Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne discusses the divergence between an upper class with soaring incomes, and the bulk of the population facing stagnation and precarity:

(W)hile the nation’s wealth or GDP looks good, less of it is getting shared around and more and more of it is hoarded at the top end.

Governments are collecting less from the rich and corporations, limiting their ability to share wealth and invest and build things that benefit everyone.

At the same time, household debt levels are at their highest, sitting at 168% last year.

Many Canadians are feeling less secure in their employment, experiencing deteriorating job quality, with almost two-thirds earning less than the average wage. Indeed the share of Canadians earning less than the average wage has continued to climb over the past two decades.

This is directly linked to a rising share of low-wage jobs, according to the CIBC Capital Markets’ job quality report issued in late 2016. So while the job market on the surface looks good, wages are lagging.

Late last fall, Ekos pollster Frank Graves did a deep dive on this widespread feeling of economic insecurity.

Fewer Canadians, he found, identify with being in the “middle class” and more and more Canadians are feeling pessimistic about their futures.

A multitude of tax cuts has not helped assuage the economic angst.
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The 2018 World Inequality Report says progressive taxation is crucial to stop rising inequality.

The fact is there is plenty of money in the economy. It’s how that money is not getting shared.

- Michal Rozworski rightly critiques the media's response to minimum wage increases, both in reproducing anti-worker propaganda and in spinning economic analyses to ignore the positive effects of increased wages. David Moscrop offers a reminder of the importance of looking at the effect of policy on people's lives - and particularly workers benefiting from high wages. The Hamilton Spectator weighs in on the obvious benefits of a more fair minimum wage. And CBC has followed up on the treatment of workers at Tim Hortons as a prime example of how unscrupulous employers are trying to twist positive public policy changes into an excuse to further exploit workers.

- Graham Riches writes that John Horgan (and others in power) should be working on ending reliance on food banks, not merely promoting them. And Luke Savage discusses how Toronto's cold snap and resulting discussion of homelessness have laid bare its blithe acceptance of avoidable poverty and insecurity.

- Finally, Brent Patterson argues that the federal Libs need to stop stalling on legislation to reverse the Cons' voter suppression tactics. And Ian Boekhoff reports on the possibility that Prince Edward Island might break new ground in Canadian electoral reform.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Robert Reich suggests that government should respond to corporations who engage in anti-social activity such as moving their earnings offshore by making sure they can't simultaneously take advantage of laws torqued in their favour. And Daniel Tencer reports on the $12.5 billion bonus pool being doled out by Canada's financial sector even as it cuts front-line jobs.

- Patrick Maze discusses the importance of investing in education as preventative medicine as well as a form of economic development:

If we agree that preventing an ailment is easier than curing it, and that being proactive is better than being reactive, then we should insist that our governments also apply this in policy development. At some point we need to flip our thinking, and our actions, from responding reactively to social needs and challenges, to working toward a vision of what we want for our future society. We should commit resources to support that vision appropriately, and faithfully.

Education is a key factor in the health of both individuals and communities. Many researchers have studied the causal relationships between the level of our citizens' education, and their requirements for societal supports like health care, social services and justice. They've found that as the education levels of a society increases, access to those supports all decrease.
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When we combine these savings in health care and justice, and consider that more educated populations are also less reliant on social supports, it seems like such an easy decision to prioritize education as an investment in the health of our citizens, communities and our economy. The funding trends we have now are simply unsustainable, and at some point we'll be forced to look to sustainable alternatives. Shouldn't we want our government to be proactive, rather than reactive, when we try to take that approach with our own lives?

Let's consider a collective vision for our future. Let's plan proactively to prevent problems, instead of just reacting to new ones as they arise. Let's challenge our leaders to develop policy that addresses root-causes of the issues we care about, instead of relying on expensive treatment options like justice, social services and health care. If we flip our thinking, priorities and actions, we'll recognize that investing in the education of our children is far more cost-effective and sustainable.

- Meanwhile, Lawrence Carter and Maeve McClenaghan expose how climate denialists for hire are using their academic credentials to produce reports to fit the requests of secret corporate sponsors.

- Charles Mandel talks to Stephen Lewis about the need for Canada's new climate change talk to b backed by policy.

- Finally, Adam Dodek points out that there's reason for concern that the Trudeau Libs will back away from their promises on democratic reform. And Dave Meslin makes the case for a proportional electoral system - with particular emphasis on why the ranking and runoff systems which may be appropriate in non-partisan contexts are ill-suited to federal politics.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Roderick Benns interviews Scott Santens about the effect of a basic income:

Benns: Why is the concept of a basic income guarantee so important at this point in our societal development?

Santens: We’re living in a paradox of absurdity, where we’ve created truly incredible levels of technology, growing at exponential rates, and yet we’re not using it to propel our civilization forward. Technology has from the moment the first tool was ever created, been intended to reduce human labour and enable us to do so much more than we ever would without it. And yet here we are working 47 hours a week instead of 40, and working nine hours a day at the office despite not actually working for four of them. We’re encouraging people to work in jobs they hate instead of doing work they love. We’ve increased the risks of failure, putting a counterproductive brake on innovation. We’re increasing inequality, hampering our economies. We’re reducing bargaining power by decreasing the ability to say no. And we’re replacing human workers with technologies that don’t buy anything. None of this makes any sense if our goal is for technology to work for us instead of against us. So let’s do that instead.

- Don Braid explains why it's taken an NDP government to provide Alberta's farm workers with protections they've lacked for a century. And Ben Spielberg and Jared Bernstein offer a fact check against the U.S. Republicans' hostility to a reasonable minimum wage.

- Murray Dobbin considers the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be a test of Justin Trudeau's willingness to offer meaningful change from the Harper Cons. But PressProgress points out that there's a real question as to whether the Libs are even willing to allow for the public debate they've promised. And Duncan Cameron notes that we don't seem to be getting much but conservative economic philosophy from the Libs.

- Laura Best explains why Canada should have little trouble meeting its commitments to assist Syrian refugees. And Remzi Cej discusses how he'd describe Canada to newcomers looking to escape war and poverty - offering a standard we should absolutely work to meet.

- Finally, David McGrane recaps a conference honouring the memory and work of Allan Blakeney by setting out a few of the challenges we need to meet in order to be able to claim a functioning democratic political system.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Luke Savage warns that the Libs' election win may ring hollow for Canadian progressives:

Throughout its democratic history, Canadian politics have basically oscillated between two parties that do not seriously threaten the status quo or the injustices it perpetuates. Occasionally goaded by organized populist movements, they have both been compelled, particularly during minority parliaments, to make concessions while preserving the basic contours of the political order.

Against this, a third current has always insisted that fundamental change is necessary to build a truly just society. This ethos gave us medicare — an institution built by from the ashes of war and depression on principles of universalism and social solidarity.

Neither sweeping platitudes nor bureaucratic conservatism will ever deliver social progress of this kind, eradicate poverty, or save the planet from the economic structures that degrade it every day.

From where many of us stand, what happened last night cannot be read as anything other than a setback, and a major one, for these efforts. It's time we stopped marginalizing social justice or patronizingly relegating it to the fringes.

Democracy isn't a spectator sport. Elections aren't meant to be experienced as affirmative infotainment.

Achieving social progress requires more than just a perpetual return to the traditional, professionalized politics that leaves one in seven of us in poverty, tolerates people having to sleep on the streets, and allows thousands of children to wake up hungry and badly housed every single day in one of the richest societies in the world.

We have to demand better. And plenty of us believe and hope that, one day, we will.

- David Bush and Doug Nesbitt point out just a few of the areas where Canadians will need to hold the Trudeau Libs' feet to the fire. Rick Smith offers his suggestions as to the progressive change we should expect from a new federal government, while Maude Barlow maps out the road ahead. And Scott Reid writes the the first step needs to be an immediate break from Stephen Harper's paranoia and the destructive politics that went with it.

- Laura Stymiest and Elizabeth Lee-Ford Jones discuss the need to fight poverty in order to improve individual health. And Ryan Meili and Danielle Martin highlight the need to push back against user fees and other barriers to health care access - including the ones being introduced in Quebec in recent months.

- Finally, Patricia Cohen examines what tax increases on the richest few can accomplish - particularly in light of the growth of extreme top-end incomes. The Economist comments on the continuing problem of corporate and top-end tax evasion. And the Institute for Research on Public Policy has released a few noteworthy chapters on inequality in Canada - featuring confirmation both that high incomes have more to do with specific industries than individual contributions, and that education is far from a magic bullet in equalizing either outcomes or opportunities.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Don Pittis examines the Cons' record on jobs and the economy, and reaches the inevitable conclusion that free trade bluster and corporate giveaways have done nothing to help Canadians - which makes it no wonder the Cons are hiding the terms of the deals they sign. And John Jacobs writes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership only stands to make matters worse:

Canada is exporting goods that create few domestic jobs and importing goods that create jobs elsewhere. This accounts for some of the decline in manufacturing employment over the past decade in Canada and points to long-term challenges in creating jobs and increasing wages. The exchange rate volatility associated with being a “mining and energy superpower” has also contributed to the decline in manufacturing jobs. For workers, Canada’s free trade experience is one of stagnating wages, increasing income inequality, and relatively higher levels of unemployment.

The TPP, like all modern “free trade” agreements, contains no concrete measures to directly protect or create employment. On the contrary, it ties governments’ hands in pursuing employment and industrial strategies. Jobs are simply assumed to follow automatically from tariff reduction and providing increased protection for investors. They, and not the government, should have complete freedom to decide when, where and how goods and services are produced. Recent history tells us that companies have a poor track record when it comes to translating this freedom into jobs or growth.

Ultimately, though the TPP is not about trade or increasing prosperity for most Canadians, one can understand why Canada’s corporate elite are cheerleading the deal. It entrenches their role as drivers of the Canada economy and “consitutionalizes” their rights to profitably exploit Canada’s resources. For the rest of Canadians, accepting the TPP will have long-term detrimental impacts on the prospects for full employment, economic prosperity, and the ability of Canadians to sustainably manage their economy.

- Anne Kingston highlights how the Cons' and Libs' promise of increased parental leave may only push women out of the workforce if it isn't paired with either specific second-parent leave, or a commitment to the availability of child care. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh notes that at the moment, child care is often problematic both for the parents who can't find it and the workers who are severely underpaid for the responsibility.

- Tasha Kheiriddin speculates that the Cons' continued attacks on women who wear niqabs are based more on a desire to create divisions between minorities than an expectation of exploiting general prejudice - though it's hard to see how either could be excusable as a basis for political decision-making. Tabatha Southey offers a twist on the "leader you'd like to have a beer with" test by pointing out Stephen Harper's choice to bring a bear to the bar with him. And Naomi Lakritz readies her own complaint about Stephen Harper to the Cons' barbaric cultural practices hotline.

- Mike Robinson writes about the Cons' deliberate suppression of altruism as a Canadian value, while calling for our other parties to stand for cooperation and mutual recognition. And Kady O'Malley notes that the NDP is again taking a stand for exactly that in order to ensure a new and better government.

- Finally, Carol Goar writes that the Cons are trying to fundamentally change Canadian democracy by eliminating any meaningful connection between representatives and voters. And Andrew Coyne suggests some simple steps to start repairing Canadian democracy.

On veto points

I'll follow up on this post by once again discussing another area where individuals' past comments are being treated as a basis for general exclusion. And the subject is particularly sensitive the midst of an election campaign - particularly in light of the issue where it's surfacing.

As in the case of judicial appointments, the starting point should be that past comments offer a reasonable basis for rejecting political candidates only if they meaningfully signal some general unsuitability for their anticipated future role (in this case representing constituents as a party's MP), not merely because they differ from one's preferred opinion. And in the political sphere, the assessment of candidates should take place first at the riding level through the nomination process, then through an election itself as the best means of assessing whether a candidate's views actually affect voter support.

Of course, party leaders have the ability to signal their own views about potential and actual candidates, and also have the statutory authority to exercise a veto. But the existence of that power doesn't mean it should be exercised as a matter of course.

Instead, I'd argue that leaders should do so only in the most extreme cases - a standard which doesn't apply to candidates such as Morgan Wheeldon and Jerry Natanine. And while the NDP may have concluded it's best off for now letting leaders' approval cut in all directions and playing it "safe" by jettisoning interested candidates at the first hint of potential controversy, there's a serious problem with the message that sends to its own supporters and activists.

That said, the longer-term fix should be to remove the systemic factors which both incentivize and permit the rejection of candidates on a standard of perceived inconvenience rather than genuine unsuitability. And on those fronts, the NDP is easily the best bet among the parties who have a prospect of exercising power - though there's room for it to do more.

For the moment, the promise of a system of proportional representation offers two related benefits to deal with similar problems in the future. Parties will have more of an incentive to appeal to principled candidates and voters, rather than seeing their future in votes by default in a winner-take-all system. And if one party is too quick to silence particular viewpoints, it will be far easier to develop a viable competing party willing to represent the points of view which are otherwise being limited.

That said, the leader's veto might remain a significant structural issue even under an MMP system.

Yes, a watered-down version of the Reform Act eventually managed to pass - but it leaves the decision as to who gets to approve nomination papers in the hands of the party. In contrast, the first-reading version provided for a nomination officer to deal with candidate approval at the local level.

Given that the Libs have already shown their hand on democratic reform and the Cons don't have any particular interest in it, there's an obvious opening for the NDP to promise to rein in the statutory power parties hold over the nomination process. And if Tom Mulcair recognizes that opportunity, then this may be the last election where undue top-down control over candidate selection remains a problem.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Robin Sears discusses the hubris behind the Cons' early election call, while Tim Naumetz notes that the extended campaign is just one more issue where the Cons are offside of the vast majority of the public. And the Guardian comments on the reasons for optimism that we're nearing the end of Stephen Harper's stay in power.

- The Ottawa Citizen makes the case for better economic management than we've been able to expect from the Harper Cons. And Alan Freeman weighs in on the costly frivolity of the Cons' latest tax credit scheme.

- And for commentary on this week's debate which goes beyond surface impressions, the Guardian analyzed the debate as it happened. The CCPA offered up some issues which deserved discussion, while Vice followed up on a number of the issues raised in the debate itself. And Ian MacLeod debunked Stephen Harper's preposterous claims about C-51.

- Althia Raj points out there was relatively little talk of a coalition or other forms of inter-party cooperation. But it's worth pointing out that it was the Cons who assumed it was a winning issue in the past - signalling that their lack of interest in mentioning it signals that they no longer see it as a winning issue. 

- Jane Hilderman discusses the connection between a health democracy and a healthy society:

(T)he imbalance between those who contribute to our democracy and those who the report finds are "checking out" is a stark one — in the 2011 federal election there was a 36% gap between the cohort with the highest turnout (ages 65-74) and that with the lowest (ages 18-24). Meanwhile the political process now repels more citizens than it attracts, particularly young Canadians. As a consequence our political system is becoming less representative, leading to inequalities between Canadians who participate and those who do not. The failure of many Canadians to contribute to our political life — or to see it as a way to make meaningful change — should serve as a warning sign to anyone interested in our society's well-being.

The challenge is that a majority of Canadians no longer feel politics is serving them. If a majority of Canadians no longer felt the healthcare system had their best interests in mind, its legitimacy would begin to crumble. The same goes for our politics. If the majority of Canadians are withdrawing from the political process, the health of our democracy is in peril.

- Meanwhile, Ralph Surette is right to highlight the Cons' contempt for Canada's democratic institutions. But I will note that it makes sense for the opposition parties to focus on the problems which voters experience directly to make clear that those abuses have wider implications.

- Finally, Joseph Heath comments that our political system has seen its priorities almost entirely reversed, with the substantive decisions of legislators and political parties now seen almost solely as a means to the end of electoral outcomes rather than the other way around.

On representative units

Does anybody remember which particularly prominent political pundit went far out his way to trumpet the idea that the basic unit of political legitimacy is the caucus - to the point of repeatedly advocating a legislated requirement that a caucus vote override the decisions made by the whole of a party's membership?

I ask only because he seems to have been replaced with a far more reasonable impostor.

By the majority-of-caucus standard set under Michael Chong's Reform Act (or the stronger forms suggested by Andrew Coyne among others), the decision of a majority of Wildrose Party MLAs to join up with Jim Prentice's PCs following a caucus vote should be seen as having been fully validated.

So why then is Coyne among the people rightly lambasting Danielle Smith and company for their move? Well, that has to do with the flaws in the original theory behind the Reform Act.

Elected representatives are (and should be) only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to determining the direction of any political party. And we're right to consider it illegitimate when those representatives make choices which run contrary to the underlying basis for their elected positions - even if a majority of their caucus-mates happen to agree.

What's more, an undue focus on a narrow set of representatives rather than the broader populations they represent can make it far too easy for politicians to bargain away their votes or seats, rationalizing the action on the theory that the trust reposed in a representative through the ballot box represents a mandate to use an elected position for personal gain. And that can happen just as easily on a group basis as an individual one.

Of course, the question of how to then check top-down power remains open. (Though it's worth noting that exactly one party has respected the ethical principle that a mandate to serve one party can't simply be passed to another in both law and practice.)

And it's doubtful that any legislated structure can do the job in the absence of a strong and active membership which can ensure that self-serving actions are met with an appropriate response in the next election cycle.

But at the very least, nobody should hold any illusion that handing special power to party caucuses will resolve the problem.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Michael Harris concludes that we're currently stuck in a golden age for political falsehood and deceit:

(T)here are problems with blotting out inconvenient truths with self-serving Newspeak. It’s catchier than a flu-bug in a pup tent. Quite a few pairs of pants are on fire in Ottawa these days because cabinet ministers and senators have learned from the PM that the truth is what you need it to be. It can mutate, transform, even shed its skin. The trick is to say what you need to be true at a given moment.
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Perhaps the wider truth here is that we live in an age of deception.

In the banking industry, the global price of money affecting $300 trillion worth of contracts was rigged for years by the collusion of traders and brokers. Crappy mortgages were sold as blue-ribbon investments. Giant hedge funds traded on insider information and even the drug cartels found banks eager to do their monetary laundry.

In big business, accounting firms lied for important customers, companies like SNC Lavalin paid huge bribes to unsavoury but influential characters to win contracts, suppliers sent fake parts to their military customers to boost profits — and mining companies abused workers’ rights in foreign countries in a way they would never try back home.
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Parties of all political stripes have had their share of liars and cheaters, just as they have had a goodly number of visionaries and public benefactors. But when lying and cheating morph into a model of governance where citizens not only don’t know, but can’t know what’s going on, democracy becomes what H.L. Mencken called a fancy abstraction for the collective fear and prejudice of an ignorant mob.

It is an old chestnut, this matter of the limits of raw power. Can you really say two and two is five, that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, that war is peace?

- But of course, a deliberate effort to suppress inconvenient truth makes for an essential part of allowing lies to stand unchallenged. Which brings us to the Cons' orders that Arctic research is to be permitted by DFO scientists only if the government has the ability to hide the results.

- Meanwhile, Hannah McKinnon thoroughly critiques the Cons' dishonesty when it comes to climate change.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg reminds us that Stephen Harper had a wide range of choices in dealing with the Senate, and consciously chose to set a new standard for corruption and patronage. The CP reports on the likelihood that Pamela Wallin and other Con Senators used public money to serve as campaign shills for their prime ministerial puppet-master. And Tyler Sommers is the latest to suggest that abolishing the current upper-chamber monstrosity is a necessary first step to any more democratic system.

On bad bets

It's been glaringly obvious to those of us paying attention that the Cons have set up plenty of means to keep dictating the terms of Canadian politics from beyond the political grave - with the most obvious being their continued stacking of the Senate which will put at least a formal roadblock in the way of any future government for many years to come.

As a result, any opposition party with an ounce of foresight would know better than to send the message that unelected Senators should consider themselves free to overrule elected Members of Parliament - particularly when a bill has been passed unanimously among the representatives chosen by Canadian voters.

Unfortunately, the Libs' legacy Senate appointments still seem happy to show the short-sightedness that's decimated their party as an electoral force. And if we don't see an immediate move from the Libs' few remaining elected representatives to reverse that position, the result may be to tighten the Harper Cons' grip on power even past their removal from office.

Leadership 2013 Roundup

One might have thought that the final days of municipal elections around the province would make for a relatively quiet stretch in the Saskatchewan NDP leadership campaign. But instead, it looks like most of the campaigns are neatly using greater public awareness of politics generally to build interest in the leadership race.

- In addition to calling out the Sask Party for backing the Cons' attacks on the health of immigrants, Ryan Meili offered up his answers to Scott Stelmaschuk's questionnaire - featuring this on where he sees the most room for improvement within the NDP:

What do you plan to change about Saskatchewan’s NDP? And what do you plan to keep the same?

The fundamental principles of the CCF/NDP movement don't need to change. What does need to change is the degree to which we are connected to the social movements that built the party in the first place and sustained it through its most productive periods. What needs to change is the amount of real democratic influence that members have on the party's direction, and the degree to which our actions - both in opposition and in government - reflect those principles.

 - Meanwhile, Cam Broten released his policy on democratic reform within both the legislature and the NDP. Of particular note, the latter plan focuses on permanent policy commissions whose reports could become official party policy upon membership approval - though I'm curious as to whether that will mean members' votes will be limited to accepting a commission's text as written, or whether there's some place for further discussion after a commission reports back.

- Trent Wotherspoon made his first foray into shaping the campaign's policy agenda by releasing his education plan. And while there's plenty of talk of incremental changes, Wotherspoon's broader goals include making education more accessible from early childhood to the post-secondary level.

- And Erin Weir responded to Brad Wall's latest giveaway to the corporate sector, pointing out that a substantial chunk of the foregone revenue from a cut to corporate tax rates will in fact flow directly to Washington rather than actually helping business even under the assumption that lower taxes would result in investment.

- Finally, in addition to having created the questionnaire mentioned above, Scott Stelmaschuk continues to offer loads of noteworthy commentary on the campaign - featuring his updated take on Broten, Meili, Weir and Wotherspoon respectively.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- The Cons' latest line of talking-point addiction isn't passing without some substantial comment from Canada's political press. Today, Jeffrey Simpson lambastes Stephen Harper and his party for trying to wipe out their own history and promises, while Dan Gardner considers the Cons to be a Monty Python skit in progress (minus the humour of course). And Aaron Wherry continues to document the farce. 

- Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt suggests that we should expect any government to leave out democracy in no worse condition than when it took power - and I'll readily agree with that as a general principle. But it's also worth noting that the surest way to continue in the wrong direction is to focus solely on the problems with any given government, rather than holding all parties to the standard.

- Likewise, I appreciate the purposes behind Steve's proposal for a political code of ethics (including a requirement that public statements have some basis in fact). But I'm rather wary of any policy which may give top-down parties just one more way to force MPs to stay on a predetermined script - as MPs will surely see it as safer to take their party's word for the facts than to strike out on their own.

- Christopher Majka thoroughly reviews the effect of voter suppression in the 2011 federal election.

- Finally, Peter Prebble rightly criticizes the combination of Con neglect and Sask Party coal boosterism that's locking Saskatchewan into a needless dependency on coal power.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Roy Romanow comments on Medicare as a major part of Canada's identity:

The achievement of universal health care took a long, acrimonious and protracted road. It is no surprise to me that Saskatchewan was at the forefront of this journey. The province’s citizens learned many hard lessons during the desperation of the Great Depression and the sacrifices of the Second World War. They learned about generosity, about hardship and fairness, about boom and bust. They learned about the imperative for co-operative action. They came to understand that the notion of shared destiny was key to our existence.

And so it is with other regions in Canada, where geography and demographics may vary, where many waves of immigration began with an initial sense of isolation, but where we all learned to see survival and progress as a test of our ongoing ability to come together and to remain united around shared values.
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(T)he well-being of our citizenry goes beyond health care; it is dependent on preventing illness and tackling the more fundamental barriers to good health, including social, economic and environmental factors. How we treat the environment has a direct impact on our health and the longevity of a sustainable economy. The growing gap between the rich and poor directly affects our health and the fiscal demands on our health-care system.

Every day, Canada faces new challenges that prompt key questions about what kind of people we are and what kind of future we wish to shape.

As we celebrate the birth of our nation and of medicare, we must ask ourselves: What kind of Canada do we want? Because, as I see it, the choice Canadians make about health care is fundamentally intertwined with our values and future.

- Meanwhile, the Cons are backtracking on their much-criticized cuts to refugee health care by declaring that they only want to leave some refugees high and dry. But it's still highly dubious the Cons are even more explicitly taking the power to pick and choose among new arrivals to Canada to determine who they want to have access to health care.

- Speaking of the Cons' unaccountable and opaque political decision-making, Don Lenihan theorizes that the Harper reign will be seen as the culmination of centralizing pattern started under Trudeau while pointing out why that's a problem:

The lesson here is simple: too much centralization undermines legitimacy. The more scope a government thinks it has to act unilaterally in the name of effectiveness, the less legitimacy those actions will have.

- But while we should be on the lookout for ways of making governance more open and democratic, Barbara Yaffe's musings about a no-party system don't strike me as a particularly realistic or desirable response.

- Finally, Dr. Dawg runs down some of the important stories of public dissent that were largely whitewashed in favour of all-jingoism, all-the-time Canada Day coverage.

Parliament in Review: December 9, 2011

Friday, December 9 saw the final day of debate at second reading on the Cons' seat allocation bill. And as usual, plenty of valid questions went entirely unanswered.

The Big Issue

Marc-Andre Morin rightly questioned the Cons' trumped-up sense of urgency in dealing with seat allocations while they do nothing but put off citizens' genuinely pressing concerns, while Denis Blanchette noted that any seat allocations would have to wait for updated census figures anyway. Linda Duncan worried (correctly) that the Cons would try to pair an increased number of MPs with cutbacks in resources for current elected representatives. Tarek Brahmi highlighted how the need to take into account factors beyond mere population is applied to Prince Edward Island's seat allocation, and wondered why similar principles couldn't apply to Quebec. And Peter Stoffer described the Cons' seat reallocation as lazy and hurried compared to the consultation that should be carried out as to what type of representation Canadians expect.

Pop Quiz

Guess which MP said this:

I want to point out one other unassailable fact. In Canada, we pride ourselves for being one of the most progressive democracies in the world.

You're probably wrong - and it's worth watching who's trying to take over the term "progressive" for his party's cause.

In Brief

Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet highlighted the problem of homelessness and called on the Cons to do more than keep their eyes averted. Raymond Cote pointed to the example of White Birch Paper as a case of investors getting rich off the work of employees, then refusing to hold up their end of the bargain. Robert Aubin pointed out that the Cons' promised committee to study workplace language rights seemed to have evaporated as quickly as it was made up as a distraction. Helene Laverdiere questioned the billions in tax freebies being handed to banks while so many Canadians are in need. In response to a particular ill-advised bit of spin, Ryan Cleary wondered just how routine it is for Peter MacKay to take a helicopter from one destination to another. Christine Moore offered up John McCain's take on the rising costs of F-35s, but predictably couldn't get a straight answer out of Chris Alexander. Justin Trudeau challenged the Cons with a $19 billion cost estimate for their dumb-on-crime bill. Francoise Boivin lambasted the Harper government for its disrespect for the rule of law. Jamie Nicholls questioned what rural services are on the chopping block as Jim Flaherty goes into selloff mode. David Christopherson raised doubts as to how elected senators could be "accountable" if by design they'll never face an election after taking office. Peter Stoffer proposed the creation of a ministry of state for education. And Kellie Leitch spoke to a private member's bill on breast cancer awareness, only to have Rathika Sitsabaiesan respond that awareness is only a small first step if the federal government isn't properly funding a system to deal with health issues once they're discovered.

Parliament in Review: December 6, 2011

Tuesday, December 6 saw a day devoted primarily to debating the Cons' seat redistribution bill. And the result was some interesting interplay between the three official parties in the House of Commons - if no lack of contradictions as well.

The Big Issue

In effect, the debate on C-20 saw three different positions clashing strongly throughout the day - with the lone agreement among parties being a concurrence of opinion between the NDP and the Bloc on the NDP's alternative proposal.

The NDP's take - presented first by David Christopherson - was that seat allocation should be treated as one of the most important real applications of the House of Commons' unanimous recognition of a Quebecois nation. Guy Caron criticized the Cons' total lack of consultation before imposing their preferred seat distribution on the provinces, while Pat Martin discussed his own participation in consultations on the constitution. In response to the cost argument raised repeatedly by the Libs, NDP MPs pointed out repeatedly that the cost of an unelected, unrepresentative Senate is far greater than the price of enough seats in the House of Commons to combine that principle with additional seats for growing provinces. And Bruce Hyer, Libby Davies and Jinny Sims noted that seat allocations should themselves be seen as a far less important issue than proportional representation and the ability of elected MPs to do their jobs without being stifled by a government which tolerates no dissent.

Meanwhile, the Cons and Libs limited their argument to the exact number of seats which should be divided up with substantially equal percentage allocations. Tim Uppal argued that any reductions in seats for a province would reflect "picking winners and losers" and needlessly inflaming tensions - making for a standard well worth applying to the Cons' own decisions on funding for programs and transfer payments. The Libs pointed to a quote from Stephen Harper suggesting that Canadians already have too many elected representatives, and also argued that it was percentages rather than raw numbers that really defined the relative weight of provinces. (Of course, they utterly abandoned that position in their attacks on the NDP for defining its policy in terms of proportions rather than specified seat numbers - and both Matthew Kellway and Alexandrine Latendresse rightly highlighted the contradiction.)

Finally, in what may have been the most stark difference of the day, Jamie Nicholls pointed to George Brown's one-time theory that representation by population would serve to entirely extinguish French Canadianism - only to be followed in short order by Michael Chong's proud invocation of Brown as the historical model for the Cons' bill.

Needless to say, the Cons couldn't allow that type of substantive debate among elected representatives to go on for long. And so in the name of democracy, Peter Van Loan again gave notice of his intention to shut down debate.

Do Unto Others

Pierre Poilievre lashed out at the opposition parties for denying a request for unanimous consent to split his time. Yes, that would be the same Pierre Poilievre who's served as parliamentary secretary to a Prime Minister who has publicly ordered his party never to consent to anything the opposition requests.

In Brief

Joy Smith presented a petition calling for use of the Nordic model on prostitution (which would criminalize purchasing rather than selling). Justin Trudeau had an intervention shut down due to his failure to wear a tie in the House. Nycole Turmel, Alexandre Boulerice and Nicholls all raised questions about political influence exerted by Con insiders Dmitri Soudas and Lou Housakas in the Montreal port authority. Charlie Angus, Linda Duncan and Jonathan Genest-Jourdain pointed out a complete lack of investment in tolerable living conditions in Attawapiskat and other First Nations across Canada. On the anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique massacre, Francoise Boivin questioned why the Cons were removing controls on exactly the type of weapon used in the shootings. Megan Leslie pointed out that after deferring any action on climate change by saying they'd get around to it just as soon as China, India, Brazil and South Africa went first, the Cons were still standing in the way of agreement even after all the major developing countries were on board. Jean Crowder highlighted that the Cons were keeping EI cheques out of the hands of workers who needed them by refusing to properly staff Service Canada. Francois Lapointe again noted that Quebec's asbestos mines were shut down, and wondered when the government would bother planning an economic transition for the affected region rather than clinging to a dying industry. Alex Atamanenko pointed out a gruesome and unsanitary horse slaughter video as an example of the type of issue the CFIA should be equipped to address. Mylene Freeman noted that the Cons are doing effectively nothing to help 1.6 million women living in poverty. And Raymond Cote spoke to a private member's motion on the importance of the port of Quebec.

Parliament in Review: December 2, 2011

Friday, December 2 saw the final day of debate in Parliament on the Cons' omnibus crime bill. And for at least a moment, the proceedings took a perhaps surprising turn.

The Big Issue

As debate wound down on C-10, Irene Mathyssen questioned why the Cons insisted on delaying the passage of greater sentences for child abusers in order to keep them tied to other, less explicable parts of the bill. Francoise Boivin pointed out that the Cons' campaign of fear hadn't actually managed to keep Canadians from feeling safe in their communities - meaning that the supposed need for the bill was entirely lacking. Boivin and Irwin Cotler then compared notes on the Cons' stubborn refusal to so much as listen to opposition amendments, a theme discussed as well by Guy Caron in the final speech on the bill. In a lovely example of translation, Con MP Robert Goguen was quoted calling for a "more repressive justice system". And Gordon O'Connor claimed that the Cons have no control whatsoever over what Stephen Harper's Senate toadies might do to amend the bill.

But the passage of the day came from Alain Giguere in pointing out that the Cons had also been rather selective in their omnibus legislation by focusing on low-level individuals rather than systemic problems:

(T)his omnibus bill always makes me think of the late Italian anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone. Before he died, he said that there were three kinds of policies: those that work for the Mafia, those that work against the Mafia and—the most dangerous of all—those that let the Mafia be.

There are a lot of measures in Bill C-10, but there are a lot of things missing too. It does not address the serious crime of money laundering. Where are the regulations against money laundering in this bill? Is there special punishment for people who import cocaine in containers? Will police officers be assigned to the fight against serious crime? The bill does not talk about that.

The government is increasing prison sentences for petty criminals, for people who sell drugs. We all agree that criminals must be punished. But we should start by going after organized crime, after the people who commit crimes, who bring in containers and order assassinations. I would like to know this will affect organized crime, when we know that any small-time drug dealer is easily replaced.

When all was said and done, a voice vote on the bill led Andrew Scheer to conclude...that the "nays" had it, as the opposition parties were apparently more fired up to oppose the bill than the Cons were to voice their approval. And so matters stood - at least until the inevitable recorded vote.

In Brief

Annick Papillon highlighted the positive example of transit in Quebec City, while Jose Nunez-Melo noted the urgent need for much more similar development with federal support. Jonathan Genest-Jourdain asked whether the Cons had bothered following up in the slightest on departmental visits to Attawapiskat. Caron and Philip Toone pointed out the climbing unemployment rate even as the Cons try to take credit for implementing their vision for Canada's economy. Laurin Liu mentioned a lament from one of Nelson Mandela's cabinet ministers about hardly recognizing Canada under Stephen Harper; while nothing on the record reflects Rob Anders responding with a hearty "filthy commie!", we can only assume it was said. Djaouida Sellah demanded answers as to whether CETA will indeed result in billions in giveaways to big pharma. Rodger Cuzner compared the standard 85% occupancy for a properly-managed call centre with the appalling 99% level at Service Canada (which the Cons only want to exacerbate by further slashing jobs). Manon Perrault wondered whether yet another international commitment - this time the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - would ever be followed by action. Glenn Thibeault proposed a bill to require the development of a universal charger for cell phones. And Jean Rousseau, Thibeault and Manon Perreault spoke to the NDP's seat redistribution bill at second reading

Leadership 2012 Links and Policy Roundup 3

Assorted policy and punditry from the NDP leadership campaign.

- On the policy front, it's looking like time to give Nathan Cullen full credit for being well ahead of the pack with a well-rounded and detailed set of policies. I missed his democratic reform proposal in my last policy roundup - and others have noted that Cullen goes a step beyond most of the NDP's contenders in calling for a referendum the role of the monarchy in addition to backing proportional representation and Senate abolition. Since then, Cullen has also released an Arctic policy that calls for infrastructure and resource development based on local needs rather than outside assumptions, as well as a trade policy that looks to raise global standards through trade agreements.

- Meanwhile, Niki Ashton's position on foreign investment looks like a noteworthy start in her policy development - though again I'll hope to see it fleshed out as the campaign progresses.

- UPDATE: And Peggy Nash has released a proposal of her own on foreign investment, calling for a more transparent "net benefit" test and better enforcement of investors' commitments.

- That's about it for policy news over a relatively quiet time in the campaign - but there's been plenty more to note on the candidate messaging front. Ashton has focused her public message on dealing with inequality. Cullen has called for an anyone-but-Harper movement over the next few years. Thomas Mulcair has nicely summarized his campaign theme as one of sustainable development. Peggy Nash has painted herself as a bridge-builder with a focus on the economy. And Brian Topp is rightly noting that the leadership campaign shouldn't be a boring one.

- But then, there isn't too much risk of that when pundits like Stephen Maher are having to walk back from their initial assumptions about the race to take a closer look at the field. And Bill Tieleman helps those who haven't been paying attention so far by surveying his top tier of candidates.

On top priorities

I've already linked to Postmedia's story setting out Brian Topp's first set of democratic reform priorities. But let's take a look at a couple of the proposals in a bit more detail.

To start off, I'm not sure anybody else has pointed out the significance of Topp's plan to "introduce proportionality" into Canada's electoral system through immediate legislation. In contrast, PR proposals at the provincial level have proceeded through an all-too-easily-torqued referendum process first - and even the NDP's federal platform has been limited to "propos(ing) electoral reform" in contrast to measures which would be implemented more quickly. Which means that Topp looks to be offering more than most candidates to PR supporters as part of his leadership push - though we'll have to see what he means by an element of proportionality. [Update: IP advises in comments that Topp has specifically referred to an MMP system.]

Secondly, Topp's intention to proceed simultaneously with Senate abolition has been criticized as unrealistic. And there may be reason for concern that he's packaged it in with his other Parliament Act proposals. But I'll argue that it's nonetheless an important theme for the next NDP leader to take up - regardless of how the odds of achieving abolition look by the fall of 2015.

Remember two crucial points about the Senate as matters currently stand:
1. Stephen Harper's unelected Conservative Senate appointees see themselves as fully entitled to overrule the will of Canada's elected MPs.
2. Stephen Harper's unelected Conservative Senate appointees will have a massive supermajority in the upper chamber at the time of the 2015 election.

As long as both of those points remain true, a push to abolish the Senate might not be all that much more difficult than, say, trying to pass a budget; indeed, it may be a precondition to being able to accomplish much of anything as a government. And what's more, the best means of changing the minds of the Cons' Senate hacks on #1 may be to advance the cause of abolition forcefully enough to convince them that playing nice will help them keep their publicly-funded sinecure as long as possible.

That means that while staying quiet about the Senate might seem like the path of least resistance for now, it could also carry serious consequences for the NDP's ability to govern after the next election. And so whoever wins the leadership would do well to take Topp's cue in recognizing the Senate as an immediate priority in one form or another.

Parliament in Review: November 2, 2011

Wednesday, November 2 saw the House of Commons debate two bills dealing with democratic reform. And the result was a remarkable gap between the values the Harper Cons presented in justifying their party's policy orders, and the ones they actually apply in practice.

The Big Issue

The bill which received the most public attention - due to the Cons' decision to ram it through Parliament - was the government's new seat allocation legislation. And it was on November 2 that the Cons served notice of their intention to shut down debate - even as they complained about the unfairness of locking new MPs into the deliberations of a previous Parliament when that served as an excuse to scrap potentially-critical committee reports.

But perhaps more interesting was the debate on Mathieu Ravignat's anti-floor-crossing legislation. After all, I'm not sure anybody can remember the last time a Harper Con dared to speak out publicly against his or her leader's actual efforts to suppress any independent thought by individual MPs. And yet, here's what Michelle Rempel had to say as to the dangers of a bill preventing floor-crossing:

This bill would seriously undermine the independence of members of this House and I do not think that is something we should encourage or support.

This bill would have some practical negative consequences. The bill would impose restrictions upon members who wish to express a different position than the one endorsed by a majority of their caucus. This bill would also impede members of Parliament in representing the interests of their constituents, which is one of the fundamental duties under our Constitution.
...
(T)he roles, rights and obligations of individual members of Parliament are well established in Canada's legislation whereby members of Parliament are central actors in our Westminster system of government. Practically, the caucus system in our Parliament is joined with, but distinct from, the registered party system.

Bill C-306 would go against existing rules and traditions by allowing the party machinery to take precedence over individual rights and responsibilities of each member of Parliament and their caucus choices. This does not correspond to our system of government. As I stated earlier, I believe Bill C-306 would have negative and undesirable consequences on the roles of members of Parliament.

And Scott Reid was similarly concerned with some theoretical MP independence which was wrung out of his own party long ago - without suggesting for a second that he or his party's majority caucus might have any interest in reversing the trend toward total top-down control.

Meanwhile, Ravignat discussed the need to build trust in elected officials. Peter Stoffer pointed out that the Cons had a rather different take on the legitimacy of floor-crossing when it was Belinda Stronach exercising what she saw as her individual prerogative to jump between parties. Kevin Lamoureux rightly noted that Manitoba's NDP government passed a bill based on the same principle. And David Christopherson cited the example of David Emerson as an affront to the ability of voters to make informed and meaningful choices:

If we accept that (party identification) is a legitimate, rationale, understandable and important reason for people to think about voting for a candidate, the platform or the party, if one then bails out, as did Mr. Emerson, which is the richest example, and I do not like to personalize, it takes one's breath away.

I do not think the writs were even returned. The ink was hardly dry on the ballots, and this man was already trotting across the floor to join another party. He believed that was the right thing to do, for him, but what about all those constituents who had a reason to believe that once elected, the member would actually go about enacting the platform and policies of the party that member belonged to?

By crossing the floor, in many cases a member is throwing away what he or she believed in to join a party that is 180 degrees in the other direction. How do we think constituents feel? They would sit there wondering what happened. Constituents went out and voted in good faith, as did all their friends, and they expected that the money they donated to that campaign and the sign that they posted were all to help get enough seats on a particular platform so that the way the constituent would have liked to have seen Canada shaped on a particular issue would have actually happened. Now that would be gone, because the member could just cross the floor in order to remain a cabinet minister. It really is problematic.

Withholding Consent

It was well reported that MPs from the Bloc Quebecois and Greens were denied unanimous consent to make a statement in honour of Canadian veterans. But somewhat less attention was paid to a bevy of motions on other topics which were also denied, including:
- Alexandre Boulerice's motion to introduce the materials he had referred to in noting concerns about money handed to the Perimeter Institute without proper allocation;
- Tom Lukiwski's motion to allow an NDP member to speak first to a government bill;
- Frank Valeriote's motion for committee study into the Canadian Wheat Board; and
- Sean Casey's motion on travel by the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

And while it's not clear which of those MPs (if any) had reason to think other parties would agree to their requests, it's not hard to see how the Cons' tough line on statements by the Bloc and Greens may have set an unfortunate precedent.

In Brief

Tyrone Benskin both celebrated the 75th birthday of the CBC, and worried about the Cons' witch-hunt against it. Andrew Cash demanded answers as to the lack of accountability for police abuses at the G20 in Toronto. Jean Crowder pointed out the absurdity of saying "get a job!" as an answer to poverty when a significant number of food bank users are children, while Linda Duncan highlighted the problem of poverty for First Nations in particular. Nycole Turmel raised the concerns of Quebec, Ontario and B.C. alike at being stuck with the bill for the Cons' dumb-on-crime policies. Mylene Freeman questioned the Cons about Canada's poor performance in pay equity, only to be told by Tony Clement he's proud that women receive 73 cents on the dollar. Scott Simms introduced a private member's bill to remove the GST and HST from funeral expenses. James Moore's answer to a question seeking information about cuts to Canadian Heritage "broken down by employee status, by title, and by program activity" helpfully identified cuts of 578 jobs with no further information about what had actually been slashed. Yvon Godin pointed out that the Cons' job posting for the Auditor General position actually failed to include any aptitude in French as even a preference (let alone a requirement). And Brian Masse questioned the Cons' cuts to border communications at the same time they were funnelling what was supposed to be border funding into Tony Clement's pork-barrel projects.

Wednesday Evening Links

Assorted content for your evening reading.

- Alex Himelfarb finds a few positives in the Cons' ramming their dumb-on-crime bill through the House of Commons:

Thankfully many are not willing to “get over it”. How heartening, for example, to hear Leadnow.ca announce that they were simply regrouping for the next stage of their campaign for better justice policy. So, here are some reasons not to turn the page, instead to continue the fight.

1) Those who spoke to Parliamentary Committees, wrote letters and op eds, called their MPs or took to the streets have made a difference.

All the opposition parties opposed this bill, rejected the smears that they were “soft on crime”, and focused on public safety rather than easy politics. It has not always been so. And that means that the options are finally being put before Canadians, options for a Canada that is safer, not meaner.

Premiers, whatever their views on the bill, are demanding a more respectful federalism where they – who must administer the legislation once passed – should be engaged at the outset so that they can bring their views and experience to bear. And several are arguing that they should not have to reallocate money – say from health and education – to pay for the costs of more incarceration and more prisons.

And through the efforts of dozens of organizations, many more Canadians are now paying attention. And that can only be a good thing.
...
4) In fighting this kind of legislation we are also fighting for a different kind of politics. Who of us isn’t sometimes afraid, especially for our kids, often angry and horrified at some of the terrible crimes we see on the news, and moved by the suffering of victims and their families. And we know our own frailties, that we can confuse justice and revenge, that our anger can blot out the evidence, that we sometimes lash out and act against our own best interests.

Fighting against this punitive bill is fighting against a politics that exploits our frailties rather than appealing to what is best in us.

5) And fighting against bad policy is good for the soul.

- Meanwhile, Dan Gardner reminds us that the Cons' determination to push hard-right legislation doesn't mean that the public actually agrees with any of the policies.

- Mia Rabson notes that the Cons are looking to outlaw on First Nations exactly the type of negative and deceptive politics they practice for themselves. But in noting that the practice is similarly outlawed in federal election campaigns, Rabson points to an even bigger issue: the Cons are apparently looking to what's banned during election campaigns as their playbook for the next four years.

- Finally, both Frances Russell and Chris Selley point out that any moral compass the Cons may once have possessed is long gone.