Talk:David A. Dodge

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[edit] Possible original research

A section of the article currently says, "David Dodge allowed himself and his office to be politicized by the Harper Government". At first pass, this appears to be original research. If it is, it must be removed, in keeping with WP:BLP. What do others think? --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 00:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I've looked at the section more closely now and also the one reference to a Globe and Mail article. The Globe and Mail reference indicated that Dodge made comments praising income trusts, but there is nothing else in that article that references the rest of the section here. Therefore, unless I am missing something obvious, this a pretty clear violation of WP:BLP so I will remove the section for now, but I welcome others' comments. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 19:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to dissect the deleted section and insert based on consensus. OK with you?

[edit] Role in Harper government Income trust decision

Any problems so far?

David Dodge allowed himself and his office to be politicized by the Harper Government when he agreed to give testimony at the Public Hearings on February 1, 2007, and lent support to the government’s policy on income trusts, notwithstanding that he had previously, in the weeks before the policy was announced, made comments that were supportive of income trusts.[1] Previous Governors of the Bank of Canada have adhered to a policy of preserving the the independence of the Bank, by not commenting on government legislation.

So far so good?

Many groups such as Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors were highly critical of David Dodge for his apparent disregard for the need for transparency and accountability, if only for the sake of the integrity of the Canadian capital markets, as well as Canada’s parliamentary system of democracy. Goodbye David Dodge....we hardly knew ya

Anything wrong with this?

The problem is when I insert a reference to a blog WHICH IS PART OF THE Canadian Association of Income Trust Investor (CAITI) website, it gets deleted 'cause it's a blog. Bit of a catch 22 which leaves the discussion out of the article. Perhaps thats the entire purpose?

I have no quarrel with the 'no original research' standard when it applied to a anonymous blogger but is that the case here? I expect that CAITI, who controls their blog website is answerable to their membership, and as a registered Canadian association is legally liable for false statements and libelous content. I also wonder if the content was on their main website where the word 'blog' did not appear, does it become more legitmate? If so, how?

Wikipedia is something more dynamic that a fansite I would hope. I think it's important to look at all aspects of the individual, negative or positive and let readers form an opinion. DSatYVR (talk) 07:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to say first off that by no means did I intend to pass any sort of judgment on the Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors (CAITI), their work, or the political views that they are advocating. I can appreciate, though, how my actions could have been interpreted that way, so I do apologize for my part in any misunderstanding.
Wikipedia places high importance on sources and particularly sources for biographies of living persons; they seem to be becoming more strict about this with time, and some of the ArbComm rulings are indicative of the increasing strictness. Now, regarding CAITI: It is an advocacy group, and, as DSatYVR has written above, its members do not like the way a change in Canadian tax policy was handled. I would go so far as to say that a primary raison d'être for the group is to cast a light upon some of the behaviour of people such as Dodge, Mark Carney and certain politicians who advocate certain views of tax policy. Given that situation, I do not believe it is compatible with Wikipedia's goals of making a neutral encyclopedia to treat CAITI's website (any part of it, not solely the portions labelled "blog") as a reliable source for contentious material in the biographies of the very people that CAITI criticizes. I would say a similar thing about any political advocacy group. Any contentious material must be sourced to mainstream newspapers or magazines.
If other editors look at my edits here and can offer any feedback to me about whether I am taking an overly strict view of WP:NPOV, I would be very grateful for the feedback. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 03:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough Paul. I'll post a redit below and reinsert in a few days if there aren't any further objections.DSatYVR (talk) 04:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Role in Harper government Income trust decision

In the weeks prior to the October 31, 2006 change in Income trust taxation policy announced by Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Dodge made comments that were supportive of income trusts.[2] Previous Governors of the Bank of Canada have adhered to a policy of preserving the the independence of the Bank, by not commenting on government legislation. According to MP Diane Ablonczy (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, CPC): "The Governor of the Bank of Canada is an independent officer."[3] However MP Mike Wallace confirmed "the Governor of the Bank of Canada has given his support to the government's decision to tax income trusts."[4]

References
  1. ^ Dodge touts trusts' benefits
  2. ^ Dodge touts trusts' benefits
  3. ^ HANSARD Friday, February 2, 2007
  4. ^ HANSARD Friday, February 2, 2007

DSatYVR (talk) 04:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Responses to new proposed insertion

  • You have linked a series of statements together (which clearly imply what you have previously written—David Dodge allowed himself and his office to be politicized by the Harper Government—even if you have removed that actual sentence) but you have not provided a reliable secondary source that has already linked these ideas together. This is an example of WP:SYN; it appears to be original research. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 01:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. You are criticizing a sentence which is no longer there? Which statements arent backed up by citable references?
In the weeks prior to the October 31, 2006 change in Income trust taxation policy announced by Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Dodge made comments that were supportive of income trusts.[1] Is the reference go or not?
Previous Governors of the Bank of Canada have adhered to a policy of preserving the the independence of the Bank, by not commenting on government legislation. According to MP Diane Ablonczy (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, CPC): "The Governor of the Bank of Canada is an independent officer."[2] Where is the original research here?
However MP Mike Wallace confirmed "the Governor of the Bank of Canada has given his support to the government's decision to tax income trusts."[3] Again, where is the original research? DSatYVR (talk) 06:13, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
You have provided sourcing for individual statements but you are presenting them together in order to advance a thesis, so it's original research, or, more specifically, WP:SYN. It would be different if you were citing a newspaper report that discussed controversy about Dodge changing his position on the tax issue. Anytime that you are using primary sources (in this case, transcripts of parliamentary debate) it's going to be a red flag to other editors that there is potentially some original research going on. If what someone has said in Parliament is salient to a biography of David Dodge, it would be reported in secondary sources about David Dodge. (On a related but somewhat tangential note: The other thing we need to be cautious about here is the possibility of the article becoming a "WP:Coatrack" for the income trust tax issue.) --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 22:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dodge changes his stance on Income Trusts

In the weeks prior to the October 31, 2006 change in Income trust taxation policy announced by Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Dodge made comments that were supportive of income trusts.[4] However by February 2007 MP Mike Wallace confirmed "the Governor of the Bank of Canada has given his support to the government's decision to tax income trusts."[5]

I've inserted the above into the article. Paul, I presume that you will assume good faith rather than distill hidden meanings from sentence(s) that aren't there. At any rate all comments welcome. DSatYVR (talk) 16:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Further to the discussion on this page, Dodge's change in position to align himself with the government position may have been a career saving maneuver. A previous BoC Governor James Coyne was dismissed in the early 1960's for criticizing government economic policy. Perhaps Dodge wanted to avoid the same fate? DSatYVR (talk) 16:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Since you have not provided a reference to a source that actually discusses your thesis—Dodge changes his stance—this is WP:SYN. Again, I would be glad to hear from other editors as to the question of whether I am taking an overly conservative view of WP:OR. And there is the other issue I raised: If Dodge changing his stance is salient to a biography of him, there would be something other than a primary source discussing his change of stance. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 16:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with your supposition I have provided no references. I have provided cited references which support 2 neutral statements. Dodge's POV supported trusts as a investment choice in October 2006 (A Globe and Mail article is cited to support the statement). In February 2007 Dodges POV on Trusts changed to another position (A Hansard transcript is used as a reference). Dodges POV changed. No judgment has been made within the 2 statements whether the first or second position taken by Dodge was correct or incorrect. This aspect of Dodge's performance as a B o C Governor may be of interest to wiki readers. Lets leave it for readers to decide if it's important or not in judging him as a Governor rather than looking for ways to suppress the facts. DSatYVR (talk) 06:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
The WP:OR problem is that you have linked these two statements in order to advance your hypothesis. The quote from Hansard does not state that Dodge changed his position. It says that Wallace said, "Mr. Speaker, the Governor of the Bank of Canada has given his support to the government's decision to tax income trusts." The Globe and Mail article says nothing about Dodge's view of taxation of trusts, only that "on balance, income trusts make capital markets somewhat more complete and somewhat more efficient." Your thesis, "Dodge changes his stance" is not stated in any references you provide, nor in any that turn up in searches I have done. From WP:SYN: Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to advance position C. "Let readers decide" might be fine for a discussion forum, but regular readers of Wikipedia expect it not to contain original research. It is one of Wikipedia's core policies, and it is crucial when it comes to biographies of living persons. If there is any suppression of facts or controversies happening, you need to take it up with the newspapers, since that is what Wikipedia editors rely on for biographies such as these. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 11:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Potential additions

In pouring through newspaper articles about Dodge, it looks to me as if there are some controversies about him that could be added to the article: His criticism of Trudeau's job-creation policies in the 1980s, his role in pushing Paul Martin to take the Minister of Finance position instead of the industry portfolio, his role in pushing Martin to make budget cuts through the 1990s, his role in designing and then supporting the GST as a taxation policy, and his protection of Bank of Canada's "behind-closed-doors" decision-making by holding fast to the policy that the Bank not publish the minutes of its meetings in the way that the Federal Reserve in the US and the Bank of England do. There's more, but this will take some work to go through and to cite. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 12:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Role as Queen's University Chancellor

There has been very some interesting editing going on in this area recently. I updated the article with information on Dodge's recent election as Chancellor of Queen's, and quoted a Kingston Whig-Standard article from May 3, 2008, which noted Dodge's two main challenges to start will be: 1) chairing the committee which will select a new Queen's Principal, following the recent crisis in this area, which saw the in-term resignation of the Principal Karen Hitchcock after she had applied, only three months earlier, for a second term; and 2) reining in the $38 million cost overrun on the 14-month-old Queen's Centre project, which still has some eight years, or more, before completion. Yesterday, this reference was deleted completely, and replaced by a pablum-type statement from the official Queen's news site. It seems that someone, likely in that same administration of Queen's, doesn't want true in-depth coverage of those problems to appear on wikipedia. It would be interesting to know who did that deletion, and that person's motivation and orientation, since wikipedia strives to be a neutral, fact-based site, with information based on readily available sources, allowing readers to make up their own minds on challenging issues. Cheers, FrankEldonDixon, 10:53 am, May 6, 2008 FrankEldonDixon (talk) 14:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)