Monthly Archives: September 2014

Sep 09 2014
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Politics

How to seize the big Mo at election time

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With the federal Grit establishment firmly entrenched in this picture-perfect, if not so fiscally beatific, province, you’d be forgiven for imagining that the New Brunswick election amounts to nothing less than a dry run for Justin Trudeau’s 2015 assault on the capital of Canada.

In fact, the nation’s self-styled arbiter of all that is newsworthy says as much.

“Justin Trudeau and his Liberal team are using New Brunswick’s Sept. 22 election to test-drive their organization and potential policies for the federal campaign expected in the fall of 2015,” wrote Jane Taber last week in the Globe and Mail. “‘There are so few election campaigns in this country, you don’t get a chance to try things out,’ said a senior Trudeau strategist.”

Ms. Taber’s effort is a good piece of reporting: heavily sourced, thoughtful and mercifully free of the sort of rash and kited conclusions that all to often accompany press coverage of election campaigns in this, and every other, country that still enjoys a reasonably free press.

But is it, strictly speaking, news?

Federal-provincial linkages, especially during elections, frame a sturdy strand of Canada’s political DNA. Traditionally, that’s how various parties have crystallized the issues common to all voters, regardless of their provinces of origin and residence. It’s how they’ve synchronized their policies and platforms and, crucially, gotten the voters out to the polls on the day that counts.

Until only a few years ago, the Liberals had been past masters of this practice. Now, in New Brunswick, they’re at it again and with gusto.

Here comes former Prime Minister Paul Martin, providing sage advice to New Brunswick Liberal candidate Brian Gallant (for now, the statistical front runner) and promising to provide more from his treasure trove of best fiscal practices for cutting public costs, building economic capacity and managing expectations among taxpayers who, the best money suggests, will take at least some kind of hit should the Grit leader march triumphantly into power later this month.

Indeed, who can’t smile at the widely distributed photo depicting Messrs. Gallant and Trudeau disembarking from the former’s campaign bus somewhere near Fredericton last week? Meet the absurdly attractive and telegenic Liberal dream team, the new Hardy Boys of Canadian politics with broad grins and thumbs-up signals at the ready.

And the pseudo-filial connections don’t stop there. As Ms. Taber reports, “(Paul) Martin’s former top aide, David Herle, is polling for the provincial Liberals as he did for the provincial Liberals in Nova Scotia and Ontario, both of which won majority governments.”

Meanwhile, “Frank McKenna, the well-connected former Liberal premier of New Brunswick, is raising money for Mr. Gallant” (which, if nothing else, surely proves the truth in the adage that politics does, indeed, make strange bedfellows, as Mr. McKenna has been one of the more forceful proponents of shale gas development in the province – a proposition that Mr. Gallant has publicly repudiated as risky, at best).

Again, though, none of this is news. What is is the extraordinary lack of federal engagement on the Tory side of the fence.

When Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was in office, he made a point of embarking on extended whistle tours through any provinces that were readying themselves for local elections, going as far as to the press the flesh in constituencies if he reckoned that this would burnish the electoral fortunes of his fellow, regional travellers.

In this campaign, however, PC Leader David Alward looks, for all the world, like a political orphan rolling up to grocery stores in his big, blue bus that bears wistfully written slogans on its aluminum flanks – slogans that read, “Say Yes” to. . .well, your guess is as good as mine.

What accounts for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s light engagement – conspicuous by its spottiness – in his provincial confederate’s electoral ambitions, one suspects, has less to do with Mr. Alward and his policies and more to do with the democratic culture that informs Ottawa’s ruling class nowadays.

After all, to it, the political fortunes of one or two provinces are far less important than the grand sweep of right-wing reforms that guarantee the approbation of the powerful and entitled.

Of course, as this audience still forms the minority of the Canadian electorate, Mr. Trudeau may have already won his election even as Mr. Gallant seeks his own mandate beyond being a handmaiden to federal power.

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Sep 05 2014
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Politics

Scrubbing the ‘politics’ from politics

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It’s stunning how political even the effort to appear apolitical becomes during an election campaign.

Take all three principal leaders vying for that vaunted (thankless?) job of premier of New Brunswick this month.

In one corner of the province, Progressive Conservative honcho David Alward unveils a plan that promises to excise politics from educational policy making and programming. In fact, he said this week, “this is an approach that transcends politics and includes sound curriculum development policies, engagement from parents, educators, district education councils and researchers.”

Indeed, he insists, “politicians shouldn’t be making day-to-day or year-to-year decisions that affect the classroom.”

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Liberal Leader Brian Gallant issues his statement on education, wondering, in effect, if a Tory echo machine is dogging his public appearances.

“We have to have a plan that will be long term, one that’s going to be based on evidence, going to have commitment and engagement of all people involve,” he says.

Not only that, he declares, “we need to take the politics out of this and sit down with educators, parents, students and stakeholders to build an action plan to improve our education system. . .We think having a 10-year plan, where we invite other political parties to play a role in guiding the plan is the right step for our province moving forward. It’s going to be important to put politics aside.”

Then there’s NDP commander Dominic Cardy who also believes, not surprisingly, that vile politics has poisoned the wellspring of educational achievement and opportunity in New Brunswick.

“We need to back away from having the politicians decide the curriculums, and instead talk about the outcomes we want to see,” he opines reasonably.

Here we have that most precious of spectacles, rarely seen in public: complete and utter unanimity among three distinct campaign rivals representing three philosophically divergent political parties on an issue that cuts to the very core of their collective raison d’etre.

And the question quickly becomes existential: When is anything a politician says or does not, by definition, political?

Of course, the “let’s-get-the-politics-out-of-this (insert appropriate issue here)” gambit was bound to emerge. It was just a matter of when.

In recent years, public opinion surveys in jurisdictions from Nunavut to Nantucket to North Yorkshire have confirmed that the politician who successfully convinces the public that he genuinely despises the very craft he plies to win their votes. . .well, in most cases, wins their votes.

Consider the following item in The Guardian newspaper not long ago:

“Nearly half of Britons say they are angry with politics and politicians, according to a Guardian/ICM poll analysing the disconnect between British people and their democracy. The research, which explores the reasons behind the precipitous drop in voter turnout – particularly among under-30s – finds that it is anger with the political class and broken promises made by high-profile figures that most rile voters, rather than boredom with Westminster. Asked for the single word best describing ‘how or what you instinctively feel’ about politics and politicians in general, 47 per cent of respondents answered ‘angry’, against 25 per cent who said they were chiefly ‘bored’.”

The savvy politician knows that this is the general state of affairs everywhere in the democratized world. It’s one of his trade’s occupational hazards.

One solution is to never make promises, even ones that might actually seem plausibly keepable. Then again, that’s how Mitt Romney managed to give Barack Obama a second term of office as leader of the free world. The public needs at least a little red meat to chomp.

The other option, which Messrs. Alward, Gallant and Cardy seem to understand with implicit savviness, is to talk broadly and winningly about issues that are too big and important – too vital to our physical, emotional and spiritual well being – to sully with rank promise-making.

The alternative, don’t you know, would be playing politics. And responsible politicians don’t do that; play politics, that is.

At least, they don’t when they’re trying to win a political election.

Or something like that. It’s complicated.

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Sep 05 2014
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Education, Politics

Hey teacher, don’t keep those kids at home

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If Ontario’s government hopes to maintain public support for its new full-day kindergarten (FDK) program, it had better abandon its inexplicably dismissive attitude about the regime’s evident growing pains.

News reports this week suggest that the province’s ministry of education has been flooded, in recent months, with complaints by both parents and educators about bloated class sizes and the noise, disruption and confusion this caused in several schools last academic year.

In at least once instance, as many as 40 tykes were crowded into a room. Documents obtained by the Globe and Mail through a freedom-of-information request indicate that “about 640 kindergarten classrooms, or eight per cent of those that introduced the (full-day) program had more than 30 children. . .according to a confidential briefing note to the minister in January.”

Moreover, the Globe reported, “Martha Hradowy, who represents early childhood education workers at Windsor’s Greater Essex County District School Board, said the situation has become so dire that some schools have created learning areas for full-day kindergarten students, which hold about 100 children. Classrooms are divided into four separate corners.”

This is exactly the kind of bad press no government should want as it implements the final phase of an FDK soft launch to all schools in the province. And yet, so far, the ministry’s response has been decidedly tepid.

Noting that daycares in the province are required, by law, to maintain a one-to-eight caregiver-child ratio and that pre-school primary programs must limit class sizes to no more than 23 kids, government officials blithely allowed that, at present, there is no comparable cap for FDK, only a requirement that school boards preserve an average class size of 26 throughout the system. 

Certain Ontarian editorialists of my acquaintance are, no doubt, itching to get busy scribbling their provocative nonsense in response to this new, so-called crisis in public education. “Ontario’s kids crammed into classrooms like sardines in a can”, “Ontario’s schools turning into factory farms”, “Ontario’s kindergartners pay the price for nanny-state meddling,” the headlines will scream.

The overcrowding, these pundits will write, proves that Ontario is nowhere near ready to assume the responsibilities of providing efficient full-day kindergarten; indeed, that such a monumental task is probably beyond the administrative and fiscal capabilities of any province in this country.

They will then use the point to segue into an entirely separate, if equally specious, argument: that there is no credible proof that FDK or, indeed, any form of early childhood education provides lasting social, psychological or educational benefits to kids; and that those youngsters who do evince advanced interpersonal and academic skills as a result of their exposure to such programs lose these advantages over their more classically schooled peers by the end of Grade One.

The arguments that it can’t be done and that it’s not necessary, anyway, have dogged the discussion about publicly sponsored and subsidized child care and early education for decades.

But it’s only been within the last 50 years when rigorous research and empirical evidence have shown that state investments in these programs have generated multipliers (in the reduction of public costs related to poverty, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, crime, illiteracy, innumeracy, and mental illness) worth billions of dollars a year in countries that have had the perspicacity to spend the money accordingly.

And the suggestion that all kids eventually even each other out, regardless of their early childhood education backgrounds (or lack, thereof), is hardly a resonant reason for abandoning such programs.

Who would want his enriched, curious, empathetic kid suddenly leavened in grade school by the lower common denominators in his midst?

Isn’t the better idea to raise everyone’s standards by providing a commonly accessible, superior system of play-based, pre-school education that’s integrated seamlessly into the higher grades where meritorious principles (team-playing, integrity, love of learning) may continue to flourish?

The growing pains the Ontario government’s FDK program now suffer are serious, but they are perhaps predictable and, more importantly, eminently fixable.

Now is no time for officialdom to take them lightly.

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Sep 03 2014
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Democracy, Politics

Taming our free-market beasts one election at a time

Ever since the financial meltdown of 2008, economic thinkers have wondered whether the free market thirsty for oil and nostalgic for the good, old, bad, old days of easy profit could ever learn from the errors of its rapacious ways.

After all, in the shadow of that calamity, the rich did, indeed, get richer, the poor did, indeed, get poorer, and the middle class became almost mythological throughout much of North America.

Even more maddening, perhaps, is the certainty that many of the very institutions that played key roles in engineering (or, at least, ushering) the near-collapse of the global economy have been bolstered, rehabilitated and otherwise rewarded with public money – money that is now no longer available to pay for the necessities of civilized life, such as rational, affordable health care and higher education.

All of which is reason enough for public intellectuals, such as French economist Thomas Piketty, to conclude that capitalism is, at its core, breathtakingly Nietzschean. In  the introduction to his best-selling book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the professor at the Paris School of Economics, states that “Modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have made it possible to avoid the Marxist apocalypse but have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality – or in any case not as much as one might have imagined in the optimistic decades following World War II.”

Why? Mr. Piketty explains: “When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.”

Still, he’s not entirely without hope. “There are nevertheless ways democracy can regain control over capitalism and ensure that the general interest takes precedence over private interests, while preserving economic openness and avoiding protectionist and nationalist reactions,” he writes.

The rest of his tome is essentially a 577-page set-up for a series of recommendations for savagely curtailing the savagery of capitalism, itself.

But, at least one Nobel Prize-winning economist thinks that while his colleague “is right about the severity of the problem, he is not completely right about its cause – and how  to fix it.”

In an article that appears in this month’s Harper’s magazine, Joseph Stiglitz, chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute, argues, in effect, that the fault is not so much in the social and political systems and institutions we erect but in ourselves for failing to keep them healthy and honest.

“There is no such thing as a ‘purely’ capitalist system,” he writes. “We have always had a mixed economy, relying on the government for investment in education, technology, and infrastructure.” Indeed, he pointedly adds, “the most innovative and successful industries in the U.S. economy (tech and biotech) rest on foundations provided by government research.”

His bottom line is that “a well-functioning economy requires a balance between the public and private sectors, with essential public investments and an adequately funded system of social protection.”

Of course, that notion has been out of style for nearly 35 years. Both Reagan and Thatcher revolutions, which marked the ascendence of neo-conservative cultural warriors and their fellow travellers on Wall Street, made puppy chow out of the once cherished and credible proposition that good governments play a legitimate role in curbing the excesses that turbulent competition is bound to produce.

Still, had such creatures (good governments) existed prior to the financial crisis, there’s every reason to believe that the awe-inspiring income inequalities, joblessness, consumer debt, and fiscal malaise entrenched in public institutions of every variety would not so bedevil us today.

It is even conceivable that elected officials would ply their trade with a certain decorum and circumspection, knowing that the voters they woo do not, in fact, find all politicians utterly loathsome.

As New Brunswick heads ever closer to an election that many pundits have predicted will be conspicuous for its failure to inspire much confidence in any political party, we mustn’t forget that democratic governments are the only protections we have against the predations of the marketplace.

When we don’t respect our public institutions and refuse to care for them, they will weaken, dissolve and vanish.

Then, dear citizen, enjoy facing the free market in all its rapacious glory.

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Sep 03 2014
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Politics

Accounting for pricey election promises

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How toothless are New Brunswick’s booked rules to force political parties, in campaign mode, to explain exactly how they will make good on their spending promises? Indeed, how opaque is the Conservative machine’s commitment to transparency?

The provincial Liberals want to know and have been demanding answers since late June when the Tory-inspired Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Act came into effect. At that time, the Grits issued a statement, under their leader Brian Gallant’s imprimatur.

“It’s clear that this government is focused solely on spending announcements to help their election campaign, and not on growing our economy or creating jobs,” he said. “It’s ridiculous and unacceptable. This government is burying election promises in government announcements so they can avoid their own transparency legislation that requires all promises to be costed in election platforms,” said Gallant.

Last week, the Liberals were at it again, charging that the Conservatives have made $433 million worth of spending promises without independently costing out those announcements. They even unveiled a spreadsheet that, they say, accurately reflects the dollar value of each Tory vow between June 24 and August 20.

In contrast, insisted Liberal Dieppe candidate Roger Melanson, “We are being transparent and accountable. I think the outgoing premier who set out the rules in this legislation should follow the same rules.”

For their part, the Tories aren’t talking. In June, however, then-Finance Minister Blaine Higgs told the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, “If they (Liberals) know something that has been promised or announced that’s not in their budget, well, then they should tell me because I don’t know about it. . .Anything during the election process will then be identified as either new money or budgeted money. It will have to be costed if it is new money.”

To which Mr. Melanson retorted, “If that’s the case, it means they were using taxpayers’ money. . .to try to buy their votes.”

There is, of course, more than a healthy dose of political posturing on both sides of the issue. But the bottom line is that all of this is largely beside the point.

To begin with, the Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Act is a fundamentally silly piece of legislation. It mandates that political parties assign dollar values to their campaign promises and threatens to strip them of their tax-funded operating allowances if they don’t. But it says nothing about the fact that when the provincial government is flat broke, putting price tags on election promises is utterly meaningless.

The Act also enshrines the following, as yet, unachievable priorities: “Annual balanced budgets on or before the end of the first fiscal period;con or before the end of the first fiscal period, the Province’s net debt for a fiscal year will be less than the net debt for the preceding fiscal year; on or before the end of the first fiscal period, a net debt-to-GDP ratio that is at or below 35 per cent; and after March 31, 2017, quarterly fiscal updates will include a statement of the actual expenses and revenue to the end of the quarter to which the update relates.”

And the penalty for failing to meet these objectives is a walk to the metaphorical woodshed unless, of course, the following contingency applies: “The Minister may recommend to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council that the applicability of sections 6, 9 and 10 be suspended for any fiscal year if the Minister is of the opinion that an economic or financial crisis has occurred that makes it unreasonable for those sections to apply in that fiscal year. . .On the recommendation of the Minister, the Lieutenant-Governor in Council may issue an order that sections 6, 9 and 10 do not apply in the fiscal year set out in the order.”

So, then, do we not now endure an “economic or financial crisis” in this province? Or what would we call a $12-billion debt and $500-million annual deficit?

Transparency and accountability are functions of money management. First comes the money. Then comes the management.

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Sep 03 2014
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Politics, Society

What is the measure of true leadership?

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If New Brunswick’s economic morass demonstrates anything it is that, as the province careens from one predictable trauma to another, true leadership is becoming as rare as snow in Sudan.

Worse, perhaps, than genuine ignorance, virtually everyone saw this wall of debt from a distance – the current government, previous ones, pundits, political scientists, my Great Aunt Minnie – and those who had the authority and tools to knock it down, instead, laid more brick and mortar.

Some years ago, during the depth of the financial crisis that, overnight, wiped out trillions of dollars in private equity, the sad spectacle of Alan Greenspan – the once mighty head of the U.S. Federal Reserve – admitting to a Congressional Committee that his once unshakeable faith in the planet’s economic order had been thoroughly undermined in just a few, short weeks was shocking, indeed.

Now, we almost expect our leaders and heros to reliably fail us. Across North America and Europe, unemployment remain stubbornly high, the income gap between the rich and the rest continues to widen, consumer debt is at an all-time high. The tent-angry 99 per cent have folded up their makeshift cities and gone home.

In fact, as bobble-headed experts inform us from their studio couches on TV the economic diseases which afflict us are so complex, so systemic, so globally entrenched that it’s unlikely any policy, of any so-called leader, can accurately prescribe a cure. So, the thinking goes, why bother even trying?

All of which cuts to the core of our current problem: A growing distrust not only of our existing cohort of movers and shakers, but of the leadership principle, itself. 

Unlike every other malignancy that’s spread through our ailing economy, this fretful cynicism forecasts the early death of our various bodies politic, if only because we now need a calibre of leadership we haven’t seen in decades: Talented men and women in all professions and vocations stepping forward and risking their reputations in the sea of scorn that’s sweeping the planet; tough-minded, innovative, perspicacious individuals charting newer, smarter, more sustainable courses for businesses, governments, schools, and universities in the years ahead.

And yet, the question is not so much who emerges to fill these roles, but how society regains its confidence in new leaders – the confidence to recognize those who are the real deals, and those who are the carnival barkers. Given how wrong almost everyone has been about almost everything over the past decade, it’s a brutally tough assignment; but it’s not impossible.

What, in fact, makes a true leader? Is it vision, passion, discipline, persistence? Is it strength, courage, loyalty, rhetorical flourish? These are all important traits. But while these qualities may be necessary for enlightened, trustworthy leadership, they are not necessarily sufficient.

Consider, for example, a man who “persistently” pursues short-term profits at the expense of long-term revenues. Or a women who “courageously” champions a policy, program or technology despite the fact that her competitors are manifestly more successful performing the same functions. Are these the leaders we need, or do they represent too much of what we already have in the boardrooms of the world’s Burger Kings and Tim Hortons?

In fact, the true measure of leadership on the precariously uneven playing field of the modern era will be knowledge, understanding, responsibility, and cooperation.

Knowledge of the way this province’s finances really work. Understanding of the means to achieve a productive balance between free enterprise principles and regulatory protections. Responsibility for getting to the truth of the threats – sooner rather than later – that would injure our collective hopes, expectations and livelihoods.

And cooperation – always cooperation – not partisan hatcheting.

The notion that any man or woman owns the right to break the world as long as he or she is strong enough or smart enough to get away with it should have died along with the careers of Alan Greenspan and all his other Ayn Rand-loving ilk. 

Now, in this New Brunswick election cycle, we must look to ourselves for the leadership we seek, and become the heroes of our own lives.

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Sep 03 2014
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Politics, Science

The unscientific methods of Canada’s politicos

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Despite claims of mounting evidence to the contrary, Canadians are, indeed, a scientifically minded folk after all. Or perhaps we only wish we were in the face the awful truth about our patently dunderheaded ways.

In either case, a special panel of the Council of Canadian Academies is trenchant in its most recent findings on the subject. Having interviewed hundreds of people and reviewed trunk loads of data and “peer-reviewed literature”, the organization has produced what it boasts is the “clearest picture of Canada’s science culture and science culture support system in 25 years.”

In response to the question, “What is the state of Canada’s science culture?”, the panel concluded, that “Canadians have positive attitudes towards science and technology and low levels of reservations about science compared with citizens of other countries.”

What’s more, “Canadians exhibit a high level of engagement with science and technology relative to citizens of other countries; the level of science knowledge (in Canada) is on a par with or above citizens of other countries for which data are available” and “Canada’s performance on indicators of science and technology skills development is variable compared with other OECD countries.”

All of this may come as a nasty surprise to certain Conservative MPs who have made much mischief in recent years propagating the fiction that all science is, in fact, just a matter of opinion (the corollary being that one opinion is just as valid as any other, because, gosh darn it, we live in a democracy and in a democracy that’s how we roll thank you very much).

Still, if we appear hopefully and outwardly rationale to the trained eyes of the nation, dutifully respectful of logic and the scientific method, how do we explain this report, which appeared on the front page of the Globe and Mail last week: “The fate of one of the federal government’s toughest crime bills is in doubt after the House of Commons sent the wrong version on to the Senate, which debated that version and sent it on to a committee for further study.”

Apparently, the errors in the Senate’s iteration of the bill are so egregious they compromise the very purpose of the proposed legislation, which is to strengthen the rights and representation of victims of major crimes.

How’d this happen? Conservative MP David Sweet, who sponsored the bill, was darned if he knew, but trusted all would be well in the end. “There has been an administrative error that I found out about between the House of Commons and the Senate administration,” the Globe quotes him as saying. “So the legislation that was in the hands of the Senate was not the legislation that passed the House of Commons. Measures are being taken.”

Of course, even in science, mistakes happen. But they don’t generally occur at the most mundane, routine levels of research – activities that are, in this case, analogous to the clerical work that House of Commons staffers undertake to move federal bills forward.

The real outrage against logic, here, may be the assumption that across-the-board job cuts in the public service necessarily results in better efficiency for less cost.

To be fair, though, money is tight everywhere. Just ask Canada’s premiers and territorial leaders, who were meeting in Charlottetown last week to decide, among other things, which menu to order lunch off of, as the subject of interprovincial trade barriers was likely to cause a collective bought of severe indigestion.

Fortunately, taxpayers won’t be on the hook. . .not entirely. As has been widely reported, mostly by the Ottawa Citizen, the premiers have managed to secure a total of $450,000 in private-sector sponsorships from such Canadian corporate heavyweights as the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada ($150,000) and Manulife ($50,000).

Even Unifor and the Canadian Union of Public Employees are in on the act.

The wholly unscientific assumption at the centre of this cogitation is that Canadians will not view the practice of branding with private logos a political meeting convened to pursue the public interest as utterly rank and quite likely undemocratic.

Heck no, said conference host Prince Edward Island Premier Joe Ghiz.

“In my opinion it’s about supporting democracy, it helps save taxpayers’ money,” he told the Charlottetown Guardian last week. “If we’re bringing in people from all over the country, I want to show them a good time.”

Behold, dear reader: critical thinking so very hard at work.

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