#prgrs15 Wrapup

As readers may have noticed in my earlier posts, I had the opportunity to attend the Broadbent Institute's Progress Summit 2015. And as a whole, the summit was well worth attending, featuring a wide range of interesting speakers and topics, a strong turnout including plenty of people whose work is influencing my own blogging, and a well-designed schedule which packed plenty into just a few days. (On that front, the contrast to a convention which needs to fit in formal party business was striking - though there's still something to be said for being able to have direct and official input into elections and policy resolutions.)

That said, there were a couple of related points which I'd think might be worth considering for future events if they weren't already taken into account.

One of the weekend's headline events was the Great Budget Debate which more than lived up to its billing. But it was nonetheless jarring to see a progressive institution hand over half of its central talk on the economy to a laissez-faire position which is grossly overrepresented in nearly every other forum. And while it was a plus to see the right have to deal with a skeptical crowd for a change, I'd wonder whether there was an opportunity to debate economics from different progressive perspectives - e.g. discussing the relative merits of universality vs. targeted programs or balancing budgets in nominal terms vs. keeping debt to a set proportion of GDP from within the progressive movement itself.

And those types of discussions as to the relative merits of views which could be seen as progressive were relatively sparse in the panels as well, which (at least from my impression) were more diverse in voices than in positions.

Now, it could be that the event's planners were looking primarily to build progressive unity, making it useful to present a few obvious foils while otherwise focusing on points of agreement rather than dispute. But if there's anything I'd change for future summits, it would be some added effort to start conversations which may encourage more debate within the progressive movement as to the best means to pursue even as they serve to highlight the shared end of a stronger and more equal society.

On value assessments

The Great Budget Debate at the Progress Summit of course reflected a thorough clash in values. But there was one note of obvious agreement which makes the conservative position untenable once its implications are drawn out.

All four speakers spent plenty of time talking about the fact that some investments are worthwhile, and acknowledging that the role of government includes assessing which ones justify the use of public money. But Monte Solberg in particular neatly demonstrated how anti-government bias undermines any attempt to carry out that task.

Solberg spent plenty of time on the Cons' usual jurisdictional dodges, arguing at various points that the federal government should step aside in favour of provinces, individuals and businesses as alternate decision-makers. But the claim that the federal government should carry a strong bias toward that course of action is flawed in two key ways.

There are plenty of areas where the federal government does in fact have direct jurisdiction: as long as one recognizes e.g. the importance of First Nations health and education (being some of the areas with the most obvious potential for investment to make a massive difference in outcomes) which have been grossly underfunded due solely to the choice of the federal government. And there's also the reality that economies of scale and collective planning can produce better outcomes than atomized and unfocused spending which provinces and municipalities are happy to facilitate.

That said, it's absolutely necessary to evaluate program effectiveness. But Solberg and Philip Cross both went far out of their way emphasizing their disdain for the civil service which needs to be able to carry out the cost/benefit analysis required to direct spending where it can best serve public purposes.

In sum, one can't plausibly claim to acknowledge the value of focused and efficient spending while rejecting the process needed to provide exactly that on specious ideological and jurisdictional grounds. And the right's failure to reconcile those principles - both in the Progress Summit debate and elsewhere - offers a compelling reason not to consider it credible when it comes to economic planning.

On structures of convenience

The Progress Summit panel on accountability and transparency has covered the issued of power being consolidated in the hands of the executive, as well as the fact that Stephen Harper's actions in that respect only reflect a wider pattern. But it's worth reminding ourselves how that trend is best explained - and considering how to reverse or modify it.

To start with, the desire to avoid accountability has led to additional trends beyond the transfer of power upward. In addition, projects - and particularly the aspects thereof which might give rise to controversy - are increasingly handled by the private sector which isn't subject to access-to-information legislation rather than the civil service which is. And while that's partly driven by ideology, it's also a matter of convenience for governments which think that knowledge about how decisions are actually made runs contrary to their political goals.

The existence of accountability mechanisms for one process thus tends to be treated as reason to use another one. And the answer to that reality may be to extend the reach of our watchdogs: by eliminating that asymmetry in making both executive operations and private decision-making affecting public expenditures subject to access to information and other oversight mechanisms, we can eliminate the incentive to channel power toward them for artificial reasons.

In addition, it's come to be assumed that the process of review by legislators is too ponderous for many decisions, resulting in legislation being developed more as a framework for executive decisions rather than the outcome of a deliberative process as to what choices should be made.

That trend can be reversed by lawmakers themselves to the extent they're willing to buck the trend and pass more substantive legislation. Or alternatively, greater transparency and consultation in executive decision-making - which itself could be required by law - could go a long way toward ensuring that decisions aren't made solely by the executive and its preferred set of special interests.

Identifying the adversary

Not surprisingly, Charles Taylor's keynote address and discussion on political inclusion has neatly highlighted both the importance of finding commonalities at the personal level, and the dangers of government fomenting prejudice toward minority groups. But I'd think it's worth drawing a distinction between the problems being addressed at the personal and the political levels.

At the personal level, it's true prejudice which is best addressed through relationships and shared experience. And we should expect a concerted effort to connect to minority communities to put an end to the underlying fear of the other which politicians may seek to use to their own ends in trying to build a voting coalition through the demonization of others.

But the choice to pursue that path - with the Cons' attempt to conflate Islam in general with an inchoate threat to Canadians serving as a particularly jarring example - arises out of something more cynical and dangerous than individual prejudice based in ignorance or unfamiliarity, and which deserves to be called out as such when carried out as a deliberate strategy.

The best label for it may be something along the lines of exclusionism: the inclination and/or deliberate choice to exacerbate prejudice for the purpose of diminishing the public participation of minority groups. And it should be a relatively easy matter to build consensus around the need to fight along those principled lines, even if each particular case also involves the challenge of countering some level of personal prejudice.

On common ground

The Progress Summit's panel on First Nations has included plenty of discussion of the need to identify commonalities between First Nation issues and other groups within Canada. And I'd add that there are plenty more opportunities to draw further connections.

The recognition that the federal government tried to eradicate aboriginal culture (and celebration of that fact that it failed) can surely be linked to the latest attempts to intrude on individual beliefs and practices. And the development gap between First Nations and Canada at large is largely paralleled by a similar divide between other rural or isolated communities which are treated as lacking economic value, and current profit centres.

With that in mind, I'd think it's worth examining the arguments which can be made to address those issues together. And a couple of related ones can be put forward.

First, Canada (in contrast to the U.S.) is relatively lacking in a meaningful "pro-Constitution" movement. And it's not hard to see how one could be developed which would encompass both treaty and constitutional recognition of First Nations, and the protection of minority rights which are threatened by cynical political intrusions.

In turn, that movement would be all the stronger if we seek recognition and enforcement of greater social and economic rights - which would provide a basis to mandate even reluctant governments to give effect to those rights.

On enduring foundations

The framing panel at the Progress Summit included plenty of ideas as to how the left can shape political debates. But I'll note that it seemed to miss a couple of related issues.

Most notably, there was an almost exclusive focus on reaching out to swing voters rather than framing issues in a way that would actually serve to build the progressive movement in the longer term. But that of course utterly misses the point that one can't afford to completely ignore base-building in the name of appealing to the currently-undecided - as even if one's goals focused solely on the latter, it's impossible to assemble the revenue and volunteer resources necessary to get do so without actually inspiring a reliable group of core supporters.

In addition, the framing issue was approached mostly from the perspective of parties and elections rather than broader movements - a particularly surprising oversight given the context of think-tank event.

On both counts, Paul Saurette stood out in offering insights into how the right has both developed extra-partisan mechanisms to spread the values which can be drawn on at election time, as well as the importance of appealing to emotions which can motivate voters across the spectrum. But there's still plenty of room to expand on the discussion as to how to build frames which stand the test of time - and particularly in a panel which pointed out how terms like "welfare" were turned into negatives by a concerted right-wing effort, that surely has to be a primary consideration in developing a progressive movement.

A seat at the table

Richard Trumka's address and the subsequent response panel at the Progress Summit have aptly addressed issues in trying to strengthen the grassroots of the labour movement. But Trumka's focus on trade agreements also raises a related question which may not easily be dealt with at the grassroots level.

As I alluded to in this week's column, governments are increasingly presuming that big businesses need to be at the table in all kinds of policy development which is even ancillary to the economy.

It may not be easy to tell our corporate overlords that they can't have direct access to decision-makers. But it might be easier to make the case that workers need to play a similar role. So with that in mind, is it viable to make a serious push to ensure that trade agreements and other economic policies are developed only with meaningful labour input and approval?

Dollar for dollar

Thomas Mulcair's Progress Summit commitment that an NDP government will redirect the value of a stock option tax loophole toward families in need will surely make for one of the most important moments of a summit directed at developing exactly those types of ideas.

So it's unquestionably important that Mulcair is willing to take Canada in the direction of redirecting corporate giveaways toward people with a genuine need. That said, it's worth taking a look at the numbers as to how far today's announcement will go.

Canadians for Tax Fairness estimates the stock option loophole at a cost of $1 billion per year. But at least some responses - albeit ones which I'd take with a grain of salt - are questioning whether the net revenue would be less due to offsetting changes in corporate taxes.

And the nominal cost of eliminating child poverty (ignoring for the moment the larger benefits of doing so) is substantially higher than even the raw number: see e.g. the National Council of Welfare's estimates showing the sticker price of ending poverty as a whole at over $12 billion.

What's more, it's not clear that the money raised by closing the tax loophole would go solely to the gap between current sub-poverty incomes and getting families to the poverty line. That's fine in policy terms, as need and inequality don't end immediately at the poverty line - but it means we should be cautious in presuming that every dollar raised will address the immediate goal which provided the context for Mulcair's promise.

Of course, we can also expect positive consequences from the reduction of both inequality and poverty. So it's not hard to see today's announcement as a major first step toward both questioning corporate giveaways, and meeting the goal of ending child poverty. But it likely doesn't represent the end of the story either.