Author Archives: brucescribe

Aug 08 2014
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Democracy, Politics

Welcome back, you summertime follies

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North of the normally frozen 49th parallel, summer reaches its apogee, often baking the brains of public figures just well enough to justify calling this the silliest season of the year. On the other hand, when it comes to official foolishness, we don’t dare hold a candle to the Americans.

Last week, in the land of the Star-Spangled Banner, Congressional Republicans voted in favour of suing President Barack Obama for allegedly trampling the Constitution during his campaign to ram healthcare reforms down the gullets of unwitting citizens, (which would be, presumably, their preferred take on the matter).

“This administration has effectively rewritten the law without following the constitutional process,” GOP Representative Pete Sessions was quoted as saying to Washington reporters following the 225-201 vote, in which only five Republicans demurred and not a single Democrat assented.

According to a Reuters account, “The suit is expected to claim that Obama, a Democrat, exceeded his executive authority in making unilateral changes to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Republicans argue that by delaying some healthcare coverage mandates and granting various waivers, he bypassed Congress in violation of the U.S. Constitution.”

Indeed, over the past six years, the GOP has made as much mischief for the president as is democratically possible. But this is the first time in history when members of Congress have actually sought redress for their complaints with the Executive branch of government through civil litigation.

But that’s not even the most absurd aspect of the affair. This is: The Republicans are suing over changes to Obamacare that they, themselves, demanded the president make back in October.

“Obama, himself, tweaked Republicans on Wednesday,” CNN reported last week. “In Kansas City, Missouri, he noted the House was about to leave Washington for the month of August, but ‘the main vote that they have scheduled for today is whether or not they decide to sue me for doing my job.’”

In one sense, though, the threat of a lawsuit is a more logical avenue to go down than that other, more common expression of opprobrium: impeachment. The Republicans know that they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of stick-handling that result. They don’t have the votes in the Senate. 

Still, according to a CNN analysis, “The issue resonates with Democratic supporters, according to Rep. Steve Israel of New York, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The group has raised $7.6 million online since Boehner announced the lawsuit plan just over five weeks ago, he said. ‘You bet we’re going to run on a Congress that is just obsessed with lawsuits, suing the President, talking about impeaching him instead of solutions for the middle class, talking about jobs and infrastructure,’ he said.”

All of which fuels the U.S. public’s thoroughly unalloyed disgust with politics in general. “Americans are finding little they like about President Barack Obama or either political party, according to a new poll that suggests the possibility of a ‘throw the bums out’ mentality in next year’s midterm elections,” an Associated Press story declared last fall.  “The AP-GfK poll finds few people approve of the way the president is handling most major issues and most people say he’s not decisive, strong, honest, reasonable or inspiring.”

Meanwhile, “In the midst of the government shutdown and Washington gridlock, the president is faring much better than his party, with large majorities of those surveyed finding little positive to say about Democrats. The negatives are even higher for the Republicans across the board, with 4 out of 5 people describing the GOP as unlikeable and dishonest and not compassionate, refreshing, inspiring or innovative.”

So much grist, so little time to mill up here in Canada where we try vainly to compete for scandal mongering with the Joneses south of us.

Alas, notwithstanding the Conservative caucus of Stephen Harper – the fetishistic attraction for control, the militancy, the coarse name-calling that passes for principled debate – we just don’t seem to have what it takes.

Not, at least, like the Yanks.

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Aug 08 2014
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Democracy, Economy, Politics

The consequences of a slow-growth era

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In a report that will bring only scowls to the faces of Conservative party operatives and their masters in Cabinet, a McGill University economics professor argues that the time has come for a kinder, gentler hand at the tiller of the national economy.

It’s not that the HMS Canuckistan is in any real danger of sinking under the weight of the jobless hordes its ferrying from one unpromising corner of the country to the other. Indeed, both the Bank of Canada and the International Monetary Fund predict that the Canadian economy will, in fact, grow marginally by 2.2 per cent this year and 2.4 per cent in 2015.   

It’s just that politicians and policymakers have fired up the engines about as much as they can, and there’s not much more they can do to speed the pace. They, and we, must face facts: This boat is permanently puttering.

“Canadian monetary policy has little ability to further stimulate Canadian growth. Given the large amount of uncertainty now faced by Canadian firms, further reductions in the policy interest rate are unlikely to be effective in stimulating aggregate demand,” writes Christopher Ragan in a commentary for the C.D. Howe Institute.  “In addition, the ongoing problems associated with very low interest rates cannot be ignored and may soon present the Bank of Canada with a compelling case for rate increases.”

Yes, “Canadian fiscal authorities have more room to manoeuvre than their counterparts in many other developed countries.” Still, “there remain solid arguments for budgets to be brought back to balance in the next few years.”

Since neither monetary nor fiscal instruments are likely to leverage faster economic growth, and since the private sector remains as jittery as a cat in roomful of rockers when it comes to parting with its money for capital investment and skills development and training, slow growth is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

So, then, what’s a prudent government to do?

“Canadian policymakers should accept the continuation of Canada’s slow-growth recovery for the next few years. Slow growth has undesirable consequences, however, including longer unemployment spells, more part-time employment, and a greater incidence of long-term unemployment. Policymakers should focus on addressing the associated burden by enhancing income support for the unemployed, increasing the mobility of workers and improving incentives for labour-market training.”

Put it another way: Politicians in bad times have a duty to observe the progressive natures of their souls and care for the underprivileged, relieve the burdens of the downtrodden and disenfranchised and, in general, act like human beings for once in a very long while.

In fact, none of this has been part of the job description, at least in the western political canon, since Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan ran away with the keys to the democratic system’s castle some 30 years ago.

Still, it’s high time that those we elect to public office recognize that fierce individualism and the frontier spirit of so-called free-market capitalism carry with them certain drawbacks – one of which is the tendency to blow the world’s financial systems to kingdom come every so often.

In this lies pragmatic reasons for Prof. Ragan’s prescriptions. In his commentary, he identifies four specific groups on whom the “burden of recessions and slow economic recoveries is likely to fall disproportionately.”

The first is comprised of people who lose their jobs as a direct result of economic blows. Then there are those who are new to the labour market (young people and immigrants) and can’t find gainful employment despite their often valiant attempts. “Third are those who find a new job but only one that is of lower quality than what they desire,” he writes. “Empirically, this group is often identified as involuntary part-time workers. The final group includes individuals who remain unemployed for an extended period of time, unable to find any job or one appropriate to their skills. Their burden is both the loss of income they experience as well as the likely degradation of their skills and reduced employability that often accompany long-term unemployment.”

If governments turn a blind eye to these individuals, they are essentially ignoring all but the comfortably affluent and the very rich. And alienating most of the voting public makes for mighty poor politics only a bit more than a year out from an election.

Scowl as they might, but those who currently stand at the helm of the economy ought to consider that when managing public expectations, kinder and gentler can also mean smarter.

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Jul 30 2014
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Politics

All hail our towering examples of public service

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We are, in every way on every day, blessed in this country to count among our citizenry the finest class of politicians and civic leaders humanity has ever seen fit to produce. Of course, we dare not stare too long at their like, lest these glittering specimens of probity and circumspection blind us where we stand.

Perhaps, then, only a glance or two will suffice.

What say you Rob Ford, Lord High Mayor of yon Hog Town? When last we checked your calendar, you were just emerging from several weeks of. . .ahem. . .well-deserved rest, having spent several years working overtime to become habitually. . .well, let’s just say. . .tired and emotional.

According to the Globe and Mail this week, hizzoner says it is “irrelevant whether or not his family firm does business with a large U.S. printing company he and his brother opened doors for at city hall, arguing the Ford’s company has too many clients for him to declare a conflict on every one.”

In fact, the mayor’s exact words were: “People come with ideas to save the city money. I’ll be the first one to bring them in, bring the managers and say, here’s some ideas. If thats a conflict, I’m going to have to declare a conflict with almost every business or person in this city. I guess I am in a conflict.”

That said, Mr. Ford trundled off for a photo-op at a new playground in the GTA’s North York borough. There, he joined some kids on the monkey bars and exclaimed his abiding support for the new space and others like it across the city. Which was strange, because, as the Toronto Star reported, “he was the only member of council to vote against a proposal to let the city use $140,000 in private money to build the park. The proposal passed 34-1.”

Again, according to the Star, “Local resident and advocate Talisha Ramsaroop, 21, said Ford told her and two other young people at the ceremony that he has done more for low-income communities than any other mayor – and that he ‘started’ the park project. ‘Those were his exact words: ‘I started this,’’ Ramsaroop said.

“In fact, the park, Reading Sprouts Garden, was (an). . .initiative of local councillor Maria Augimeri. Ramsaroop said she was ‘really upset’ when she was informed later of Ford’s opposing vote. ‘To be quite’honest, I didn’t know that politicians were allowed to lie to your face,’ Ramsaroop said. “Like, I know this sounds really optimistic, but I was completely unaware that politicians were allowed to lie to the face of the people.’”

Elsewhere in Oz, the Senate of Canada was debating whether or not to sanction one of its members for some such misdemeanour.

Nope, it wasn’t mighty Mike Duffy, rumoured to be from Kensington, Prince Edward Island, now facing 31 counts of fraud and breach of trust. Neither was it his colleague Pamela Wallin who’s still facing the RCMP’s music.

It was the heretofore all-but-unknown Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, a Conservative senator who got his wrists slapped for hiring his girlfriend. As a Star piece noted, “A Senate committee is debating what – if any – sanction to level against a Quebec Conservative who was found to have breached parts of the upper chamber’s conflict-of-interest code.

“Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu got a chance Monday to testify behind closed doors about why he continued to employ his girlfriend as an assistant, even though it violated Senate guidelines.

“Boisvenu renewed a job contract for his girlfriend twice, and tried to ensure a two-week special leave for her as she moved from one job to another in Senate administration. . .Boisvenu was found to have acted inappropriately by not only renewing the contract but also by lobbying Senate leadership over how time off Lapointe had taken was to be counted.”

Meanwhile the Upper Chamber’s ethics commissioner, Lyse Ricard, is recommending that no sanctioned be leveled against the former victims’ rights advocate as he didn’t mean to break the Senate’s rules. His “error of judgement,” she said, was “made in good faith.”

But of course – among the political class, aren’t they all?

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Jul 30 2014
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Business, Economy, Energy, Government

Ducking the dreaded ‘B-word’ in New Brunswick

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Those who maintain that in the absence of a global depression governments and the jurisdictions they administer do not go bankrupt – not, at least, in the barrel-wearing, down-and- out sort of way – do not remember Argentina.

In a 2008 edition of Der Spiegel, the magazine reported, “The signs of looming national bankruptcy are plentiful, and bankers in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo know them well. In late 2001, they were the first to see the coming crash in Argentina. Men traveled across the Rio de la Plata, from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, carrying suitcases filled with US dollars. They stood in long lines at the city’s banks, depositing the contents of their suitcases into accounts and safe deposit boxes there. Uruguay is South America’s Switzerland, a safe haven for money in times of crisis. No one asks about where the millions come from.”

The article continued: “Once the Argentine businessmen had transferred their dollars abroad, the second phase of the collapse began. The Argentine government froze all bank accounts, capping the maximum amount an accountholder could withdraw at only $250 (€198) a week. Small investors, those who had left their money in the banks, were the hardest hit. Tens of thousands of desperate citizens stormed the banks, and many spent nights sleeping in front of the automated teller machines.”

Finally came the denouement of that country’s humiliation: “The last phase of the downturn began in the Buenos Aires suburbs. After consumption had dropped by 60 per cent, young men began looting supermarkets. In December 2001, 40,000 people gathered on Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace. There, they banged pots and pans together day and night, until an unnerved President Fernando de la Rúa fled by helicopter.”

Reach back even farther into history, if closer to home (at least culturally), and we may recall the economic wreckage of post-World War II Britain, which had to borrow the equivalent in today’s dollars of $150 billion from the United States just to keep the lights on, cops on the payroll and hospitals open. The Brits have only just paid back the Yanks the final installment of the loan.

In fact, national bankruptcies are a far more common occurrence in the modern world than many suspect – made all the more chilling by the thorough devastation they wreak on the afflicted economies.

Money’s not worth a plug nickel for anyone (except, perhaps, for those who had the foresight to move their cash to offshore, safe havens before the collapse). Schools and emergency rooms shut down with alarming speed. As for public pensions, you can forget about them altogether.

And because societies are vastly more complex and intra-dependent than are individuals, a jurisdiction can take years, even decades, to crawl back to some semblance of solvency.

Anyone who has endured a personal bankruptcy knows what it’s like to have a trustee like Price Waterhouse tethered to his ankle. But these guys are guardian angels compared to the dark minions who ply their trade at the International Monetary Fund.

It’s lamentable (though not surprising) that, in this run-up to the September 22 New Brunswick election, almost no one has uttered the ‘B-word’ in relation to the province’s dreadful fiscal shape.

It appears we live in a perpetual state of denial, expecting to make no hard choices, to undertake no risky business (can you spell s-h-a-l-e gas?) that might replenish our collective coffers, and yet always expecting fine, fat, grass-fed chickens in our pots at the end of the day.

The New Brunswick Business Council – a collection of demonstrably successful heavy-hitters, whose membership roster includes names like Oland, McCain and Ganong – made headlines this week by challenging the province’s political parties to drop their usual talking points and talk plainly to citizens. What, it demanded, are these political hopefuls going to do to clean up the mess that is New Brunswick’s financial condition?

The Council suggests a temporary hike in the HST and radical surgery on the spending side of the ledger. To be sure, the measures it prescribes aren’t nice, comfortable or easy. But the alternative is obviously far worse.

At least these folks remember Argentina.

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Jul 29 2014
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Business, Economy, Government

Ducking the dreaded ‘B-word’ in New Brunswick

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Those who maintain that in the absence of a global depression governments and the jurisdictions they administer do not go bankrupt – not, at least, in the barrel-wearing, down-and- out sort of way – do not remember Argentina.

In a 2008 edition of Der Spiegel, the magazine reported, “The signs of looming national bankruptcy are plentiful, and bankers in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo know them well. In late 2001, they were the first to see the coming crash in Argentina. Men traveled across the Rio de la Plata, from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, carrying suitcases filled with US dollars. They stood in long lines at the city’s banks, depositing the contents of their suitcases into accounts and safe deposit boxes there. Uruguay is South America’s Switzerland, a safe haven for money in times of crisis. No one asks about where the millions come from.”

The article continued: “Once the Argentine businessmen had transferred their dollars abroad, the second phase of the collapse began. The Argentine government froze all bank accounts, capping the maximum amount an accountholder could withdraw at only $250 (€198) a week. Small investors, those who had left their money in the banks, were the hardest hit. Tens of thousands of desperate citizens stormed the banks, and many spent nights sleeping in front of the automated teller machines.”

Finally came the denouement of that country’s humiliation: “The last phase of the downturn began in the Buenos Aires suburbs. After consumption had dropped by 60 per cent, young men began looting supermarkets. In December 2001, 40,000 people gathered on Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace. There, they banged pots and pans together day and night, until an unnerved President Fernando de la Rúa fled by helicopter.”

Reach back even farther into history, if closer to home (at least culturally), and we may recall the economic wreckage of post-World War II Britain, which had to borrow the equivalent in today’s dollars of $150 billion from the United States just to keep the lights on, cops on the payroll and hospitals open. The Brits have only just paid back the Yanks the final installment of the loan.

In fact, national bankruptcies are a far more common occurrence in the modern world than many suspect – made all the more chilling by the thorough devastation they wreak on the afflicted economies.

Money’s not worth a plug nickel for anyone (except, perhaps, for those who had the foresight to move their cash to offshore, safe havens before the collapse). Schools and emergency rooms shut down with alarming speed. As for public pensions, you can forget about them altogether.

And because societies are vastly more complex and intra-dependent than are individuals, a jurisdiction can take years, even decades, to crawl back to some semblance of solvency.

Anyone who has endured a personal bankruptcy knows what it’s like to have a trustee like Price Waterhouse tethered to his ankle. But these guys are guardian angels compared to the dark minions who ply their trade at the International Monetary Fund.

It’s lamentable (though not surprising) that, in this run-up to the September 22 New Brunswick election, almost no one has uttered the ‘B-word’ in relation to the province’s dreadful fiscal shape.

It appears we live in a perpetual state of denial, expecting to make no hard choices, to undertake no risky business (can you spell s-h-a-l-e gas?) that might replenish our collective coffers, and yet always expecting fine, fat, grass-fed chickens in our pots at the end of the day.

The New Brunswick Business Council – a collection of demonstrably successful heavy-hitters, whose membership roster includes names like Oland, McCain and Ganong – made headlines this week by challenging the province’s political parties to drop their usual talking points and talk plainly to citizens. What, it demanded, are these political hopefuls going to do to clean up the mess that is New Brunswick’s financial condition?

The Council suggests a temporary hike in the HST and radical surgery on the spending side of the ledger. To be sure, the measures it prescribes aren’t nice, comfortable or easy. But the alternative is obviously far worse.

At least these folks remember Argentina.

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Jul 29 2014
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Economy, Politics

George Orwell would be proud to call this tax man Big Brother

When the rock is a hard place, it's usually government thinking it's a friggin' balloon

When the rock is a hard place, it’s usually government thinking it’s a friggin’ balloon

Big Brother arrived in Canada last week – late by 30 years, if we are inclined to set our time pieces according to the schedule predicted in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984– and finally started unpacking his bags.

Ho do we know? It’s not by the creepy rise of the surveillance state as manifested by Communications Security Establishment Canada (this country’s version of the U.S. National Security Agency). It’s not by the uptick of moral priggishness and the desire of mostly conservative politicians to throw just about everyone who ever smoked a joint into jail.

Nope, confused citizen, it’s by the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) full, official embrace of “doublethink”, thanks greatly to the federal government’s determination to root out and defund political activities among national charities – especially those that have been critical of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s social agenda or, more accurately, lack of one.

You may understand “doublethink” as the “act of ordinary people simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts.” That Wikipedia definition is as almost good as any. The only one better was unwittingly expressed in a Canadian Press (CP) story late last week. To wit:

“The Canada Revenue Agency has told a charity that it can no longer try to prevent poverty around the world, it can only alleviate poverty – because preventing poverty might benefit people who are already not poor.”

The CP item also characterized the spat between CRA and Oxfam Canada as a “bizarre bureaucratic brawl”, which it most certainly is.

Obviously, the best way to alleviate poverty is to prevent it from happening in the first place. The same logic applies to every other deleterious eventuality in life.

The best way of alleviating mental anguish or physical suffering is to prevent disease. The best way of alleviating the effects of bankruptcy is to prevent the accumulation of unsustainable debt. The best way of alleviating social inequality is to prevent the proliferation of sub-standard public education.

Still, prevention is oftentimes an overtly political act. Conversely, alleviation amounts in most cases to a hand out – and, generally, too little too late. That, it seems, is perfectly fine with certain office-holders in Ottawa.

It’s okay to throw a man a fish when he’s starving, but not to teach him how to secure his own catch of the day (all of which, incidentally, runs counter to Christ’s own teachings – a rather ironic twist given the overt religiosity of this government’s cherished voting base).

The doublethink in this case is, itself, a unique twist of the standard model. It does not force you to hold as equally valid two diametrically opposite conclusions; it demands that you consider two obviously joined concepts as inextricably separate.

“Relieving poverty is charitable, but preventing it is not,” the CRA finds in one of the most ludicrous. anti-humanitarian pronouncements any branch of government in this country has ever issued. “Preventing poverty could mean providing for a class of beneficiaries that are (sic) not poor.”

Huh? How exactly would that work? Please, pray tell.

Would Oxfam or any other tax-exempt charity in the poverty-reduction biz conduct an audit of millionaires who are in danger of suddenly losing their shirts, watch them shed said garments and then, and only then, swoop in with bags of basmati and powdered skim milk to “alleviate” their now straightened condition?

The whole thing is, as Oxfam Canada’s executive director told the CP, absurd. “Our mission statement still indicates we’re committed to ending poverty, but our charitable (purposes) do not use the word ‘end’ or ‘prevent’,” he said. “They use the word ‘alleviate.’”

Okay. . .New plan. Oxfam can effectively clean up the language of its mission statement to reflect the new sensitivities. But what prevents it from conducting its real business in precisely the same way as it always has?

Does the charities directorate of the Canada Revenues Agency have the budget in these artificially engineered austere times to track every “political activity” of every charity in Canada to ascertain the degrees of their compliance to Big Brother’s edicts?

Under the ridiculous circumstances, it’s best not to over-think these things.

Keep calm and carry on, good ladies and gentlemen.

Jul 27 2014
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Demographics, Economy, Politics

A tale of two debt loads

Mountain of debt...maybe we grow accustomed to its face...

Mountain of debt…maybe we grow accustomed to its face…

Implementing prudent fiscal policy is, for finance ministers, like threading a needle with a tightrope. Just ask Ottawa’s Joe Oliver or Fredericton’s Blaine Higgs who are, for very different reasons, attempting to execute that particular circus trick.

In the wake of a C.D. Howe Institute report that calls for the federal government to loosen up on its avowed purpose to balance the national budget by 2015 come what may, Mr. Oliver thunders like a Calvinist preacher: “Our government will not open the taps on reckless spending. We will not go down that well-trod and irresponsible path to economic decline.”

Still, economist William Scarth is adamant. “The federal government should delay its final stage of deficit reduction by three years,” he writes in his report for C.D. Howe. “If its deficit-to-GDP ratio is held at one-half of one percentage point for three years before reducing it to zero, it is estimated that the nation’s unemployment rate would be four-tenths of one percentage point lower during this three-year period (the equivalent of 75,000 new jobs).”

He’s not alone in this thinking.

A recent Canadian Press piece quotes several noted experts – some of whom are not partisan word warriors – who point out that the Canadian economy is not, in fact, in especially good shape. Over the past 12 months, only Alberta has created any jobs –  and even there, 72,000 new positions are not enough to boost the flagging fortunes of Ontario, Quebec or, for that matter, New Brunswick.

“Balancing the budget is a political imperative not an economic one,” NDP finance critic Nathan Cullen says. “It’s like balancing the family budget and not feeding the kids.”

Meanwhile, Liberal deputy leader Ralph Goodale writes in a recent editorial, “For months on end, (the Harper government) dismiss weak employment numbers – like the ones recently reported by Statistics Canada for the month of June – as just ‘monthly volatility’.  But it keeps recurring, month after month. One might ask, at what point does that so-called ‘volatility’ become an undeniable trend in the wrong direction. Or to put it another way, when will Mr. Harper pull his head out of the sand?”

Then, there’s David Dodge, a former Bank of Canada Governor whose Spring 2014 Economic Outlook for the law firm Bennett Jones observes: “It is. . .important to realize that in the current environment of low long-term interest rates, fiscal prudence does not require bringing the annual budget balance to zero almost immediately. Small increases in borrowing requirements to finance infrastructure investment would still lead to declines in the debt-to-GDP ratio. Moreover, with low interest rates, it is the right time for governments and the private sector to invest in infrastructure.”

Finally, the CP taps Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter for his views. Says he: “The market is not crying out for a tighter fiscal policy at the federal level. If the government wheeled out a significant medium-term infrastructure program, I don’t think I’d have a big problem with it – they can borrow very cheaply and there’s a pretty good case to be made that there’s lots of demand for infrastructure.”

Move eastward to New Brunswick and witness a whole different tale of woe. Here, Finance Minister Higgs would give his left pinky to own Mr. Oliver’s set of problems, i.e., to spend or not to spend.

According to the latest audited financial statements, the province finished fiscal 2013-14 with a deficit of $500 million (about $20 million more that anticipated) on a long-tern debt of $11.6 billion.

Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s population of 755,464 people continues to age, making a quick return to fiscal health about as likely as a late-July nor’easter.

Still, plucky Premier David Alward enthuses, “We are turning the corner and we see revenue projections on target or actually a bit ahead of target from what we are projecting.”

Of course, to do that, Telegraph-Journal reporter Chris Morris notes “additional revenues of $1.129 billion, a 14 per cent increase over 2014-2015, must be achieved.”

Not even on his very best day would Mr. Oliver walk that tightrope for Mr. Higgs.

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Jul 27 2014
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Politics

Why does Ottawa hate charity?

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I thank God Almighty that I am not a tax-exempt Canadian charity. The way I like to run my chops whilst simultaneously poking the bear that is Stephen Harper’s Conservative government virtually guarantees that the eternal vigilance of the Canada Revenue Agency would focus exclusively on me for the rest of my days.

PEN Canada’s president Philip Slayton knows what I mean. His organization represents about 1,000, mostly mouthy, writers. Their mission statement goes as follows: “PEN Canada is a nonpartisan organization of writers that works with others to defend freedom of expression as a basic human right, at home and abroad. (It) promotes literature, fights censorship, helps free persecuted writers from prison, and assists writers living in exile in Canada.”

Occasionally, the group issues news releases like this one in May:

“The Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act (Bill C-13), currently being discussed at the Standing Committee for Justice and Human Rights, would provide telecom companies with criminal and civil immunity for disclosing subscriber information to government agencies.

“According to information published following an access to information request by University of Ottawa Law professor Michael Geist, in 2011, nine of Canada’s major telecom providers and social media sites received 1.2 million data requests from government agencies. The companies complied in 784,756 cases. The total number of requests and disclosures from all telecom companies is likely higher.

“‘These figures give an idea of the government’s unsettling predilection for surveillance,’ said PEN Canada National Affairs Committee Chair William Kowalski. ‘If information has been volunteered this readily, then privacy would vanish if these practices became law.’”

So, perhaps, would any expectation of freedom of expression, which is kind of ironic, given PEN’s current straights. Earlier this week, two tax auditors arrived on the Toronto-based organization’s doorstep, demanding to be shown what The Canadian Press describes as “a wide range of internal documents.”

This was not exactly unexpected. Back in 2012, the Harper government announced that it was cracking down on so-called charities that pursue political “activities”, particularly those that it suspected of breaking the ten per cent rule – the proportion of time an organization can spend advocating outside the boundaries of is mandate and mission without compromising its charitable status.

Since then, The Canadian Press has uncovered more than 50 “political-activities” audits underway against a wide variety of groups, including Amnesty International Canada, The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Canada Without Poverty, and the David Suzuki Foundation.

The common thread is fairly plain. All are progressive, liberal, politically aware and archly critical of the current office-holders in Ottawa.

CRA officials, of course, deny any connection to operatives in government. This is, they say, just business as usual. “The process for identifying which charities will be audited, for any reason, is handled by the charities directorate itself and is not subject to political direction.” Cathy Hawara informed the Canadian Bar Association this spring, according to CP.

Maybe, but it does seem oddly coincidental. As for Mr. Slayton, he’s cooperating with the authorities, but he’s none too happy about it. “I refuse to let it have a chilling effect on us,” he to CP. “We are not going to have some kind of fear – about having our charitable status questioned by authorities – stop us speaking out on issues.”

Indeed, he said, “If it means you have to live in fear of the revenue authorities, and if it means that there are things you want to say, you feel you should say, but you feel you cannot because of the rules, well then, what price charitable registration?”

It’s a good question. And it’s worth pondering, awhile, how the federal government sets its priorities. Real fraudsters, con men and criminals ship their ill-gotten booty to tax havens all over the world. Somehow, though, politically active charities deserve the tax man’s vigilant eye.

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Jul 24 2014
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Democracy, Politics

Canadians say ‘ho hum’ to federal priorities

 

Sleeping giants, like the electorate, wake up...don't they?

Sleeping giants, like the electorate, wake up…don’t they?

Certain enclaves of the federal government have long suspected that Canadians are far less enamoured of their cherished policies than they have otherwise propagandized. 

Their buoyant rhetoric about the nation’s proud military tradition, bolstered by tens of millions of dollars for war memorials and stagy commemorations, have struck many citizens as crass testimonials to a certain prime minister’s preoccupation with battlefield derring do. 

Meanwhile, thousands of veterans needlessly do without – victims of red tape, official neglect and outright disinterest among corps of bureaucrats whose members have never, and likely never will, lace up an army boot.

Equally, Canadians are, in increasing numbers, dissatisfied with Ottawa’s leadership (or lack, thereof) on education – both pre-school and K through 12. Public school is properly the purview of the provinces, but a sense of national purpose is sorely lacking – a fact manifested in the hodgepodge of early education, primary and secondary programs across the country.

And then there’s health care, another provincial responsibility that could use some sage advice from federal policy makers and office holders. Still, Ottawa’s diffidence regarding long wait times for several medical procedures and widely divergent catastrophic coverage regimes virtually guarantees the nation’s mediocrity in this crucial service on the developed world stage.

In fact, in almost every way, the Government of Canada’s ‘jails and jobs’ agenda has failed to impress the general public. 

The wholesale flight of the feds away from things Canadians actually care about – the environment, hard science, and, of course, the social safety net – to things that merely bewilder them – fighting crime at a time when crime rates are at historic lows; taking credit for creating jobs while repeatedly reminding everyone that only the private sector can and should generate new employment opportunities – has conjured an atmosphere of ennui from coast to coast.

Now, some research commissioned by the federal Department of Finance confirms officialdom’s worst suspicions. 

According to a Canadian Press story this week, public opinion surveys conducted last winter, “suggest key government policies are out of step with Canadians’ priorities, including the Northern Gateway project. . .Members of focus groups. . .had ‘little enthusiasm’ for the proposed bitumen pipeline to the British Columbia coast – even those who said they support the controversial project. . .Rather the groups spontaneously raised education, health care, pensions, and veterans as their key issues.”

The operative word there is “spontaneously”. That indicates that participants weren’t prompted or even asked forthrightly about their feelings. They just blurted their concerns with a degree of unanimity that should truly worry a government that’s running second in the polls, behind the third-party Liberals, and preparing to head into a national election. 

As for western oil and gas, the report, itself – prepared by NRG Research Group – states that “detractors worry about the environmental consequences in the event of a spill, particularly as a result of a tanker accident off the B.C. coast. . .There is an appreciation that increased access to oil will be economically beneficial, but there is still a desire to do so in a more environmentally safe manner.”

A report like this is, of course, exactly why governments employ professional spin doctors. When I was one, back before the federal Grits suffered their political Waterloo at the hands of Stephen Harper’s bayonetted storm troopers, I might have prepared a statement that read something like this: “Naturally, Canadians care about the environment. So does this government. To suggest otherwise shamefully underestimates the intelligence of the electorate, which, need it be said, gave this government the mandate it now takes with great seriousness.”

See how that works? Wait for it; we’ve still got it in store.

In the meantime, however, we might do well to ruminate on what it means to live in a democracy where the government of the day – Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Green, Republican, Democratic, Rhinoceronian – brooks no criticism, takes no advice, considers no alternatives to its various hobby horses, and prosecutes its “mandate” with a perpetual scowl on its face. 

We might legitimately question whether this political machinery constitutes a democracy at all.

Then again, if we have decided that our rage against the machine will keep us home on voting day, we already have our answer.

 

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Jul 23 2014
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Economy, Environment

Economy and environment are not mutually exclusive

 

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For many, if not most, New Brunswick’s peripatetic Green Party Leader David Coon whistles past the graveyard of the province’s economy when he insists that we, in this struggling part of Canada, must strive to break our addiction to fossil fuels.

It’s no good, he says – a rum thing that can only bring us and our our planet more misery. In one of his blog posts in early June, he wrote, “The Green Party will create new jobs in a new economy, powered by. . .green buildings, renewable energy, local food, information technology, smart grid, electric vehicles, local business, public transit, health education, and sustainable farming and forestry; this is the Green Party’s vision of our future, not the old pollution-based economy the other parties are trying to resuscitate.”

Last week, he reiterated his message while campaigning in the province in what is certainly another doomed stab at political relevance, come September’s general election. 

But is he as defiantly deluded as his detractors claim?

Traditionalists – a group that includes most of us – contend that economic development simply can’t proceed in any meaningful way without the heavy use of oil and gas. After all, that’s how we built our job-generating, tax-producing industries under the long shadows of our various industrial revolutions. 

How else would we have invented plastic bottles, plasma TVs, rayon? Without the cheap, accessible energy afforded by fossil fuels the world would be devoid of super-conducting metals, which give us the integrated circuits that power our smart phones. 

By God, how would we cope?

The corollary argument, of course, is that true environmental stewardship is anathema to economic development, both practically and on principle. It requires a degree of tree-hugging and hair-shirt-wearing that stifles innovation and turns entire segments of the populace into Whole Earth Catalogue readers.

If these mantras hold true, then one would guess that the richest, most successful economies the world necessarily post the worst track records on the environment.

Well, dear reader, guess again.

The ninth most-affluent nation on Earth is Switzerland. It also happens to be the greenest country on the planet. Luxembourg is the second-wealthiest nation, and the also the second-most environmentally circumspect.

According to recent economic research aggregated by the popular website, top10thebest.com, “Switzerland, a rich nation in the European continent, is among the most prosperous countries in the world. It boasts (a) diverse and stable economy, and it has managed to maintain its excellent record in terms of. . .GDP. What makes Switzerland one of the wealthiest countries is its extensive sources of income, such as agriculture, tourism and banking. It is also known as the leading exporter and maker of the finest watches, and well-off individuals consider the country as a financial haven to increase their money.”

Meanwhile, swissworld.org reports, “At the end of 2009 the (country’s) Federal Council decided to continue with the SwissEnergy Action Plan until 2020. SwissEnergy is the main national platform for economical and intelligent energy use and the use of renewable energy. Energy-saving measures are implemented by SwissEnergy in partnership with the cantons, municipalities, business and environmental organisations.”

As for Luxembourg, top10thebest.com says that nation “is among the most prosperous countries (and) also recognized as a tax heaven. In fact, several billionaires from other parts of the world choose to live in this nation to free themselves of expensive taxes in their native countries. . .The sources of income (in) Luxembourg include telecommunications and steel.”

And yet, referencing a 2010 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report, a Wikipedia entry states, “Despite its growing GDP and population, Luxembourg has made progress in decoupling environmental pressures from economic growth and has developed a National Plan for Sustainable Development. The annual vehicle tax is now calculated as a function of CO2 emissions. A National Plan for Energy Efficiency has been introduced, together with economic incentives targeted at the construction industry. A national body has been created to provide information and advice on energy savings and renewable energy.”

All of which suggests that Mr. Coon is on to something. We who think him deluded may, in fact, be the deranged ones.

 

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