Consider that the sale prices of houses are not publicly available from the government, as is the case in all of the US. (Assessed values are available in Nova Scotia, but they often have very little to do with sale price.)

It's true that real estate agents will give prospective buyers a sheet of paper listing nearby sales, but that information does not come from government; rather, it is self-reported by other real estate agents to the Multiple Listing Service database and is not independently verifiable. Real estate agents, who work on commission, would benefit by dishonestly reporting inflated house sale prices.

When I raised that possibility with local agent Steve Patterson, he rejected it out of hand and insisted all agents would be truthful. But he raised a related issue: "What about private sales---why can't I access that information?" Patterson argues that those who sell privately are probably paying more than they would through an agent, but because the sales price isn't public, there's no way to know.

Capitalism, the argument goes, is the perfect economic system because informed markets lead to the most efficient allocation of resources. But here we have a system where only one side of a transaction---the seller, and only some of those---knows how the product is valued. Buyers are uninformed, so the market is likely skewed against them.

It'd be as if every time you went to the grocery store, you had to separately negotiate the price of eggs and you were not allowed to know what eggs sold for at the grocery store down the road. It's the antithesis of an informed free market.

The federal Competition Bureau has launched an aggressive attack on the Canadian Real Estate Association, challenging its rules governing the Multiple Listing Service and calling for a radical change in how homes are sold in Canada.

“Our concern is that [CREA] are improperly and unlawfully leveraging [their control over MLS] in order to impose these restrictions and to deny competitive forces and to deny good old-fashioned market competition,” said Competition Commissioner Melanie Aitken. “This case is focused pure and simple: Let consumers have the choice, let agents have the opportunity to satisfy and serve those choices.”

• HSI/Canada
• NS fishers beat seal pups to death on Hay Island, 2008

Monday, February 8th marks the official start of the season for clubbing baby grey seals to death on Hay Island, a protected wilderness area off northeastern Cape Breton. And now, there are fears that the federal government is quietly preparing the way for an even-bigger slaughter on Sable Island.

Andrew Newbould, an adviser on marine mammals for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans says the government has set a Sable Island quota of 39,803 grey seals, but no cull has been authorized this year. However, he would not rule out the "hypothetical" possibility of sealing on Sable Island in future.

Newbould says the Sable Island quota was based on a 2007 survey of the grey seal population. He adds the survey showed that up to 50,000 seals could be taken off the coasts of Nova Scotia without endangering the grey seal population.

Federal fisheries minister Gail Shea was in China last month seeking the lifting of restrictions on the import of seal products into a country described on the DFO website as the world's largest consumer of fish and seafood. "For Canada, sealing is about more than fur," Shea is quoted as saying in a news release issued in Beijing. "The trade of other seal products such as oils and meat represents a growing share of what is already a multi-million dollar business." Shea doesn't mention it, but there is also a lucrative potential market for seal penises in China where they are used in traditional medicines, as sexual stimulants or served as delicacies in restaurants.

Rebecca Aldworth, executive director of the Canadian branch of Humane Society International, says governments are under tremendous pressure to open Sable Island to sealing. “We’re very disturbed about that,” Aldworth says. “With an overall quota of 50,000, Sable is the only place you would find that kind of concentration.”

In 2008, Aldworth was part of a Humane Society team that photographed the clubbing of baby seals on Hay Island. “It was truly horrific,” she says. “There isn’t an Atlantic Canadian, besides those doing the clubbing themselves, who could stomach what we saw.”

Aldworth says the group will be on Hay Island again this year if the seal cull goes ahead. “People will be horrified to see baby seals beaten to death with wooden bats in a protected wilderness area,” she says. “This is not the image Canada should be projecting to the world.”

It’s still not certain whether sealers will be able to find markets this year for the Hay Island pelts. Last year, only 200 baby seals were clubbed to death there because of low prices and a lack of buyers. This year’s overall quota for the eastern Nova Scotia region, which includes Hay Island, is 2,220.

• DFO, 2004
• Aerial photo of seal pup on Sable Island

Many in the fishing industry maintain that seals need to be culled to protect declining fish stocks. But the DFO website makes it clear that seal hunting is not linked to reviving groundfish stocks. “Seals eat cod, but seals also eat other fish that prey on cod,” the DFO site reports. “It is widely accepted in the scientific community that there are many uncertainties in the estimates of the amount of fish consumed by seals. Seals and cod exist in a complex ecosystem, which makes it difficult to find simple solutions to problems such as the lack of recovery of cod stocks.”

A 2006 study by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography says there’s little evidence that seals are mainly to blame for the continued decline of the fish stocks. The study adds that grey seals do eat cod, but cod are only a small part of their diet. It concludes that while grey seals contribute to a decline in the cod stocks, even killing all of them “would not assure the recovery of the cod population.”

The table above lists the annual number of soldiers injured, wounded and killed from the beginning of the Canadian military deployment to Afghanistan in April 2002 to December 31, 2009.

Sharp increase in injuries

The figures, released to the Coast by the Department of National Defence, show that a total of 1,580 Canadian soldiers had been injured and killed in Afghanistan by the end of December. The 2009 total was 505 higher than the 1,075 soldiers injured and killed by the end of 2008.

Non-battle injuries, defined as those injured as a result of traffic accidents, the accidental discharge of a weapon and any other accidental injuries not related to combat, accounted for the largest single increase in 2009. Non-battle injuries also included soldiers reported ill and those sent home for compassionate or medical reasons.

Total deaths and injuries

The number killed in Afghanistan reached 138 in 2009. (So far in 2010, one soldier has died, bringing the total so far, to 139.)

The total number of Canadian soldiers injured and wounded in nearly seven years of war reached 1,442 by the end of December.

Military withholds info on injuries and wounds

The Canadian military releases information on injuries and wounds only at the end of each calendar year. Officials claim they withhold current-year figures for security reasons.

The Department of National Defence also does not disclose the nature or severity of injuries or wounds.

• May Ocean near scene of car crash

The ongoing saga of May Ocean’s marathon legal battle with one of Canada’s largest insurance companies took another turn this week. A Nova Scotia judge ruled on Tuesday that Patricia Mitchell, the lawyer for Economical Mutual Insurance would not have to testify when the trial begins in September.

Ocean had subpoenaed Mitchell to give evidence about the company’s handling of her claims arising from a car accident in December 2000 near Whites Lake, about 25 kilometres south of Halifax. Supreme Court judge Deborah Smith ruled she was not satisfied that Mitchell’s testimony would be relevant or necessary adding that Ocean herself could testify about the company’s treatment of her after the accident.

Tuesday’s ruling was the latest skirmish in a case that was the subject of a Coast cover story in November. Ocean, a 52-year-old award-winning artist and designer who moulds and casts pewter products, is suing Economical for $700,000 in damages, a written acknowledgment she suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a formal apology.

Who was to blame for the crash is one of many issues in dispute. Ocean is still angry that Economical blamed her for the collision even after a professional investigator it had hired concluded that the other driver was at fault. When Economical refused to renew her insurance policy, Ocean’s broker warned her that no other company would cover her unless Economical wrote a letter clearing her of blame. Several months later Ocean threatened to stage a hunger strike outside Economical’s offices in Bedford. The company then issued a letter clearing her of blame, but Economical’s statement of defence filed with the courts still contends that Ocean was at fault.

Ocean, who represents herself in court, says she’s determined to expose what she sees as a monopoly within an insurance system the government is supposed to be regulating. In one of many statements she has filed with the courts, Ocean says: “It is my claim that vehicle insurance companies and certain other government organizations form a conglomeration of joint activities that serve to uphold a corrupt system.”

Watch Robertson's despicable comments here:

Clearly the only proper response is to buy your very own Pat Robertson voodoo doll.

About 125 people marched in downtown Halifax today to protest against Israeli oppression of Palestinians and to celebrate the recent international Freedom March which focused attention on the plight of the 1.5 million people who live in Gaza.

The Halifax marchers chanted slogans including, “People of Gaza under attack. What do we do? Stand up and fight back,” and “One, two, three, four. We don’t want your racist war.”

The march, sponsored by Canadians, Arabs and Jews for a Just Peace, university groups, unions and peace organizations, came one year after Israel’s 22-day military assault on Gaza which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and injured 5,000.

As they marched along Robie St. toward the meeting hall at St. Andrew’s United Church, the protesters waved placards with a variety of messages including ones urging an economic boycott of Israel and calling for an end to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza.

• Ehab Lotayef

Once inside the church hall, the marchers listened as Montreal photographer, poet and activist, Ehab Lotayef described his two most recent trips to a Gaza devastated by sustained Israeli bombardment from the air, land and sea.

“The young people in Gaza have no hope,” the Egyptian-born Lotayef said as he showed a slide of a 12-year-old boy whose four friends had been killed. He added that the boy would “feel anger for years to come and a sadness that I don’t think will ever be cured.” To underline his point, Lotayef then showed a slide of a Palestinian child’s drawing depicting a bright yellow sun, a tree and a flower with a huge helicopter gunship hovering ominously overhead.

“I think Israel knows quite well the kind of opponent it has in the Palestinian people,” he said. “The crux of the matter is that the Palestinians are not going to disappear.”

Lotayef also spoke about his participation in the international Freedom March which began in Cairo in late December. The 1,362 marchers, from a wide variety of countries, were prevented from entering Gaza by Egyptian police. On the surface, the Freedom March was a failure, Lotayef acknowledged because it couldn’t breach the Israeli/Egyptian blockade which is cutting off the free flow of goods and people into Gaza. “But if the goal of the Gaza Freedom March was to bring the world’s attention to that blockade, then it was a great success,” he added.

Lotayef’s slides showed freedom marchers blocking streets, occupying Cairo’s main square and displaying the Palestinian flag on an Egyptian pyramid. Some of the marchers suffered cut faces and broken ribs as they were dragged away and beaten by police. “In spite of the injuries, everyone was very proud of what they were able to do,” Lotayef said adding that protests and demonstrations are not allowed in Egypt.

He pointed to the Cairo Declaration adopted by the Freedom Marchers on January 1st. It demands an end to Israeli oppression of Palestinians and endorses an economic boycott and sanctions to compel Israel to abide by international law.

“I believe the Cairo Declaration is a tool for all of us to work with,” Lotayef said. “I hope Halifax will be one of the cities where the implementation of the Cairo Declaration takes place loud and clear.”

During the question period, people complained that the Halifax media had given little or no coverage to the Freedom March in Cairo even though at least one Haligonian had participated in it. Lotayef said there was a bit more coverage in the Montreal media, but then he added this rueful comment:

“We know the nature of the beast. The media like blood, they like explosions, but they don’t like human rights.”

The Harbour East Community Council consists of all the Dartmouth, Eastern Passage and Cole Harbour councillors: McCluskey, Darren Fisher, Jim Smith, Bill Karsten, Lorelei Nicoll and Jackie Barkhouse.

McCluskey says the group will send out a press release this afternoon explaining its position. I'll post the release here as soon as I receive it. Tonight's meeting will be held at 6pm, at the old Dartmouth city council chambers, 90 Alderney Drive, Dartmouth.

Read my analysis of the "tax reform" issue here.

Update, 3:40pm.

Here's the press release:

Harbour East Community Council against current proposals for Tax Reform

(Thursday, January 14, 2010) - Tonight, at its regular monthly meeting, Harbour East Community Council, which is comprised of Councillors Gloria McCluskey - Chair, Jim Smith, Bill Karsten, Jackie Barkhouse, Lorelei Nicoll, and Darren Fisher, will discuss Tax Reform, and will issue a public statement announcing that they have unanimously decided against moving forward on any of the current proposals for Tax Reform. After many meetings, much consideration and due process which have been advanced as a result of the work done by the Tax Reform Committee over the past several years, the like-minded Councillors feel it is time to speak out publicly.

The opinion of the Municipally elected group is that the proposals put forward by the tax committee shift the tax burden from a small segment of the population with high priced properties, to those with middle priced and lower priced properties. They are not supportive of substituting one method of taxation to any of the ones proposed that are deemed to have their own inequities.

In protest over Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue parliament, over 30 rallies are currently being planned across Canada - including Halifax. The Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Rally in Halifax, Nova Scotia will be held on January 23rd at 1:00pm at Province House (1726 Hollis Street).

The rally has received support from elected officials, such as Megan Leslie, MP for Halifax, and Geoff Regan, MP for Halifax West, as well as organizations, such as the Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council, which represents approximately 24,000 workers, and the Council of Canadians. The rally began as, and remains, a grassroots effort. The Facebook group for the national effort has reached over 100,000 members, and in just two days, the Facebook group promoting the Halifax rally has reached over 600 members.

But Canadians are not just settling for armchair activism. "I will be attending my local protest on January 23rd. I love this country too much not to," writes Lanny Ferreira. "It will be my first protest, and weather permitting, my 4 year old son's first as well!"

The effort is also multi-partisan. "Our core planning group for the rally in Halifax represents people from every part of the political spectrum and a diverse sample of professional backgrounds," says Brenden Sommerhalder, the rally's organizer. "Predictably, there are people who identify as Liberals or New Democrats on the team, but also people who identify as conservatives or Conservative voters, or who do not identify with any party at all. Our group ranges from university students to business leaders, young parents to retired adults. Harper's actions have generated an anger that blurs demographic lines."

The rally is peaceful and family-friendly. For more information about the rally, or to get involved, contact the organizers at NoProrogueHFX@gmail.com, or visit the rally's page on Facebook by searching "Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (Halifax Chapter)".