Price fixing by bureaucrats

"The Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Annual Report on Canadians’ Health reveals startling discrepancies between the cost and accessibility of basic healthy food within provinces and across the country. Depending on where you live, some Canadians are often paying more than double to almost six times the price for the same basic healthy food." [http://www.heartandstroke.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=ikIQLcMWJtE&b=4955951&ct=6715269].

I certainly don't want to denigrate the good work which the Foundation does.

It rankles however to see findings in a survey that:
86% of the respondents believe that the government should "Regulate the price of nutritious foods to ensure they are equally affordable in all regions of Canada".

It boggles my mind how some government functionaries would go about deciding what the price should be. Worse, if they do regulate prices and set them too low then obviously the distributors and retailers will simply stop stocking them. Next I suppose would be a bureaucracy that also sets minimum stocking levels.

Madness feeds on madness.

Auditors Don't Do That

Brian Hunt is wrong when he says that auditors provide assurance that financial statements of an organization "..are a fair presentation of its operational results, cash flows and financial position". ( Canada Must Aim for Public Accounting Excellence We Need Common Audit Standards. Financial Post February 10, 2008). But he should know since he is President and CEO of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario and a FCA. Perhaps he just forgot to add the phrase "in accordance with Canadian generally accepted accounting principles". CA's used to say that the financial statements were fair. They just don't do that anymore. Perhaps the auditors feel that GAAP somehow guarantees that the statements are fair in some absolute sense. If so, then the qualifier is not necessary. The situation is rather like the referee surveying the scene at the end of a boxing match. One contestant lies bloodied, bruised, and concussed on the mat and the referee declares "it was a fair fight".
This may seem a rather arcane quibble on my part. However the entire global economy is in turmoil as a result of banks, insurance companies, brokers, etc finding themselves in deep financial distress while their financial statements were saying .. . Well what exactly were they saying? Did they fairly reflect the underlying economic and financial reality? I think not.
At one time auditors said that the statements were "true and correct".
Later they changed their tune to "present fairly.." (without any qualifying phrase).
Now we have "present fairly…" following the rules of the game.

Nanny State. Seat belts and cell phones

Our nanny states makes it illegal to drive without seat belts in place. It allegedly protects me from myself while I am quite capable of doing that myself. I have consitently used seat belts since at least 1962 well before they were even standard equipment. Fair enough to require seat belts for children because their parents may not have enough common sense to protect their own children.

Now the contrast.

Other people using cell phones while they drive are a clear danger to me and to the public in general. The statistics are compelling. Clearly a case for a law forbidding cell phones while driving. Even hands free. Yet politicians in our jurisdiction are reluctant to do the right thing.

Yes there are other distractions to drivers. However this is one that is relatively easy to enforce. The evidence is in the cell phone log.