May 29 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

David Eddie has published a wonderful perspective on the Bernier follies in the Globe and Mail. It’s simply a must read:

“Headline: “He ‘destroyed my life,’ girlfriend says.”

Then she returned the favour.

So many questions remain unanswered in the wake of the Profumo-like scandal that brought down former cabinet minister Maxime “Mad Max” Bernier this week:

What was he doing in Julie Couillard’s house so long after they had broken up? Why did he leave sensitive documents there? Then, when he realized they were missing, why didn’t he ask for them back? Why did she take so long to say she had them?

And why did she have to do it so publicly? “Honey,” so many of the pundits seem to be saying, “why you gotta go and be like that?”

If you ask me, he did it to himself. He set the trap, carefully arranged the sticks and leaves over the pit, then stepped on it and fell in. If ever a man was “hoist by his own petard,” it was Mr. Bernier (with Ms. Couillard the petard).

To me, the whole thing looks like a “booty call” gone horribly wrong.

At first, I was perplexed by the timelines of their relationship. They broke up in January, supposedly, perhaps even December (she decided to end it, she says, “shortly before Christmas”).

Yet they were seen together after that at numerous political functions.” Click here to read more.

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May 21 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

With moves in Alberta and Saskatchewan to enable the provinces to hold elections for Senate nominees there has been increasing coverage of the Stephen Harper backed plan to reform the Canadian Senate. On the surface, the arguments in favour of Senate reform look good - staging elections will make the Senate more accountable, more democratic and it will prevent political party domination of an outgoing government on the incoming one - but dig a little deeper and the logic behind it becomes ever more elusive.

How, for example, will electing a Senate make it more accountable? The belief that elections directly lead to accountability is a popular one in Canada: if the person who is elected fails to do his or her job constituents can remove that official in the next elections, so the thinking goes. Limited terms and frequent elections are believed to be means to end corruption and increase accountability. Few who are not involved with government realize, however, what the effect of elections is on the ability to govern responsibly. Leaders who live in constant fear of losing their jobs in the next elections have a hard time focusing on long-term strategy. Indeed, if media coverage of politics is any indication the most important concern for any elected representative is, in fact, the next elections be they in 2 months or 2 years. The very reason why senators had been appointed for such lengthy terms was to ensure that at least someone in the government was focused on the issues as opposed to elections. Thus, making the Senate an elected body might not bring about the accountability being touted.

Considering issues of accountability, the role the Senate plays in providing criticism of the government (anygovernment, red, blue, orange or green) is often forgotten. The Senate committees might just be the only bodies putting forth the sort of biting analysis we need. Elected officials certainly don’t want the system to be seen as faulty it could cost them the next elections; the bureaucrats, whose advancement is determined by their perceived efficiency, don’t want much public criticism of the system which they effectively run. The only body that is currently offering any insights into the shortcomings of government is the Senate - just consider the committee reports on Airport Security and Aid in Africa.   

On the assumption that electing the Senate will make it more democratic, the question begs, do elections alone create democracy? In a party-based political system many Canadians already feel that elections aren’t really providing them with much of a say. In an informal survey International Perspectives conducted in October 2007, 52% of respondents said they felt their voices weren’t being heard in a party-based electoral system.  Much of the problem stems from the allegiance elected representatives must pledge to the party to which they belong; to many Canadians it would appear that politicians have more loyalty to the political party that supported their candidacies than to the constituents who voted for them. Although senators have political affiliations the job security afforded by the current terms of appointment ensures that senators who disagree with the party’s approach to an issue can push back - I’m not so sure that elected senators would be so independent. Thus, although the idea of elections conjures notions of democracy, the inherent problems with our current system suggest that an elected Senate might not be any more or less democratic than the existing one.

Canadians are easily (perhaps too easily) excited whenever mention is made at how much money is spent by government. The spending of tax payer dollars is the perfect sound bite to incite public support for change of a system: elected governments love to use the “wanton-waste-of-your-money” messaging against the sometimes uncooperative permanent bureaucracy; opposition parties love to use it against ruling parties; and, now, supporters of Senate reform are using it against the British-modelled institution. I hope that Canadians are able to look past the usual tools for leading the masses in desired directions, thinking past the carrots. It just might be that an institution like the Senate, as bizarre as it may seem to our Liberazi lenses, is the only thing with at least some public interest left.

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May 13 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Instead of writing again on the Serbian situation, I’ll let Ljubodrag Simonovic speak. The following is a very insightful and thought provoking interview Simonovic gave recently on Serbian television.

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May 12 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Time of the Vulture, a comprehensive report by Darryl Robert Schoon, provides some interesting insights into a pending global economic catastrophe. It’s eye-opening and definitely worth checking out.

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May 8 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Newsday has reported that a former detainee held in Guantanamo Bay has carried out a suicide attack in Iraq that killed seven people. This shouldn’t be surprising; the mass detention of so-called enemy combatants, many without trial for years on end, only ensures that the U.S. and its allies will have a growing body of angry Muslim men who now have a real grudge to bear. In fact, “preventative strikes” and prison camps are but a recipe for future terrorism; from a security stand point such an approach never really made much sense.

Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi had reportedly been detained in Guantanamo Bay for 3.5 years where his lawyer said that al-Ajmi once “appeared for a meeting with a broken arm…that al-Ajmi said he had suffered…when guards tried to stop him from praying.” In 2005, al-Ajmi was transferred to Kuwait where he was acquitted in 2006. Settling down, al-Ajmi married and had a child, according to his cousin, Salem al-Ajmi, to whom the suicide attack came as a surprise.

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May 5 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The very unfortunate and tragic death of eighteen-month-old Elijah Luck last week has people talking about the perils of  VoIP phone mobility. The scenario itself isn’t new: registered VoIP subscribers take the assigned product with them in a move of abodes without the physical address associated with emergency calls being changed to the new location. Trying to make sense of the tragedy, the public demands regulators impose some simplified process to ensure a similar scenario is not repeated.

A simple solution, however, befits a simple problem, the responsibility for which can easily be determined. Although many outside observers see the solution to issues of VoIP relocation to be as basic as imposing more regulations on service providers, this overly simplistic approach disregards the role of subscribers and 911 operators in the unfortunate scenario.

Unlike landlines, VoIP products are portable: a subscriber need only unplug a little digital box to take his or her service along to where ever high speed internet is available. Keeping the same phone number, a subscriber can travel the world and receive and make calls from their home phone number. As many VoIP service providers automatically charge subscribers’ credit cards, billing addresses aren’t really as big an issue as with landline subscribers who are invoiced monthly. VoIP subscribers can easily pick up and move without ever having to notify the service provider - and particularly in the case of subscribers who face additional charges for keeping a phone number associated with one region when moving to another, lack of address change notification might sometimes be deliberate. Given the degree of mobility associated with VoIP, subscribers - who are notified when signing up for VoIP in Canada - are partially responsible for what address is connected to a service account. The personal responsibility of VoIP users to keep emergency address information up-to-date cannot be overstated: it is the best preventative measure against disasters such as the unfortunate death of Elijah Luck.

As the way we communicate changes with the introduction of new technologies, we should concurrently reassess our old ways of doing things.  Gone are the days when physical addresses are easily tied to communication devices. We live in an unplugged world of cellular devices and internet telephony. Emergency operators taking 911 calls should now be trained to address this changing situation by quickly confirming that the address on the screen matches with the caller’s current physical location. Yes, this will add yet another layer of complication during a time-sensitive procedure, but it could prove crucial in saving lives in a modern world.

Governments too have a role in answering VoIP relocation issues - and it isn’t as a regulation vending machine. Western governments have for too long encouraged citizens to renege on personal responsibility. It is as if modern governments, not facing any real external threat, have been looking for new things from which to protect their citizenry - increasingly it seems to be a matter of protecting individuals from themselves.  After all, if the government isn’t seen to be doing something for the masses, the people might begin asking pesky questions as to what the purpose of paying into a decrepit system actually is. As a result, governments have sought to take the pressure off the individual: regulating where people can smoke, whether women can have abortions, if a person has the right to die, and in general, taking over the responsibility of individuals to care for themselves. In so doing, we have fostered a culture in Canada of putting the responsibility for our actions (or sometimes inaction) onto someone else. VoIP relocation issues are a prime example - no one wants to admit the nasty truth regarding personal responsibility. If the government should be doing anything, it should be a massive effort to change the current course of society from one in which we shun personal responsibility to one in which we accept the consequences of our actions and mistakes taking preventative measures to avoid more unfortunate outcomes.

All of this is not to say that service providers do not bear some responsibility: it is simply to say that service providers are not alone in being responsible.  In the case of Elijah Luck, I can’t help but wonder why when the Luck family changed their billing address did the service provider not flag the account to make some sort of an inquiry into the corresponding emergency address. Indeed, the Lucks may have assumed that in changing the billing address the 911 address was changed as well. A simple oversight mechanism regarding billing address changes could go a long way in preventing future tragedies. Regular automatic notices from VoIP service providers might also help build awareness and prevent issues - how difficult would it be to have an automated message service send voicemail to subscribers to remind users of the perils of not updating accounts? 

As with most security issues, there are several angles which must be addressed: seldom is a single entity solely responsible for a tragedy. As we become ever-more interconnected through technology and new models of organization, the need to look at problems through systemic analysis will only be greater. Why not start now?

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May 1 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

A friend recently turned me onto The File by E.X., a wonderfully, biting column printed in the Ottawa Citizen. For anyone who hasn’t read it yet - do! The following is an entertaining column from last week. (Thanks, Alex!)

When it comes to hiring, The System is a product like any other, trying to appeal to the elusive youth demographic

In its first report, the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee on the Public Service states that more work has to be done to “brand” the public service, that is to say, to market The System. Specifically it says that there “is a need for a strong and positive Public Service ‘brand’ that will support the marketing of the Public Service as an attractive employment option for talented Canadians.”

Public servants were happy for the clarification. Rumours had been circulating that the Harper government intended to brand all liberal, lefty public servants - which according to them was all 250,000 - on the left buttock with the letters CNG (Canada’s New Government).

The Committee seems to be arguing that if The System can create a strong, well-leveraged brand it will attract potential employees more easily than weaker brands will. One can only assume that weaker brands include provincial governments and the City of Ottawa.

The Committee does not indicate what specific product line should be marketed as part of a Government of Canada branding strategy to attract Generation X, Y, or beyond. Should it be The System’s streamlined human resources practices? Its vigorous policy analysis? Its modern management practices?

Susie, Jacob and Mohammed were fourth-year students applying for jobs in the federal government. According to the Committee, it takes an average of 22.4 weeks to staff a position from inside the public service. It didn’t dare speculate on how long it takes to hire someone from outside. Still, the three students were young and had an entire lifetime ahead of them, so they were prepared to go through the process.

Like many of their generation the quality of life, particularly the quality of work life, was important. And so each of them asked themselves: “What would be the ideal brand personality of the place where I work, and does the federal public service fit the bill?”

Brand personality answers this question: if the product - in this case The System - were a person, how would you describe him or her? Friendly? Intellectual? Totally nuts? As it happened, each of the potential employees had in mind a different brand personality for the ideal workplace.

Susie wanted to work in a System that had a personality like Hallmark: down-to-earth, sincere, genuine, and old-fashioned. She had been raised in a caring suburban family home with liberal parents who had followed the teachings of Dr. Spock and Penelope Leach on raising babies, kids and teenagers. She had never been spanked, had been treated with respect, and had been given the appropriate balance of firm guidance and fulfilling freedom. Not surprisingly, Susie expected to work in a System with a caring boss who acted like Robert Young in Father Knows Best.

Susie imagined a workplace where her co-workers were sympathetic and respectful, not intruding but always there when needed with a supportive word. Kind of like the 15 teddy bears and giant pandas strewn about her bedroom.

Jacob had just graduated from engineering school and had a different image of the ideal workplace. He wanted to work in a System with an accomplished, influential and competent personality. He imagined a System that ran like a pristine assembly line: cool and mechanically efficient, everything moving with perfect precision. Sometimes he dreamed of a mythical 1958 General Motors plant that ran with machine-like effectiveness inside, and turned out gleaming, glitzy cars for the outside.

Mohammed was always moving. Just like Richard Dreyfuss as Duddy Kravitz in the movie, he seemed incapable of standing still. He radiated a manic energy built on ambition, brass and confidence. The thought of sitting at a desk in a large government department had no appeal. He wanted action, to work in a System with the brand personality of the Toronto Maple Leafs: energetic and unfocused. In his System, organizations worked at breakneck pace with a sense of permanent urgency to resolve issues immediately. There was no long-term planning in Mohammed’s office. It was an organization with ADD.

Eight months later, all three found themselves working in The System. Susie was in a spirited hyper-sector that seemed to be running on a continuous treadmill just to keep up with the demands of the Once New Government. The Director was a petty tyrant.

Mohammed found himself in a division that operated with the quiet, operational efficiency of a Swiss bank.

Jacob ended up in an agency where everyone knew everyone else and there was a cheerful, courteous and supportive atmosphere.

All three quit within the year.

E.X. knows that rejuvenating The System is a top priority. The only trouble is that this means hiring young people. For more E.X. go to ottawacitizen.com/exfiles.

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