On legacies

Obviously last night's Nova Scotia election results represent a huge disappointment for the NDP. But they also offer some reason to discuss the brand being developed at both the provincial and federal levels.

The working assumption for both the federal party and most of the provincial parties close to forming government has been that the only way to win over voters is to appear steady, staid and safe rather than pushing strongly for many policy priorities. And that theory seemed especially likely to work for Darrell Dexter given Nova Scotia's precedent of offering every previous government at least a second term.

But now that Dexter alone has been toppled - in contrast to far more controversial provincial counterparts elsewhere over the past couple of years - it's worth asking whether more activist government might prove valuable on two fronts.

First, for electoral purposes there has to be some value to keeping a party base engaged and a set of values in the public eye. And while "base vs swing" is one of the perpetual debates for political strategists of all stripes, it's hard to see the Nova Scotia experience as evidence that balancing budgets immediately and promising social progress later is a winning combination.

And second, there's the question of what a government will leave behind after its stay in office is done.

It may be that the forces which put Stephen McNeil in power would have won out in any event. But if that's so, then it's worth comparing Dexter's stay in office to the much-discussed single B.C. term of Dave Barrett.

Barrett of course was criticized for galvanizing his opposition by passing too much legislation too soon - a stark contrast to Dexter's focus on balancing the budget and laying the groundwork for larger plans to be implemented in some future term.

But Barrett's signature achievements continue to play significant roles in the lives of B.C. citizens four decades later - while much of what Dexter accomplished in his single term figures to be gutted (or at best rebranded) in the next four years. And if a premier is going to have only one term in which to build a legacy, he or she surely figures to want to do something worth celebrating and remembering in that time.

All of which is to say that NDP leaders across the country would do well to remind themselves that what matters most is how a government's actions influence the lives of citizens - not how little a government does to draw attention to itself. And if there's real doubt as to how a worthy policy choice will play out politically, it's better to err on the side of positive action.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The National Post offers an excerpt from Susan Delacourt's Shopping for Votes discussing the role branding played in the election of John Diefenbaker. And Jeffrey Simpson discusses the continued drift toward consumer politics.
- But in commenting on the Nova Scotia provincial election, Ralph Surette reminds us what's lost when voting decisions are made based solely on snap impressions rather than any effort to determine who's capable of managing a government:

There have been several televised debates. To anyone watching them from the point of view of substance rather than mere performance, Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil has lost them all and Premier Darrell Dexter has won them all — but the Liberal numbers kept rising.

Dexter’s desperate narrative is, alas, the only coherent one in this whole thing. He’s pointing to progress in some domains and admitting to mistakes (itself a novelty in politics) in others that he’s promising to address in a second mandate, especially now that the budget is tentatively balanced.

The Liberals were surprised a little over a year ago by a poll putting them in the game and have been madly stitching up policy since. They’ve hit onto some superficial hot buttons — health, power rates, corporate incentives — but when questioned about the implications, McNeil reverts to his set rhetoric, avoids the question, and in fact sounds like a tired old incumbent back on his heels.
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Under the circumstances, a Liberal government is unlikely to cheer anyone, including Liberal voters themselves. Nothing has been properly thought out, and unless McNeil backs off from some of his simplicities, Nova Scotia politics is heading back into the old stewpot from whence it came. But backing off — or breaking promises — in the face of the most cynical voters in the country (in my estimation) would hardly keep the peace.

I desperately hope I’m wrong about this, but after watching Nova Scotia politics for close to 45 years, some of the old queasy feeling is back.

- Meanwhile, Charles Pierce writes that the Republicans have taken politics based on pure branding to its logical conclusion by completely detaching themselves from any sense that the political system should be used to help actual people. And Lana Payne wonders what happened to the common good in political discussions.

- Finally, Kapil Khatter points out how medical decisions can be influenced and manipulated by big pharma - both in fabricating "needs" to be met by whatever drug a particularly company wants to peddle, and in using academic structures to sell a particular drug as the answer.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Barbara Yaffe discusses Thomas Mulcair's strong start in winning over B.C. voters. And Martin Regg Cohn notes that Stephen Harper is starting to face some real (and needed) pressure from Darrell Dexter and other premiers to start actually talking to the provinces, rather than retreating from shared responsibilities.

- Sure, we should pay attention when public resources are used to make sales pitches for corporate interests. But what's most noteworthy about Jason Fekete's report on the Cons' CETA PR push is the point they didn't even both to answer:

Parliamentarians have been warned by some groups that signing the free-trade agreement could cost the country's health system an extra $2.8 billion annually in pharmaceutical bills and delay access to cheaper generic drugs, due to CETA provisions on intellectual property.

The talking points provided to MPs didn't refute arguments that drug costs would rise, but the politicians were encouraged to say the government "has always sought to strike a balance between promoting innovation and job creation and ensuring that Canadians continue to have access to the affordable drugs they need."

So alongside the "economy or environment" dichotomy the Cons have worked to build, they're also of the view that "economy or health care" is also an either-or choice. And they're entirely happy to throw health care under the bus as their idea of balance.

- Meanwhile, the private prison industry looks more and more to be another destination of handouts from the Cons to the corporate sector.

- Finally, Bob Weber reports that environmentalists and landowners are having to take up the cause of monitoring oil spills for lack of any constructive or honest involvement by any level of government.

On clear choices

The fact that Nova Scotia's NDP government has managed to drag the province's budget into a substantial surplus even in the midst of difficult economic times has received some well-deserved attention over the past couple of days. But I'd think it's particularly worth noting the entirely typical response from the opposition Conservatives to the news that their province is one of the few jurisdictions in North America that's in the black:

Tory Leader Jamie Baillie said the increased surplus is a result of taxes that are too high, taking aim at the unpopular decision to hike the harmonized sales tax by two percentage points last July.

That's right: even as their federal cousins show exactly how deep a hole one can dig by slashing taxes to the point where a government's budgets don't quite balance even at the best of times, the opposition to Canada's newest NDP government is insisting that it should be less responsible with the province's money.

But then, it's not as if there's some particular advantage to be had in paying down the province's debt, right?

The statements also reveal the province's net debt fell to $12.8 billion on 2010-11, a decrease of $217.8 million over the previous year. That will help the province avoid about $55 million annually in debt servicing costs, the Finance Department said.

Still, that means the net debt for every man, woman and child in the province is $13,610.

In sum, Nova Scotia's Cons are fully living up to the right's habit of refusing to accept responsible management when the alternative is reckless tax slashing. And it's well worth pointing out the distinction between an NDP which offers the former, and the Cons' obsession with the latter.

Friday Afternoon Links

A few notes to close out your week...

- Gerald Caplan's column on the hidden attacks on Ontario's lone NDP government to date is well worth a read. But it's worth wondering to what extent the same phenomenon is still in effect: while it's far from a secret that other provinces have similarly faced capital strikes and other corporate tantrums over the election of NDP governments in the past, is there any indication that, say, Darrell Dexter's government in Nova Scotia is facing anything of the sort?

- Susan Delacourt points out Stephen Harper's apparent philosophy in choosing who to trust:

(H)ere's the secret to Harper -- he doesn't value people with whom he shares friendships or old associations (that's why you get former loyalists like Tom Flanagan, Gerry Nicholls on the outs with him). He values people who share his enmity and his single-minded fixation on destroying his enemies of the moment. Look at his favourite word in the Commons...and that of his most loyal lieutenant, John Baird.
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By now, nearly five years later, we in the media are used to this. The worst thing you can call someone in Harperland is a Liberal. Hence, Lawrence Martin is dismissed as a "big-L Liberal" by the PMO after his book is released. Being a liberal, small-l or big-L, is something for which people, in Conservative Ottawa, should be deeply ashamed. There's an element of hysteria to all this too -- witness the slightly off-the-rails, anti-Liberal rhetoric of Lawrence Cannon and Jim Flaherty in recent speeches to non-political audiences.

A few months ago, I saw a quote that keeps rattling around my head. It's from philosopher Eric Hoffer, a man himself who apparently celebrated his standing as an anti-intellectual, anti-elite outcast. Here's the quote:

"You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you."

That is enormously useful information in the hyper-partisan capital right now. The more that the word "Liberal" is used as a swear word, the more I wonder where that fear is coming from.

Of course, it's worth building on Delacourt's analysis and noting that the Cons are trying even more desperately to attack the concept of a coalition. And the Libs would be smart to note just what it is that scares Harper most.

- The coverup is always worse than the crime. But both look to be signs of some painfully bad judgment and partisan focus in the public service.

- Finally, the NDP's effort to fix the long-gun registry is getting at least some media attention. But I'm not sure the NDP is best off adopting its strategy of focusing mostly on the Libs and Bloc for support: isn't much of the appeal of making the registry less onerous the prospect of forcing the Cons onto the defensive in arguing against improvements?

Well said

Ralph Surette points out one of the less obvious changes coming from Nova Scotia's NDP government that figures to serve the province well - not to mention offering an example which other governments should be eager to emulate:

That the civil service is getting along better with the NDP than with previous governments was one of the first things I heard about the new administration after the election last summer. Civil servants, I was told, were thrilled that the new ministers "read the documents we give them."

I hesitated in astonishment when I first heard this, since it implied that former cabinet ministers did not read their briefing material. Was it that bad? This would no doubt be an unfair judgment on some former Conservative and Liberal ministers who struggled earnestly amid our troubled politics; but in a broader sense, it does reflect on the many more for whom politics was the only criterion of decision, and facts and expertise could go hang.

I was told about this again recently by a public servant who seemed almost giddy with delight over it. An enthusiastic Nova Scotia civil servant! It reminded me of the last time I talked to one. That was in 1970.
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To be both motivated and effective, a civil service has to be doing useful work that’s advancing clear policies, or delivering services in which the public has confidence. If you’re a public servant, there’s nothing more useless and demoralizing than writing reports nobody reads, or working to serve as political cover for a manipulating minister — then being accused by the public of doing nothing.

If the NDP is succeeding in engaging the public service to a greater degree, then its prospects of tightening it up by 10 per cent as planned are good. For public servants at the middle and upper levels, an enhanced sense of purpose is a fair exchange for what may or may not be a greater workload, although at the clerk level that will be trickier.

Thus, to sum up, the ship is in better shape and the morale of its crew higher than before.

A brief response

So the main response to the a Nova Scotia NDP budget which necessarily changes the provincial financial picture from the one Rodney MacDonald claimed to the one Darrell Dexter actually found seems to be "if you were really against the HST, you wouldn't run to govern a province where we imposed it!!!1!eleven!"

Needless to say, I don't see the spin as deserving of much rebuttal. But suffice it to say that there's a huge difference between making an unnecessary choice to change a provincial tax structure to relieve corporations of the obligation to pay consumption taxes while increasing the burden on citizens, and making needed changes to increase revenue in the near term when the machinery to enforce a broader sales tax has been trashed over a decade ago. And indeed that's in part exactly why provincial governments shouldn't be secretive and dishonest about the consequences of eliminating that capacity in the first place.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

The reviews are in

Ralph Surette on what Nova Scotia is now enjoying under Darrell Dexter's new NDP government:

This week's byelection results are another signal of how deeply things have changed in Nova Scotia. Not only is the NDP still gaining, but this run — totally opposite to our political customs — would have been nearly unthinkable a short while ago. Let’s repeat the election night question: What’s going on?
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Simply, that very rare commodity in these parts — public confidence in government — has gone up. Higher, I’d guess, than at any time in the last 40 years. And this, remarkably, even as the government settles in during troubled economic times and passes a budget with a huge deficit — the very thing that has been political poison for 20 years.

It’s early, of course. In my long experience, it takes a year and a half to two years to make any firm judgments about how a new government is doing, and there are plenty of obstacles ahead that could unhorse this one. But the twist here is that this is not just a new government, but a presumed complete overhaul of political tradition. The political cobwebs have been cleaned out, the place has a new paint job and the public, by all appearances, likes it.

So who's up for some change from the same old story on the federal level as well?

Deep thought

Wouldn't it be nice to have a provincial government who pushed the province to discuss how to meet ambitious renewable energy targets, rather than how to get out of its previous environmental promises?

On limited benefits

Aside from the Libs' illusory gains from their latest capitulation, they've also put forward one other claim to having influenced the Harper government. But the Libs may want to be careful what they take credit for:

Obviously, we’ll have to move from the 360 hour position to find consensus. And the Conservatives have already made a major move. In his presser today, Harper acknowledged the patchwork of differing regional standards has to go. That’s a significant concession from his past position of staunchly defending the system that has been achieved already by this Liberal initiated cooperative process.

Remember that until Ignatieff started looking for excuses to avoid standing up to the Cons, he and the Libs had joined forces with the NDP and the Bloc in pushing for a Canada-wide standard of 360 hours for EI eligibility. Which made for a strong strategic position, as it substantially improved the availability of support in some areas without weakening it anywhere.

Now, the Libs have apparently detached from that position in an effort to take credit for a national standard of some kind, wherever it ends up being set. But with the Cons having spent most of the spring thundering that a 360-hour standard would cause the fall of civilization, it seems highly unlikely that any final standard will anywhere near the 360-hour level. And the current minimum of 420 hours is close enough to that level that the Cons wouldn't seem likely to stomach it as a national standard either.

To the extent anybody has speculated about the likely outcome, 500 hours seems to be about the minimum the Cons would be willing to accept. And they might try to push the number even higher (560 as the current midpoint?), secure in the knowledge that the Libs are the ones who need to reach an agreement to try to make themselves appear relevant. After all, their fallback position of claiming Lib intransigence and continuing to shove their own policy down Ignatieff's throat seems to have worked just fine so far.

But let's be generous and assume that the Cons would agree to a 500-hour national standard. That would lower the threshold in most regions of the country. But for a large number of Canadian workers, it would actually make EI less accessible. In the highest-unemployment areas of the country. In the middle of a recession.

So who would stand to lose out? Here's the list of the current EI hour requirements - which includes more than a few regions which wouldn't figure to be happy to see standards relaxed in Calgary at their expense.

Take the region of Newfoundland and Labrador (St. John's excluded), currently at a 420-hour standard. Does anybody think Danny Williams would be inclined to give a free pass to federal action which reduced EI availability?

All three territories are also at 420 hours. Likewise Windsor, Northern Ontario, Eastern Nova Scotia and Restigouche-Albert in New Brunswick. Prince Edward Island and North Western Quebec are at 455. Do they figure to be happy with less accessible EI?

In fact, at least one region in every province except Alberta is currently below 500 hours as its EI standard. But even there, Northern Alberta is less than a percentage-point rise in unemployment away - along with a substantial part of Ontario and B.C.'s southern interior. And if the economy takes another relatively small turn for the worse causing an extra 1.5-2 points of unemployment, the likes of Toronto and Montreal would similarly be worse off under a national standard.

As a result, the Libs' change in position from "improved coverage everywhere" to "the same coverage everywhere even if it's worse" seems likely to lead to significantly less accessibility for a substantial number of areas. But fortunately, there is some good news in the longer term if that's the result.

It was just this week that Darrell Dexter and the first NDP government in Atlantic Canada were sworn in. And while Dexter's handling of the Nova Scotia NDP certainly deserves plenty of credit for the breakthrough, the first step for the party was...public outrage at the Libs' callousness on EI, which propelled the NDP into official opposition status a decade ago while also allowing the federal party to establish an unprecedented Atlantic beachhead.

In sum, the Libs' continued pattern of painting themselves into ever more precarious corners looks likely to lead to a worse EI system in the short term. But it also presents a golden opportunity for the NDP to use an already-developed template to extend its national reach - raising the question of how long it'll take before the Libs are nostalgic for the strategic genius of Ignatieff's predecessor.

A well-deserved win

Congratulations both to Darrell Dexter's Nova Scotia NDP for their majority election win, and to Nova Scotia's voters for making it happen. And if anybody was waiting to see just how festive the NDP's federal convention would likely be this summer, there shouldn't be much doubt now that the party will have ample reason to celebrate.