Category Archives: Politics

May 12 2014
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Democracy, Politics

Quizzing the nation’s happy, ignorant citizens

 

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Canada may only rate a “gentleman’s C” for the democratic timber of her governance. In fact, when it comes to fair, just and responsible representation, the Great White North may be slipping up in all sorts of ways. But do we care?

Over the past few years, the tone of discourse on Parliament Hill has fractured into dozens of discordant shards, each cutting away at the comforting conceit that this country is not only a paragon of egalitarian virtue – it’s a courteous one at that.

From bitterly partisan attacks on former Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page  – who had the gall to do his job well – to salvos lobbed earlier this month at Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin – who deigned to question the prime minister on a matter of procedure – evidence of the federal government’s disdain for any authority other than its own is mounting. 

And yet, we tell ourselves: Don’t worry, be happy.

Not long ago, the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards – an independent think tank whose projects are financed by a variety of public and private sources – concluded that “Canadians are happy and getting happier.” 

Based on the results of a survey it conducted in 2012, it noted that “more than nine out of 10 Canadians aged 12 and over (92.3 per cent) reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their lives.”

In fact, the Center reported, “According to a Gallup World Poll taken in February 2012, Canada is the second happiest country in the world preceded only by Denmark. Our ranking has increased from fifth place (2007-8 Gallup World Poll), indicating that Canada is becoming happier relative to its international peers.”

The regional variations were also striking. The traditionally poorer provinces – where consistently good governance tends to be diamond-rare – were happier than the wealthier ones. “Based on the 2003-2011 period average, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest average levels of life satisfaction, while British Columbia, Ontario and Nunavut had the lowest,” the Centre observed. “Between 2003 and 2011, life satisfaction increased by a statistically significant amount in Quebec and the Yukon.”

Clearly, it’s not the calibre of our politics that keeps us up at night. 

Last week, the Centre released another report – this one on “sustainable governance indicators” for Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation. In it, the authors Andrew Sharpe, Anke Kessler and Martin Thunert conclude that “A strong case can be made that the quality of governance provided by the government of Canada deteriorated somewhat from May 2011 to May 2013. While the government has constructed high-quality governance structures and implemented effective policies in many areas over many decades, the actions of the Conservative government since winning a majority of the seats in the House of Commons in May 2011 have jeopardized this situation.”

Indeed, say the authors, “There are numerous examples in which Canada’s government has demonstrated a lack of commitment both to the use of evidence in its decision-making and to the provision of high-quality data.”

There is, for example, the elimination of the once-mandatory long form census, without which economists, educators, actuaries, scientists and my Aunt Mabel are in the dark about practically everything that’s necessary to maintaining a high standard of living.

There’s also the Tory fascination with putting bad guys in jail and throwing away the key, even though what statistics we still collect clearly show that incidents of violent crime in Canada are on a 40-year downslope.

Then, of course, there’s the environment to which our official attitudes have cooled even as the Earth has grown demonstrably warmer. 

“The government’s skeptical attitude toward global warming and apparent unwillingness to offer an effective strategy for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as manifested by its repeal of the Kyoto Accord, are seen by many as inconsistent with sustainable governance,” notes the Center’s report.

Still, why don’t more of us care? We should. 

Sustainable democratic governance is the wellspring of everything we take for granted and on which we, nevertheless, depend. 

We may have a right to pursue that which makes us happy, but not to the extent of deluding ourselves about the condition of the public institutions that make the pursuit possible.

 

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May 09 2014
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Economy, Government, Politics

Setting the fiscal stage for a political melodrama

 

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It is organizationally awkward, bureaucratically regressive and probably unworkable. 

But say this for the drafters of New Brunswick’s newest law designed to reign in public spending: When it comes to crafting high, political theatre, they hold a candle to no one; certainly, no other Canadian legislator of similarly hawkish mien.

With one merry swoop in deference to the provincial election, coming soon to a voting station near you, Finance Minister Blaine Higgs has tabled the Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Act, which he says will render New Brunswick “one of the most accountable provinces in Canada.” 

It will do this, apparently, by requiring government to reduce the deficit by at least $125 million – or, as the case may be, preserve a budgetary surplus – in any given year. The consequences of failure would, for the first time, directly hit each cabinet minister where he or she lives: in the pocketbook, and in the form of a $2,500 penalty.

The Act, its proponents claim, will also restore common sense to the administration of the province’s finances – which currently labour under a $500-million deficit and a long-term debt of almost $12 billion – by compelling political parties to put a dollar figure beside each of their election promises at the risk of losing their annual operating allowances.

In his official statement in the Assembly, Mr. Higgs struck a triumphant tone.  “New Brunswick will be the only province with this level of transparency required for election promises,” he said. “Elected representatives must be accountable for taxpayers’ dollars, not only when making commitments to voters, but also when making decisions at the cabinet table. Just as New Brunswickers must face personal consequences for not keeping up with household bills, Mr. Speaker, so must elected representatives see personal consequences for not keeping up with our province’s bills. That. . .is true accountability.”

Perhaps; still, it’s odd that the only way this government seems able to deliver “true accountability” to taxpayers is by functioning as if it were its own trustee in bankruptcy

In effect, these new schedules of penalties for non-performance and injunctions against empty promises all but concede that government is a wastrel. It’s a deadbeat dad whose awful track record with the family’s nest egg has landed the whole clan in the chicken coop. It can’t be counted upon to do the right thing on its own. 

Clearly, then, the solution should be obvious: The Tory government will regulate itself, just like before; only. . .well, better.

Astonishingly, the province’s other main parties seem all too willing to oblige Mr. Alward and company in legitimizing this fiction.

Liberal finance critic Roger Melanson made a good show of his faux opposition on Wednesday when he intoned, “To have the minister of finance present this piece of legislation and make a statement like this, it’s quite ironic in the fact that if you look at the specific results from this government and this minister of finance for the last three-and-a-half years, he has missed his financial targets over and over and over.”

A New York minute later he had this to say: “It (the Act) makes sense and I think taxpayers, New Brunswickers, are expecting any political party or any government to be accountable, to be transparent and to be financially responsible.”

But how valid is that commitment when it’s delivered under threat of self-imposed reprisals in the event that the government falls off the spending wagon once again?

Moreover, what are the new costs associated with administering a law that must involve third parties to mete out its complex brand of justice? Are there mitigating circumstances that might waive the various fines and levies? If so, when and how do they kick in?

According to the legislation, cabinet ministers are off the hook if certain “extraordinary events” such as recessions, natural calamities and other so-called acts of God cost the budget $20 million or more. Again, though, who decides what fits the definitions, and what are the mechanisms? 

One element does seem clear, much to the expected chagrin of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. In a nicely sneaky and utilitarian way, the new legislation essentially guts the archly populist (and retrograde) Taxpayer Protection Act. 

Now, a government that faces a $400-million annual deficit in New Brunswick no longer needs to hold a referendum to obtain the public’s expressed permission to raise new taxes or hike the HST.

Here, then, witness one piece of political theatre stooping to conquer another in high style, indeed.

 

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May 02 2014
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Economy, Energy, Oil and Gas, Politics

Lessons for New Brunswick from The Lone Star State

 

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In Texas, to quote a phrase, they do things big.

Big sky, big country, big portions, big ambitions all frame the tableau that is The Lone Star State.  So does “big energy”, but not always in a fashion that seems familiar to New Brunswickers embroiled in their own existential debate about natural resources development.

Yes, Texas is synonymous with the oil industry and is home to the famous (or, depending on one’s perspective, infamous) Barnett field, which in one recent year produced 1.11 trillion cubic feet of shale gas. But it is also home to the largest and most successful wind energy industry in the United States.

According to a Wikipedia entry, “wind power in Texas consists of many. . .farms with a total installed nameplate capacity of 12,212 MW from over 40 different projects.” In fact the state “produces the most wind power of any” in the U.S. 

Just as impressive, perhaps, is the speed at which the energy resource has developed there. In a scant 13 years, the state’s annual hours of wind generation by megawatts has skyrocketed from 492,000 to 36 million. How?

Again, the Wiki item is instructive: “The wind boom in Texas was assisted by expansion of the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, use of designated Competitive Renewable Energy Zones, expedited transmission construction, and the necessary Public Utility Commission rule-making. Wind power accounted for 8.3 per cent of the electricity generated in (the state) during 2013.”

So, the take-away from all of this is that a happy, productive collaboration between business and government has literally invented a clean, renewable and commercially viable alternative to fossil fuels for electricity generation where none existed at the dawn of the 21st century.

Now, not coincidentally, power rates from wind are among the lowest of any energy source in the state (only those from shale gas are cheaper). 

Even better, the billions of dollars the private sector has invested in the industry to become competitive and profitable has spurred economic development in rural areas, where thousands of people are gainfully employed. This has, in turn, attracted innovators and entrepreneurs chasing the main chances implicit in improving existing energy storage (battery) and smart-grid technologies. 

All of which raises a question: What does Texas know that New Brunswick doesn’t?

For years, we in The Purple Violet Province have known that we are home to enviably strong and steady coastal breezes. Back in 2007, a “wind energy map” of our environs conclusively proved that, with foresight and commitment, the resource was rich enough to support 5,000 megawatts of installed capacity. Currently, we have 500, which isn’t bad; but it’s still far below our potential. 

Last week, Liberal Leader Brian Gallant renewed his party’s commitment to installing a moratorium on further shale gas development in the province should he and his crew be lucky enough to form the next government in September. Citing public opprobrium and lingering doubts among various health experts, he wants more studies. Fair enough.

But a moratorium only delays the inevitable day of reckoning. It won’t convince those who adamantly oppose shale gas on principled (concern for planetary climate change) or practical (concern for local air, soil and water quality) grounds. 

It certainly won’t mollify the petroleum industry. It may buy Mr. Gallant a bit more time. Still, at what cost?

The clock is ticking in New Brunswick, where we have become absolute masters at telling private and public-sector authorities to pound sand whenever they have, on rare occasions, mustered the temerity to suggest that true economic development means taking chances. But if we are not prepared to risk what we cherish on shale gas, then what? What will we risk to build a better future for ourselves and our children?

The “aesthetes” of this province display an exasperating tendency to despise fossil fuel and wind power in equal measure. The former, they say, is smelly; the latter is ugly. These people revile change. They wonder why things can’t just go along they way they always have. This has produced, in government, a pathetic, if typical, response: ossification. Do nothing. Maybe, it will all work itself out, after all.

It won’t.

Texas knows this. Say what you like about that red-necked, killer-executing home of George “Wacko” Bush. 

At least, they do things big there.

 

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Apr 30 2014
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Economy, Government, Politics

Pulling New Brunswick back from the brink

 

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Conspicuous by its almost complete absence from the agonizing ruminations over New Brunswick’s perilous fiscal situation has been any suggestion of a real solution. 

No one in government, it seems, has wanted to poke the 800-pound gorilla that is the electorate for fear of getting squashed en route to the ballot box.

That is, of course, a politician’s prerogative: to hand-ring with the best of them, pledge to swallow the bitter pills and persevere for the sake of all our children, only to turn around and waste millions of dollars on doomed schemes in the name of economic development, if not calculated self-aggrandizement.  

Economists and academics are at somewhat greater liberty to tell it like it is without concern for public reprisals.

Indeed, Donald Savoie, the Canada Research Chair in public administration and governance at the Universite de Moncton has made the province’s $12-billion debt, $500-million deficit and public-spending crisis key features of his public commentary, almost delighting (if that is the word) in jabbing voters for their refusal (or unwillingness) to reconcile their expectations of government programs with the reality of their province’s circumstances.   

Now, his colleague, Richard Saillant, the Director General of the Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy and Public Administration at UdeM, has produced a tight book of 150 pages, or so, provocatively entitled, Over the Cliff? Acting Now to Avoid New Brunswick’s Bankruptcy.

Dr. Savoie is right when he enthuses in the preface that the author, who is also a former federal public servant, “has done New Brunswickers a great service.” In fact, what his dissertation contains is precisely that which has been missing since the discussion began: a solution, or, at least a credible stab at one with enough detail to both warrant and fuel serious debate. 

Be warned, however; Mr. Saillant’s fixes are far from easy, and he pulls no punches in describing them or the conditions that make them necessary.

“For several decades, New Brunswick’s economy has surfed on a rising tide of labour force growth, fueled by the baby boom generation and the steady, largely successful march of women towards equal participation in the workforce,” he writes. “The tide is now receding, dragging down the economy with it. A new Age of Diminished Expectations is upon us.”

Most sobering, perhaps, is his message about public priorities. While he congratulates the Alward government’s success, since 2010, in holding program spending growth to less than one per cent, he insists that the austerity can’t last “while maintaining today’s levels of public services, particularly in the health care sector.”

Indeed, “if the government does not raise taxes further and if it maintains the same public spending patterns as it did on average over the past quarter century,” by 2035-36 New Brunswick can expect to run an annual deficit of $5.5 billion on a long-term debt of $62.3 billion and a whopping debt-to-GDP ratio of 172 per cent. Not that things would likely get that far: “Credit-rating agencies would most likely pull the plug long before this happens.”

As for the solution, Mr. Saillant’s cold-eyed approach involves cutting down “baseline program spending growth every year by at least one-third of the previous year’s deficit from 2014-15 to 2029-30. Starting in 2030-31, this proportion is reduced to one-sixth.”

At the same time, he writes, “The government increases taxes and other revenues above their baseline growth by at least one-third of the previous year’s deficit from 2014-15 to 2029-30.” Again, “starting in 2030-31, this proportion is reduced to one-sixth.”

In the end, this strategy would effectively stabilize the province’s accounts. The annual deficit would fluctuate between $100-500 million. The net debt would peak in 2035-36 at about $17 billion.” 

It’s not, perhaps, the most favorable scenario (we weren’t smart enough, early enough in our collective unravelling to now expect a better result), but it’s the best we can do given our current demographic and economic challenges. And, realistically, even this approach is fraught with all the usual political perils.

But, as Mr. Saillant correctly observes, we voters “need to stop rewarding politicians who make lofty promises without explaining where the money will come from.”

 

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Apr 29 2014
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Democracy, Politics

Canada’s feuding, fuming democracy 

 

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That there is no love lost between Canada’s top jurists and its prime minister became brilliantly obvious last week when the Supreme Court of Canada squashed the federal Tories’ fondly held Senate reform ambitions.

Less obvious was whether the executive and judicial branches of government in this country will ever find common ground on any issue of substance that’s dear to a true, blue Harperite heart. 

Senate reform was the fifth, straight juridical mauling of the Conservatives in recent months, and, like all the others, the outcome was hardly surprising. In its ruling, the court was unequivocal about the limits of legislative meddling.    

“The framers sought to endow the Senate with independence from the electoral process to which members of the House of Commons were subject, to remove Senators from a partisan political arena that required unremitting consideration of short-term political objectives,” it declared (as quoted by the Globe and Mail). “The provinces must have a say in constitutional changes that engage their interests.”

To the federal government’s contention that the nation badly needs a more accountable, more transparent Senate whose newly elected members must serve short sprints – rather than lifelong marathons – in office, the Supremes responded that “the purpose of the (government) bills is clear: to bring about a Senate with a popular mandate. . .Legal analysis of the constitutional nature and effects of proposed legislation cannot be premised on the assumption that the legislation will fail to bring about the changes it seeks to achieve.”

As for the populist notion of abolition (enthusiastically endorsed by the NDP and others), it would  “fundamentally alter our constitutional architecture – by removing the bicameral form of government that gives shape to the Constitution Act, 1867. (Abolition) requires the unanimous consent of the Senate, the House of Commons, and the legislative assemblies of all Canadian provinces.”

With that, Prime Minister Stephen Harper bid farewell, once and for all, to a cherished plank of his policy platform. “We know that there is no consensus among the provinces on reform, no consensus on abolition, and no desire of anyone to reopen the Constitution and have a bunch of constitutional negotiations,” he said following the court’s announcement. “I think it’s a decision that the vast majority of Canadians will be very disappointed with, but obviously we will respect that decision.” 

In fact, despite their rhetoric and table pounding, the Tories never really formulated a clear idea about how to reform the Senate without dismantling the constitutional protections of a sizable number of Canadians. Every notion it floated was predicated on the faulty and profoundly self-important assumption that worthwhile changes to the institution did not require much, if any, consultation with the provinces.

The arrogance of that central conceit – that under Stephen Harper, the executive can conduct itself as it sees fit without recourse to any other branch of government – evidently rubbed the court the wrong way, as it has in four other cases since late March. 

When Peter MacKay, minister of justice, barred first-time, non-violent federal convict from obtaining early parole, the court ruled unanimously on March 20 to reverse the decision. 

One day later, the Globe reports, “Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Justice Marc Nadon to the court, to fill a Quebec vacancy. The question was whether, as a judge on the Federal Court of Appeal, he was eligible to represent Quebec. (The Supreme Court ruled 6-1) that he was ineligible because he did not have the special qualifications required for Quebec judges on the Supreme Court.”

Meanwhile, as the Globe chronicles, “Under the Truth in Sentencing Act, the government tried to stop judges from routinely giving extra credit to offenders for the time they serve in custody before sentencing. (The court ruled) 7-0 that judges have discretion under the act to routinely give 1.5 days credit for every day served.”

Finally, “A prisoner wanted to challenge his transfer to a maximum-security jail from a medium-security one. The federal government said he had to go through a slow process that involved the Federal Court. (The court ruled) 8-0 that prisoners’ ancient right to habeas corpus gives them prompt access to superior courts in whatever province they are in.”

Of course, amity between branches of government is not a prerequisite for maintaining a hale and hardy democracy (just the opposite, one could argue). 

If that’s true, then Canada’s successful union is the very picture of health.

 

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Apr 28 2014
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Democracy, Politics

Can Elections Canada walk and chew gum?

 

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Conservative Senator Linda Frum’s dislike of collegial discourse is almost as sharp as her contempt for logical debate, which, given the lamentable quality of political talent these days, perfectly qualifies her to sit in this country’s Red Chamber.   

Installed in 2009 by Stephen Harper to, presumably, bolster the PMO’s determination to transform all parliamentarians into caterers of official government policy or, in the alternative, portray the hold-outs as renegades against the group-think her party expects of everyone in its orbit, Senator Frum has revealed her colours in recent comments before the nation.

Speaking to Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand during a Senate hearing on the “Fair Elections Act” (Bill C-23) 11 days ago, she effused: “Your concerns about section 18 removing your ability in future get-out-the-vote initiatives. Do you not see why there is a conflict of interest between you as a chief electoral administrator being in charge of the administrations of free and fair elections and also you being invested in get-out-the-vote initiatives so that you have then a vested interest in seeing the numbers increase? And that that balance. . .You don’t see the conflict there?”

Ms. Frum later defended her bizarre assertion (that Elections Canada’s CEO ought not be permitted to simultaneously walk and chew gum, electorally speaking, lest his enthusiasm for greater voter turnout somehow corrupts our representative democracy) in the Twitterverse. 

“Elections Canada should not have a vested interest in recording a high voter turnout. That’s a conflict,” she tweeted on April 9, to which political consultant Bruce Anderson remarked, “Don’t we all have a vested interest in a high voter turnout?”

Ms. Frum: “Absolutely we do. Who is suggesting otherwise?”

Mr. Anderson: “You did Senator: ‘Elections Canada should not have a vested interest in recording a high voter turnout.’” 

Ms. Frum: “Sigh. If u don’t agree – fine. But stop pretending u don’t know what I’m saying. It’s not EC’s role to motivate ppl to vote.”

Mr. Anderson: “Not pretending. . .with respect, I truly don’t know why a high turnout is a conflict 4 EC. But agree to disagree.”

Mr. Anderson was not the only witness to this carefully staged play who was left bothered and bemused by Ms. Frum’s political performance. Still, she refused to relent. In a guest editorial for the Globe and Mail, some days later, she noted that “Elections Canada is a bureaucracy with two missions: to ensure the integrity of the voting process and also to promote voter turnout,” before declaring that the two missions are fundamentally at odds with one another.

“You want the biggest vote total? Accept every ballot. You want to eliminate voter fraud? Eliminating improper ballots may reduce vote totals. In attempting to achieve a balance between these two different missions, the evidence suggests that Elections Canada has favoured its turnout goals over preserving the integrity of the process.”

What utter rot. Nothing prevents Elections Canada from both promoting the general vote and safeguarding the system. It’s not an either-or proposition. It’s a double-barreled responsibility that, when executed properly, enhances, rather than diminishes, the democratic process.

As one letter writer to the Globe astutely pointed out, “competing interests are not the same as a conflict of interest. Both are goods to be pursued to reach the goal of democratic elections.” 

Commented another: “Senator Frum’s argument does not demonstrate that there is an essential conflict of interest – rather that Elections Canada’s efforts to do both need to be administered more effectively. Conservatives cannot justify removing certain populations’ power to vote just because there are potential ways to be fraudulent.”

Rejoined yet another reader: “This is like saying judges should not be involved in preliminary hearings because they have a vested interest in the outcome. To be kind, the only thing Senator Frum’s argument supports is a bigger bureaucracy, not something one expects to hear from the ‘Government is the problem’ people.”

In fact, the contempt Ms. Frum displays is of the same species that routinely lumbers down Parliament Hill’s hallways en route to its familiar perches in the committee chambers and hearing rooms of Government – hers is a visceral contempt of the electors, themselves.

 

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Apr 16 2014
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Politics

All the pretty ironies in Canada’s ‘Unfair’ Elections Act

 

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But for Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre’s spiteful determination to ram his partisan conception of electoral freedom down his country’s throat, it’s getting hard to fathom what keeps his Bill C-23 – also known, with exquisitely unintended irony, as the Fair Elections Act – from perishing under the weight of public opprobrium.

Almost no one who has reviewed this monstrous abuse of voting rights and procedure in Canada has anything good to say about the unamended iteration awaiting passage. Not Marc Mayrand, the country’s chief electoral officer. Not Yves Côté, the commissioner of elections. Not Sheila Fraser, former auditor-general. Not a slew of jurists, educators and legislators from across Canada and all over the world.  

A month ago, Mr. Mayrand told the Ottawa Citizen he believed Minister Poilievre simply ignored his recommendation to enhance the elections commissioner’s investigative powers. “What worries me, I must say, is whether (he) will get the tool box he needs to do his job and I’m afraid that I don’t see it in the act that is currently written,” he said. “The commissioner doesn’t get the authority to compel witnesses.” 

Then, as recently as last week, Commissioner Côté told the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs that the Bill’s measure to transfer the auspices of his duties from the Chief Electoral Officer to Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is “both unnecessary and problematic. . .Placing the Commissioner within the Office of the DPP is an attempt to respond to a problem that. . .does not exist.”

Throughout, the archest criticism has concerned the Bill’s perspective on what constitutes an authentic Canadian voter. (Specifically, it’s one who carries a photo ID. Period. A voter registration card will no longer be enough. Neither will a sufficiently identified fellow voter vouching for his buddy in the ballot queue).

“The prohibition against vouching is ostensibly to reduce voter fraud yet there is no evidence. . .that vouching results in voter fraud,” a letter signed and sent in March  by 19 international scholars and political scientists declared. “These changes to the voter eligibility rules will disproportionately impact seniors, students, the economically disadvantaged, and First Nations citizens, leading to an estimated disenfranchisement of over 120,000 citizens.”

In fact, the number is now thought to be closer to 500,000. Still, neither this nor any other criticism, no matter how reasonable, has managed to move Mr. Poilievre from the hard line in the sand he has drawn. He has viciously attacked those who have opposed him, most recently hurling mud at Mr. Mayrand, stipulating that the latter’s “recommendations really boil down to three broad requirements for him. He wants more power, a bigger budget and less accountability.”

One can only wait in wonder for Mr. Poilievre’s response to his latest setback. This one’s a doozy, as Josh Wingrove reports this week for the Globe and Mail: “In a rare exercise of power, a Senate committee (on Legal and Constitutional Affairs) is pushing back against Stephen Harper’s Conservative government by unanimously recommending changes to the Fair Elections Act, an overhaul of electoral law that is fiercely opposed by other parties. The. . .report, which will be made public this week, amounts to a warning shot from the embattled Senate.”

It sure does. According to Mr. Wingrove’s research, the Upper Chamber, two-thirds of which is composed of Conservative members, wants to ensure that the Chief Electoral Officer and Commissioner of Elections have more, not less authority, to prosecute their roles and responsibilities. It’s also skeptical about the utility in separating the two. Altogether, the Senate makes nine recommendations, the essence of which slaps Mr. Poilievre’s hands, depending on which version of spin one is inclined to swallow.

“I think it’s a recognition by all senators that there is something seriously wrong with this bill, according to every single witness that has appeared before both committees in the House of Commons and the Senate,” Liberal Senator George Baker told the Globe. “It’s really an expression of the impartiality of members of the Senate.”

On the other hand, said Conservative Senator Linda Frum, “Minister Poilievre has repeatedly expressed a sincere interest in any recommendations the Senate may have to improve the bill.”

Whether he has or he hasn’t, democracy’s self-appointed attack dog might finally face opponents he can’t readily ignore. That many are members of his own party merely transforms the many ironies about Bill C-23 from exquisite to downright delicious.

 

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Apr 11 2014
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Economy, Government, Politics

No need to gild the finance minister’s good record

 

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They came not to bury Caesar, but to praise him. Boy, did they ever. 

Former federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s passing on Thursday – at 64, reportedly from a heart attack – dominated the front page of the Globe and Mail’s Friday edition. In fact, “dominated” might not be the right word; utterly blanketed would be a more accurate description. 

Apart from an ad announcing Toyota’s “red tag” days, nothing else appeared Page-One-worthy for “Canada’s National Newspaper”. 

Our “guiding force” was gone; the man who “shaped the Conservative Party, the nation and the world’s response to the Great Recession” was no more, tragically cut down in the late-middle-age of his life. It took eight reporters and editorialists to say so.

Political Affairs Correspondent John Ibbitson’s walk down memory lane was almost affecting: “In politics, you do what you gotta do. . .At the end he (Flaherty) was pretty happy with his record. . .But then, he was a pretty happy guy. Back when we were  both at Queen’s Park, he’d drop by the press lounge every now and then late on a Friday afternoon to mooch a beer and find out what the boys and girls were saying. He always greeted you with that impish grin, trolling for gossip, though he seldom offered up any of his own.”

At the back of the paper’s front section, the lead editorial continued the eulogy: “Goodbye to the little giant. . .Mr. Flaherty was a giant in the Harper cabinet, and not just because he ran the department whose control of the purse strings makes it, to some extent, the ministry of everything. He was one of the few Harper ministers who acted with considerable independent authority.”

Indeed, it’s difficult, even impossible, to recall another Canadian public official of Flaherty’s metier accorded such a fulsome tribute as this. Pierre Trudeau, Tommy Douglas, Jack Layton, perhaps; still, they were all leaders of national parties and political movements. They weren’t finance ministers.

But, of course, therein lies the answer. 

One of the great foundational assumptions of the post-recession era – especially by the Ontario-centric national press gallery – is that Mr. Flaherty’s foresight and steady hand prevented the country’s Toronto-based financial institutions from circling the drain along with all the others in the wild, wild west during the financial collapse of ’08. For many media mavens, that “fact”, alone, makes the former finance minister’s track record a far more compelling story to tell than even the prime minister’s.   

Another key supposition of the modern age is that Mr. Flaherty’s fiscal stimulus program (Economic Action Plan) – all tallied, about $150 billion – was singularly responsible for preventing the economy from crashing and burning, given the private lending community’s terror of bad debt during the recession. Again, this “fact” has served the frequent press portrayals of the “little giant’s” rock-star status both at home and abroad.

There’s truth in both claims: Mr. Flaherty was a competent steward of the economy in tough times; had he been an inflexible ideologue with a fetish for balancing the nation’s accounts in a zero-growth environment, the road to recovery would have been much rockier than it was. 

But the real secret behind Canada’s relatively robust financial performance during the era of diminishing expectations – at least compared with those of the United Sates, and much of continental Europe – was, and is, its responsible and well-regulated banking system and monetary traditions. 

Mr. Flaherty deserves plaudits for not messing with these (the way former U.S. President Bill Clinton disastrously did with his nation’s laws when he repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that had, for 66 years, successfully separated commercial from investment banking). But he doesn’t deserve credit for engineering a recovery with a system he merely inherited. 

Neither does he warrant much praise for using the Economic Action Plan creatively and to truly productive effect by making strategic investments in crucial infrastructure, higher education and training, advanced technology commercialization, and work-based poverty reduction programs. To have done so would have invited internecine warfare in his own party. 

Mr. Flaherty should be remembered in public circles as a bright, decent, effective, and tough cabinet minister. He was also that rarest of birds in the Harper government: he could both tell and take a joke. 

But he was not Caesar, and he never sought that company. 

Perhaps, that’s one reason he left Parliament a month ago: Too many little emperors running about, taking credit where credit is, most certainly, not due.

 

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Apr 10 2014
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Politics

Facing down the music on democratic reform

 

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As the choir of experts sings ever more harmoniously about the perils of the federal government’s Fair Elections Act, its ardent champion continues to counter with his patented – and, by now, painfully familiar – version of white noise.

Simply and evidently, insists Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre, critics of Bill C-23 are misguided, ill-informed, disingenuous, or politically motivated – maybe a toxic mixture of all ingredients. 

There’s nothing wrong with the bill, he says. In fact, there’s everything right with legislation that improves the accountability, transparency and impartiality of the election process, and prevents voter fraud from drowning the system. Those who say otherwise are doing themselves and their fellow Canadians a grievous disservice.

To every other Canadian than Mr. Poilievre, however, those who say otherwise are not so easily dismissed. 

There’s Marc Mayrand, Canada’s chief electoral officer, and Yves Cote, commissioner of Canada Elections. There’s former Auditor-General Sheila Fraser and notable Elections Canada analyst Harry Neufeld. There’s even Preston Manning, former leader of the old Reform Party. 

Armed with impressive credentials, each trills the same melody: Any piece of legislation that curtails a citizen’s right to cast a ballot (in C-23’s case, by disallowing registration cards and voters “vouching” for one another as means of identification) is purely and self-evidently wrong.

What’s more, they argue, the measure to transfer the commissioner of elections into the Office of Public Prosecutions is, at best, unnecessary. At worst, it could obstruct the collaborative relationship between the chief electoral officer (who is responsible for overseeing the vote) and the commissioner (who is responsible for enforcing the Elections Act) –  a development that would not be, in Mr. Cote’s estimation, a step in the right direction.

Indeed, says Paul Thomas, an emeritus professor at the University of Manitoba and a well-known political scholar says, “This should not happen in Canada.” In an interview with The Huffington Post Canada last month, he noted, “(We have) one of the strongest reputations in the world for staging fair and free elections under the supervision of Elections Canada, the oldest independent and impartial national election body among established democracies.”

Earlier this month, Ms. Fraser appeared to concur, telling the Canadian Press that she had serious misgivings about the bill as it now stands. Not only would it deprive thousands of people their right to vote, she insisted, it would tip the playing field in favour of the government’s party, and hinder due process, generally. 

“Elections are the base of our democracy and if we do not have truly a fair electoral process and one that can be managed well by a truly independent body, it really is an attack on our democracy and we should all be concerned about that,” Ms. Fraser said.

“When you look at the people who may not be able to vote, when you look at the limitations that are being put on the chief electoral officer, when you see the difficulties, just the operational difficulties that are going to be created in all this, I think it’s going to be very difficult to have a fair, a truly fair, election.”

Yet, for all these principled objections – not one at variance with any other, not one even obliquely self-serving or politically motivated  – Mr. Poilievre refuses to acknowledge that his bill’s critics might have a legitimate point or two to make.

Instead, he chooses to make partisan hay, launching bitter, personal attacks, especially against Mr. Maynard, about whom, he said in the Commons on Tuesday, “The reality is that regardless of amendments and improvements that the bill potentially will have included, the CEO (Mr. Mayrand) will not ultimately approve it. (His) recommendations really boil down to three broad requirements for him: he wants more power, a bigger budget, and less accountability.”

When called to apologize for such a clear display of intemperance, Mr. Poilievre replied calmly, “I stand by my testimony” – a posture that is all the more lamentable.

For many who spend their days and nights pondering the weighty subject of democratic reform in Canada, C-23 is an eminently flawed document. 

Their concurrence on this matter should give the nation’s duly elected government reason to, at least, pause and consider – not crank up the volume of their noise makers in Parliament.

 

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Apr 03 2014
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Climate, Politics, Science

Heading for the hot seat of global warming

 

Beyond the headland, off to meet the horizon

It’s been four years since the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted the end of the world. In that interval, the doom-saying industry has grown to meet the rising demands of the self-flagellating, environmentally righteous among us. Still, no one does moral masochism better than the IPCC.

In a fat, new report, released Monday, the Nobel prize-winning body effectively declared that unless world leaders start taking global warming seriously, the rest of us can stick our heads between our legs and kiss our derrieres goodbye. In fact, we may already be too late.

“In recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans,” the report says. “Glaciers continue to shrink almost worldwide. . .Climate change is causing permafrost warming and thawing in high-latitude and high-elevation regions. . .Climate change has negatively affected wheat and maize yields for many regions 

What’s more, “while only a few recent species extinctions have been attributed as yet to climate change, natural global climate change at rates slower than current anthropogenic climate change caused significant ecosystem shifts and species extinctions during the past millions of years.”

Said IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri on Monday: “Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change.”

Added report co-author Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University in Bangladesh: “Things are worse than we had predicted (in the first report issued in 2007). . .We are going to see more and more impacts, faster and sooner than we had anticipated.”

Indeed, observed Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer, another of the report’s authors, in an interview with The Associated Press, “We’re all sitting ducks.”

Perhaps a better metaphor is: ostriches with our heads in the sand. It certainly seemed that way during Question Period this week when Canada’s Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq staunchly defended her government’s record. “Since 2006 we have invested more than $10 billion in green infrastructure, energy efficiency, adaption, clean technology, and cleaner fuels,” she said.

It’s also true, however, that since 2006, the federal government has consistently failed to meet its greenhouse gas reduction objectives. (In fact, it hasn’t even come close). Today, Ottawa couldn’t care less about the environmental impact of new oil sands projects, just as long as it gets enough pipe built to transport the black gold to all points on the map 

“Government has not met key commitments, deadlines and obligations to protect Canada’s wildlife and natural spaces,” Neil Maxwell, interim commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, declared last November.

“(There is a) wide and persistent gap between what the government commits to do and what it is achieving. . .the approval processes currently under way for large oil and gas pipelines in North America have shown that widespread acceptance of resource development depends, in part, on due consideration for protecting nature,” he said, adding,“Our trading partners see Canada as a steward of globally significant resources. Canada’s success as a trading nation depends on continued leadership in meeting international expectations for environmental protection.”

That, in fact, may be wishful thinking. If Stephen Harper evinces any concern for what his trading partners expect of him on the environmental front, it was’t readily evident last week. 

Speaking to a business crowd in Germany, he was asked for his opinion about that country’s decision to wean itself from fossil fuels and nuclear energy, in favour of renewables, such as wind and solar. Thusly replied our estimable prime minister, off-handedly, if not exactly derisively: “So this is a brave new world you’re attempting? We wish you well with it.”

Actually, he doesn’t. Over the past eight years, this country’s political establishment and accompanying officialdom have slipped backwards in all fields that require evidence and critical thinking to penetrate. Today, it seems, the only thing our leadership class respects more than oil and gas is its own high opinion of itself.  

Clearly, environmental doom-saying annoys those who are vested in regressive policies that contribute to our planet’s woes, but the science of global warming is irrefutable.

And the IPCC’s moral masochism is nothing compared with the real McCoy if we don’t start changing our minds before the climate changes them for us.

 

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