Shirley Tillotson
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stillots1.bsky.social
Shirley Tillotson
@stillots1.bsky.social
4.4K followers 2K following 3.8K posts
Prof. Emeritus at Dalhousie/King's in Halifax, NS. Canadian history (with sources), public finance, pix of woodland and coast. Slow to anger. Stage IV MBC https://ukings.ca/people/shirley-tillotson/
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stillots1.bsky.social
DJT head shot William "Bible bill" Aberhart
November 18, 2025 at 2:03 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
Fitness accounts are showing up in my Discover feed.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Insta-block

I am here for couch time.

If any self-improvement occurs, it will only be intellectual
Sock-covered toes and lower legs and loose pants. Photographef from the point of view of someone lying on a couch
November 17, 2025 at 6:02 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
Light rain, eh? I don't think so. Brrrr. Squelch.

Grocery shopping postponed again.

PB&J for lunch
Photograph through a window of a gray landscape with the focus of the photograph on many raindrops on the window
November 16, 2025 at 6:09 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
The "whereas" section of the order-in-council points to an increased wartime need for scrap rope fiber to be converted into "cordage for tying purposes." Apparently such "cordage" in short supply because of war conditions!.
November 15, 2025 at 8:24 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
Towers? Pillars? Grandeur? Death? Light?

All these.
An old tree stump, vertical lines like the facade of a grand building. Dramatically lit, brilliant green lichen coating it as though painted
November 15, 2025 at 7:55 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
Sources: The books below, my own book, House of Commons Debates, and the Orders-In-Council database at Library and Archives Canada. Yay, archives!
November 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
25/ Absurdity resulted: An OIC (PC 11594) was required to lift the tariff on secondhand rope. Not rope in general, but secondhand rope. Tariffed unless converted to scrap *while customs officers watched.* OIC to stop requiring supervision as a condition of exemption from duties.
Order in Council exempting used or second-hand rope from customs duties. PC 11594. At the Government House at Ottawa. Tuesday, the 22nd day of December, 1942.
November 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
22/ In the 1930s, it seemed that the tariff debate might be resolved by empirical economic research. Had the 1879 tariff ruined the west or the Maritimes? In 1939, W.A. Mackintosh concluded in very measured terms that, yes, its regional impacts had favoured central Canada.
quote from Mackintosh (1939) "If the degree of the effects of th ese tariff increase is difficult to measure, the direction of them is clear. If the effect of the increases was to improve relatively employment in the iprotected industries, that improvement was concentrated no wholly but to a high degree in Ontario and Quebec. Table 12 on p. 50, showing manufacturing industries highly concnetrateed in Ontario and Quebec, includes most of the laeading industries for which protection was sharply increased. The major exception to this concentration was the undoubtedly substantial advantage gained by the Nova Scotia steel and coal industries. In so far as prices of protected products were maintained above the level which would oth erwise have obtained, that enhancement con tributed to a reduction of the real incomes of export groups and of regions in which the protected industries were of minor importance.
November 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
21/ By the 1920s, tariff arguments were largely stalemated, as this wittily titled pair of articles (Shaw a manufacturing exec, Balcom an economics prof) in the 1925 Dalhousie Review indicated.
Clipping from the Dalhousie Review TOC "IX. Why all tariffs are an evil.... A.B. Balcom X. Why Tariffs should be high.... J.R. Shaw"
November 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
9/ Similarly, the customs duty tariff for different grades of sugar could change prices and profits. To prevent importers from misrepresenting cargoes, customs officers used a polariscope to measure the colour grade of the shipment.
Picture of a 19th century polariscope
November 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
8/ To illustrate, a popular story in 1905 “Pigs is Pigs” used shipping rates to comic effect. A railway agent insists that the tariff for guinea pigs is the livestock rate, not the pet rate. Consignee won't pay the higher livestock rate. Hilarity ensues, as the uncollected guinea pigs have babies.
Book cover with the title Pigs is Pigs, illustrated with guinea pigs reading books (or perhaps tariffs?)
November 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
6/ For example, the section on sugar duties. Full of soporific detail on the many considerations determining the type of rate, the grade of sugar, whether packaging be included in the rate per pound, and the interests of the West Indies, the US, Canadian refiners and grocers.
Gentlemen who were interested in teh importing of that class of sugar were in favour of ad valorem duties. I might say if ithey applied ad valorem duties solely they would find that the West India sugar of a bright good character, would be met by this yellow refined adulterated article, in appearance better than the West India sugars. Under these circumstances, seeing the difficulty on both sides, the difficulty in imposing a specific duty , and the difficulty in applying the ad valorem principle, the latter having, I admit, some advantages; still, feeling that that article came in and competed successfullu with our importation of good grocerès sugar, the Governmetn have fallen back on the proposition submitted in 1868, vix: a mixed duty, specific and advalorem, there as been naturally a difference of opinion between the importers of sugar and refiners, in reference to the point at which additional duty should take place. At the present time the higher rate of duty took place at or above No. 13. The refiners were anxious to continue it a No. 13, whilst the importers desired it at a little higher. We have made a compromise and put it at No. 14. On all sugar above No., 14, Dutch standard in colour, 1c. per pound, and 35 per cent. ad valorem. That covered all refined sugar. all sugar imported direct from the West Indies to the Dominion shall pay no duty upon packages and ordinary charges. We have added fiver per cent. to the present duty of 25 per cent. Sugar, not imported direct, will pay a duty on the packages, giving additional encouragement to our direct West India trade.
November 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
I have read W.A. Mackintosh's discussion of the role of tariffs in the economic background of Canadian federalism

It is both super important and eye-wateringly dull

A tiny, lively summary will appear in my piece on the IEEPA tariff court case.

I have an outline! I have data!

Tomorrow, I write!
"aside from the unanswered question as to what it has been attempted to measure, calculations such as these could only be accurate and reliable if the Customs tariff contained no prohibitive duties, if commodities or classes of commodities were completely homogeneous over both imports and production, if there was accurate knowledge of the extent to which prices were enhanced by protection, and if consequently no arbitrary assumptions had to be made.
November 11, 2025 at 7:40 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
This means in English that it is perfectly logical to say there is no tariff on cars in the tariff. Urgh.

See OED definitions 2 and 3 (definition #1 is older, refers to any arithmetical table)
Definition three. "A classified list or scale of charges made in any private or public business; as, a hotel tariff a railroad tariff" examples are included in the image. Definition two "an official list or schedule setting forth the several customs duties to be imposed on imports and exports; a table or book of rates; any item of such a list, the impost (on any article); also the whole body or system of such duties as established in any country"
November 11, 2025 at 3:50 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
We could debate the "public" element in CPP (there is one, even though you're right that the fund is based in contributions not general revenue), but I'm hearing that the pension that you're concerned should be understood as a right not a privilege is the OAS.
share.google/sjYmW3pEYqaH...
Clipping from gc.ca describing the CPP as "a statutory program that is governed by the federal government and the provinces. It is enabled by the CPP legislation.
November 10, 2025 at 7:26 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
I wish financial planners would stop warning ppl about the "OAS clawback"

The OAS is the residue of a pension, launched in 1926, to relieve starvation among the very poor

Now, it (and GIS) helps those people, but also ppl with modest savings/pensions

It's 'clawed back' from the very comfortable
A screen capture from a global Mail article on retirement planning. The pertinent sentence is the last one. "And withdrawing rrsp funds sooner will reduce the amount of the OAS clawback."
November 10, 2025 at 1:40 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
Tariffs - a revenue-raising tool? A foreign policy tool? (Industrial policy, commercial policy, party pols?)

I've listened to the IEEPA tariffs case oral arguments

I'm forming historical thoughts about the duck-rabbit nature of tariffs. It's a warren (or a flock?) of duck rabbits

Thread to come
Illustration of the philosophers duck-rabbit illusion: a drawing that looks simultaneously both like a picture of a rabbit's and a picture of a duck's head
November 9, 2025 at 1:27 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
Oops. Forgot the map screenshot
Not showing the geographical relationship between the town of McAdam and the Canoose Flowage
November 8, 2025 at 1:54 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
Seeing today's lunch veg reminded me that our family referred to broccoli (not affectionately) as trees
A picture of three stalks of broccoli. They look very much like miniature trees
November 5, 2025 at 5:20 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
André Picard sensibly criticizes the call by some MPs to access every scrap of data on scholarly awards peer review process

Paywalled, but here are two good points
There is only one obvious motive: To launch a McCarthyesque witch hunt of researchers they deem to be beneficiaries of diversity, inclusion and equity policies. Do MP's plan to do their own grant reviews? God help us.
November 4, 2025 at 2:42 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
#Halisky
Wouldn't it be useful to post that "If you're locked in" number INSIDE the gate?

Photo taken at 4:39. I just escaped being locked in!
Sign reading we are closing at 4:30. This gate ( main gate princess will be locked at the above time. All other Gates will be locked 30 minutes before the above time. Stuck to the sign down in the bottom right corner is a small dirty piece of paper that says if locked in call 902-225-7177
November 3, 2025 at 8:52 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
There is a rare-ish American chestnut tree in the public gardens

Noticeable this time of year for the absolute sea of spiky offspring that surround it

Like sea urchins and tribbles got together
A dozen or so spiky brown mounds sitting in lawn grass
November 3, 2025 at 8:32 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
👍👍👍 new bike lane on Dutch Village Road.

That whole commercial district (along with Joe Howe and Bayer's Road) is gonna be my new bike-able 'hood

The treats at Al-Arz bakery are now nearby!

Dressed for city safety
Blue jacket, orange vest with yellow safety tape, high viz green gloves. And my old acoustic bike with the bell duct-taped in place
October 30, 2025 at 8:36 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
Kudos to the neighbour with (a) the good sense to plant a ginkgo tree and (b) the grasp of color theory to choose a bright violet purple for their decorative Halloween bats

Suburban artiness. 👍
A purple cardboard cartoon bat hanging in a gingko tree that is loaded with bright yellow foliage
October 30, 2025 at 2:03 PM
stillots1.bsky.social
Its existence has been confirmed by a reliable eye witness. The logo was supposedly added during the 1990s renovation after the Jays 1993 success. Actual creator still a rumour
Photo of stone ornaments on a building. The Jays logo is at the centre of a floral ornament
October 29, 2025 at 8:34 PM