:40 PM on December 4, 2002

What I mean by cloudy-thinking liberal is that some nutjob didn't call it off when it started going way off the deep end in price, and the rest of the liberals didn't care whether it worked or not until it became obscenely expensive. The liberals saw it as a magic bullet, and the nutjob saw it as Aladin's Lamp. Neither exist, and both would cost you a fortune if they did.
posted by askheaves at 2:43 PM on December 4, 2002

askheaves: And what I mean by "strawman" is that you have absolutely no idea what your talking about, that your knowledge of Canadian politics and government is probably next-to-nil, that you first heard of the Canadian gun registration program about 45 minutes ago, and that you're inventing a purely speculative scenario to please your political biases.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:51 PM on December 4, 2002

you're, for that first one. ahem.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:53 PM on December 4, 2002

Well, I think your strawman argument is a strawman argument! You're picking on my attack on liberals as if there was no truth to it! So I didn't even know that Canada had guns until now... I don't know anything about their politics, and I've never been there, even while I was living in Minnesota. That doesn't mean I'm not a fully qualified expert on the topic!

The cloudy thinking was just a reaction to watching The Daily Show last night with John interviewing the lady that runs 'The Nation' newspaper. It was painful to watch her because her ideas seemed so nebulous and cloudy, it hurt my thinking parts. I extended that pain to all liberals for today.

And, who believes that a real conservative would let a computer program to track the sale of guns in canada run into costs in the billions, much less support one that cost 2 nickels. That's why I assumed liberals. The rest was cheap shots.
posted by askheaves at 3:13 PM on December 4, 2002

not to nit-pick, but it's a cost effectiveness analysis that should have been done, not a cost-benefit analysis.
posted by boltman at 3:39 PM on December 4, 2002

The report.
posted by srboisvert at 4:02 PM on December 4, 2002

And, who believes that a real conservative would let a computer program to track the sale of guns in canada run into costs in the billions

Your faith in so-called conservatives is remarkable. How much is this homeland security foolishness costing your country again? :)
posted by Space Coyote at 4:39 PM on December 4, 2002

ZenMasterThis Discovers How to Create A Crap MeFi Discussion By Using a Misleading, Baiting Headline
posted by pitchblende at 5:15 PM on December 4, 2002

I wouldn't be too hard on the poster of the article. Remember that in Canada the distinction between 'big-l' Liberal and 'small-l' liberal is well-known. As well, to most Canadians, the adjective 'liberal' isn't necessarily taken as an insult the way it seems to be in the US.

Making fun of members of the Liberal government for running a rediculous program isn't baiting anybody but said government members, some of hwom are even waking up to what a stupid endeavour this whole gun registry business is.
posted by Space Coyote at 5:30 PM on December 4, 2002

The most bizarre part of the article is this:

Alex Shepherd, a Liberal who opposed the registry, says Canadians deserve an explanation for the cost overrun.

"I think there is a valid concern there among the public," he said. "I represent the people in my riding, I came here to represent them. They're the taxpayers of this country and I would think there's some owning up here to do."

Not the fact that he's calling for an explanation, but the fact that he'd feel the need to justify asking for one. A $2 million dollar project turned into a $1 billion dollar project and only now are people noticing and asking for explanations? Sorry, but how the hell did that happen?
posted by MidasMulligan at 6:44 PM on December 4, 2002

It's not a program to track the sale of guns, it's a program to register guns, to determine who can own a gun, to give gun licences to people who are allowed to own a gun, and to revoke licences of people who dont deserve to own a gun anymore.
posted by titboy at 7:14 PM on December 4, 2002

Maybe they bought hammers for the registry from the pentagon?

Sorry, silly mood. Carry on.
posted by swerdloff at 9:31 PM on December 4, 2002

I believe it also performs those functions to determine who is able to purchase ammunition as well. In Canada, to own; to own and operate a gun; or to purchase ammunition for that gun are three different licenses. In addition, the first two licenses have two different levels apiece, distinguishing between restricted weapons and "normal" ones. Hunting and concealed-carry permits are separate licenses, and the former is a provincial responsibility in addition. The current back-log, due to administrative inefficiency and limited resources, is somewhere around two years to receive the appropriate licenses, if memory serves. Whether one believes in mandatory country-wide gun registration or not, the Canadian system is unorganised and inefficient at best, as this report shows.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 11:21 PM on December 4, 2002

2 years?? But I'm mad now!
posted by Space Coyote at 2:08 AM on December 5, 2002

Space Coyote> The back-log cannot seriously be taken as a means of preventing homicides in the heat of passion. As it stands, that two-year backlog is because they are still issuing licenses to people who already had guns before the law went into effect. Thus, the licensing system does not keep guns or ammunition out of the hands of the vast majority of gun owners, as they already own both. It's simply bureaucratic inefficiency.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 9:10 AM on December 5, 2002

2 years?? But I'm mad now!

Then ignore the registration system, and go buy a gun and ammo on the street. Like most folks who are not legally allowed to own a gun do without a lot of problems.
posted by MidasMulligan at 9:49 AM on December 5, 2002