On opportunism

When Scott Moe first heard about the coronavirus, he smelled opportunity. And that can take many forms.

No, Moe didn't call the spring election that he initially planned. But he did take the opportunity to prevent Elections Saskatchewan from pursuing a modernized voting process or a full mail-in balloting system for the election date set for this fall.

And here's part of the fallout from that opportunism:

In-person advance and election day polls cannot be held safely within Peter Ballantyne First Nation communities due to a COVID-19 outbreak, says Elections Saskatchewan.

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Extraordinary voting will be offered to residents of these communities, but residents must apply within the next two days.

“This will be your only opportunity to get a ballot,” Elections Saskatchewan said in a statement.

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Residents — members and non-members — of Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation communities must call Elections Saskatchewan at 1 (866) 351-0040 before Oct. 20 at 5 p.m. to apply for extraordinary voting.

And who's affected in particular? 

Well, the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation has about 5,700 members, including ones in the communities of Southend, Deschambault Lake, Pelican Narrows, Sandy Bay, Amisk Lake, Sturgeon Landing and Kinoosao who will be prevented from voting normally. And the 2016 results (PDF) show those communities supporting NDP incumbent Doyle Vermette (see p. 86-89) - with the combination of advance polls and regular polls providing a margin of over 500 votes in a constituency won by about 1,700 total.

In other words, the direct result of Moe's cynical and callous view of COVID-19 is the risk of disenfranchisement of thousands of voters - and potentially an electoral advantage for Moe's party. 

Hopefully it will be possible to get voters registered in time to avoid any disruption. But having seen what flows from Moe's view of the opportunity raised by a pandemic, Saskatchewan's voters should respond by taking their own opportunity to elect a better government.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Paul Krugman comments on how Republicans' cheerleading for total corporate control - which has of course been matched at every turn by Canada's Cons - has resulted in their declaring war on any policy which could possibly result in environmental improvements:

(T)he payoff to...new rules (on mercury emissions) is huge: up to $90 billion a year in benefits compared with around $10 billion a year of costs in the form of slightly higher electricity prices. This is, as David Roberts of Grist says, a very big deal.

And it’s a deal Republicans very much want to kill.

With everything else that has been going on in U.S. politics recently, the G.O.P.’s radical anti-environmental turn hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. But something remarkable has happened on this front. Only a few years ago, it seemed possible to be both a Republican in good standing and a serious environmentalist; during the 2008 campaign John McCain warned of the dangers of global warming and proposed a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Today, however, the party line is that we must not only avoid any new environmental regulations but roll back the protection we already have.

And I’m not exaggerating: during the fight over the debt ceiling, Republicans tried to attach riders that, as Time magazine put it, would essentially have blocked the E.P.A. and the Interior Department from doing their jobs.
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(W)henever you hear dire predictions about the effects of pollution regulation, you should know that special interests always make such predictions, and are always wrong. For example, power companies claimed that rules on acid rain would disrupt electricity supply and lead to soaring rates; none of that happened, and the acid rain program has become a shining example of how environmentalism and economic growth can go hand in hand.

But again, never mind: mindless opposition to “job killing” regulations is now part of what it means to be a Republican. And I have to admit that this puts something of a damper on my mood: the E.P.A. has just done a very good thing, but if a Republican — any Republican — wins next year’s election, he or she will surely try to undo this good work.

- And in other dog-bites-man news, stay tuned for another potential prosecution against a right-wing Saskatchewan political party for an alleged violation of election law.

- Dave points out the disaster that's resulted from the B.C. Libs' privatization of BC Ferries. Meanwhile, Postmedia notes that Saskatchewan's truly public model for intra-provincial transportation is doing far better than private comparators.

- Finally, Colin Horgan compares the vote mob trend which received so much attention early in 2011 to the Occupy movement which emerged later in the year:

For now, Occupy has, arguably, accomplished at least one thing. It has managed to change the conversation — something vote mobs attempted, but at which they ultimately failed.

The difference between the two is perhaps as simple as the fact that vote mobs pushed youth back to the system from which they already felt disenchanted. Occupy, on the other hand, recognized that disaffection and offered the concept of an entirely alternative system, somewhere on the other side of a few internet photos.
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Where a quasi-movement like vote mobs failed to make anyone talk about politics differently, Occupy has done exactly that. It has changed the way virtually everyone in Canada and the United States is now talking about its most specific target, the economy. Income disparity, corporate negligence, the concept of a homegrown plutocracy — these are ideas no longer relegated to fringe elements, but are beginning to be discussed widely, along with the idea that there maybe some rot developing at the core of the current system. With that accomplished, Occupy will likely hibernate happily.

As for the voting booths, they still await the day young faces start outnumbering old ones. Though perhaps not for much longer.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- In case we didn't already have enough examples of the Wall government's contempt for voting, James Wood notes that it's dragging its heels on authorizing any enumeration before the official writ period. That figures to work wonders in making it more difficult to accurately identify voters - but raises the question of why a government which is supposed to be able to coast to re-election feels the need to throw as many wrenches into the works as possible.

- We shouldn't be surprised to find out that most corporatist spin is based on blind belief in mythical concepts ranging from confidence fairies to magical wealth creators. But Sixth Estate highlights a particularly egregious example, as Stephane Dion's newest buddies are declaring that we can wish natural resources into existence.

- Meanwhile, in the real world, the consequences of that type of blind faith in markets can be readily observed - even as the Cons double down in their fervour:

As in many other countries, Canada is witnessing a phenomenon in which the most wealthy are enjoying stunning increases in their income while the rest of society stagnates. It’s something that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is likely to hear about in no uncertain terms in the parliamentary debate following the tabling of the budget on June 6.

The trend (long summarized as “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer”) is so pronounced globally that Angel Gurria, head of the industrialized world’s main think tank, is warning that income equality is becoming a “serious threat.”
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In a 2008 study of 30 OECD countries, Canada was singled out as one of the member nations that has witnessed the worst widening of the wealth gap.

Inequality and poverty declined in Canada for 20 years before the late 1990s, the OECD study said, but since have gotten much worse.
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And some analysts say the economic strategies being pursued by a re-elected Harper will only make matters worse, leading to a further expansion of the income gap between the very rich and others in Canada.

The crux of the issue concerns the Conservatives’ plan to continue implementing corporate income tax cuts and to eventually bring in other tax breaks, such as expanding deposits in Tax-Free Savings Accounts and allowing two-income couples with children younger than 18 to split their income for federal tax purposes.

While these measures have been promoted as ways of creating jobs or helping average Canadians, some economists say the benefits to the rich from these tax breaks will far outweigh anything seen by other members of society.

- Finally, Don Martin points out one noteworthy consequences of the NDP's surge:

Funny thing, but the more...under-30 MPs you meet, all of them unexpectedly elected in the orange wave of the NDP surge, the more you sense they will be a future asset, not a long-term liability, to leader Jack Layton.

They talk beyond their years, think quickly and most have an academic grounding in what federal politics is all about.
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I'm only met half a dozen or so, but I suspect it'll be great fun watching them spring in parliamentary action next week.

Thanks to them, the average age of Canada's 308 MPs has dipped below 50 for the first time in history.

Granted, that still leaves the average age in the House of Commons somewhat higher than in the general population. But as with other measures such as womens' representation, the NDP can at least claim proudly to have made Parliament more representative of Canada's population than ever - and hopefully the result will be a political conversation that better reflects the concerns of the general public.

New column day

Here, on the Wall government's choice to do nothing to limit the dirty tricks which rose to prominence in this month's federal election in advance of this fall's provincial campaign.

For further reading, see:
- Paul Boin on the complaints raised after the federal election.
- Rob Ferguson on the response from Ontario's government.
- And a few of my previous posts on the voter ID requirements that have now been passed at both the provincial and federal levels without an iota of evidence that they serve any purpose other than to suppress the vote.

On belated disclosure

Leftdog highlights some of the issues with the Sask Party's Enterprise Club emerging from the revelation that one of its $1,000 donations was paid for by St. Peter's College. But there looks to be plenty of reason for concern with some parts of the story which haven't yet been covered in detail:

It came to light last week that the former CEO of two Humboldt-area colleges attempting a now-dead merger had charged the $1,000 political contribution to his expenses.
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(Frank Quennell) also noted the 2009 purchase of the membership did not appear on that year's Sask. Party financial statements. The party said the membership could have been for 2010 and would not appear until the release of financial statements for the year.

So what's wrong with that picture? Under Saskatchewan's Election Act, 1996, provincial parties are required to report all money in the year in which it is received, including contributions, the proceeds of merchandise and other sales, and "all other income and receipts from any source". So the statement that a membership was intended to be for 2010 wouldn't seem to affect a party's obligation to disclose having received money in 2009.

And there's an obvious reason why that's the case. After all, it would make a mockery of political disclosure rules if supporters could make a donation which is available for the party's use immediately, but is only reported at some later date when a membership takes effect. ("Buy a $5 million 'Super Deluxe Platinum Executive Membership' for the 2045 fiscal year today! No need to report the source of the money until then!")

So the explanation we've heard so far as to why Glen Kobussen's Enterprise Club membership was omitted from the Sask Party's financial disclosure forms doesn't hold water. And if the Sask Party makes a general practice of taking in money in the present to be disclosed only in some future year, then it's well worth wondering how many more contributions are similarly hidden in the party's books.

On needless barriers

Murray Mandryk is right on target in his assessment of the policy merits of the Sask Party's plan for voter ID restrictions. But I fear he's exactly wrong in his take on the Wall government's purpose in floating the proposal:

Admittedly, voter photo identification will be "new" if it happens, but it probably won't happen because it's a dopey idea. That Wall is already saying it might not apply to seniors or anyone else who doesn't have a driver's licence photo ID calls into question why it's needed in the first place. After all, no one seems to be able to find a single case of voter fraud in a Saskatchewan election that makes photo ID necessary.

More likely, it's part of a mildly alarming trend in the Wall government of throwing out a policy that's really about appealing to the party's base, like last year's throne speech call to clamp down on free needles for intravenous drug users. Similarly, this year's photo ID accomplishes little more than soliciting quiet cheers from those who like the notion of making it a little tougher for certain social-economic groups -- including those on reserves and in northern Metis and First Nations communities that sometimes vote in blocks -- to vote.

Now, it's true enough that restricting access to the polls is a fairly standard part of right-wing policy dogma, for the reason noted by Tom Levenson as a counter to the inherently shrinking pool of voters willing to cast ballots based on prejudice:

(T)he one thing the GOP has decided to do as demographics tilt ever more heavily against it is exactly what you’d expect from the Confederate Party. When in doubt, don’t try to expand the tent; instead, restrict the franchise.

But it's important to note the direction of the causation. Voting restrictions aren't thrown out as a policy bone which caters to a right-wing base without having an effect in substance. And indeed the parties pushing such schemes are normally at pains to deny that their intention is to produce the obvious effect of turning away legitimate voters.

But voting restrictions are obviously of political benefit to a party whose electoral prospects are improved by the suppression of minority and marginalized voters. And that, not some great commitment to limiting turnout in principle, is the reason why the right works so hard to turn away real voters based on nonexistent threats of fraud.

So there's little reason to think Wall's choice to talk about a more restrictive voter ID requirement is based on any theory that the policy will be popular, whether with his base or anybody else. Instead, the calculus figures to be that it's worth pushing the restrictions even in the absence of any rational need for change where their incidental effects once implemented happen to favour the Sask Party's political interests. And on that theory, the Sask Party is far more likely to push ahead with trying to bend the rules in its favour no matter how much resistance it faces, rather than listening to even the most reasonable criticisms of the move.

On crackdowns

It shouldn't come as much surprise that the Wall government's plan for the next year includes making voting more difficult for groups less disposed to support them in the 2011 election, particularly considering that support for restrictive voter ID rules was part of their litmus test for a chief electoral officer.

But as the Sask Party cuts down on access to the polls, it's worth pointing out that a similar effort went seriously awry when their federal cousins failed to consider its effect on rural voters - hinting that the policy isn't without some potential costs to a right-wing party. And even if the Wall government avoids the same mistake, the perception of a governing party unilaterally rewriting election rules this close to the start of the campaign may well backfire.

On partisan choices

Shorter Don Morgan:

Because it is essential that the province's Chief Electoral Officer have the full support of all MLAs, we plan to pick one unilaterally over the objections of the 20 who aren't in our caucus.

The reviews are in

The Star Phoenix editorial board follows up on yesterday's report on Elections Saskatchewan with an editorial slamming the Sask Party's continued attacks on the independence of one of the province's most important non-partisan institutions:

(A)bsent a rational explanation as to why the government is attempting in midstream to unilaterally change the hiring process for a position that since 1998 has been considered an independent officer of the legislature, unhealthy speculation grows that the Saskatchewan Party merely is biding time until after the 2011 election to hire someone sympathetic to its world view.

If that involves lending even tacit support to a bit of gerrymandering -- redrawing riding boundaries after the next election to create more blended rural/urban seats that provide an advantage to the Saskatchewan Party, the damage done to undermine public confidence in the independence of the office will be immeasurable.

Even though the Opposition likely is being obstructionist in refusing to consider any other candidate except Mr. Wilkie, the NDP is quite right that a principle is at stake. Hiring an independent officer of the legislature -- especially the one whose job it is to ensure that MLAs are elected playing by the rules -- cannot be dictated by a caucus vote and a partisan vote shouldn't override the recommendation of a bipartisan selection committee.

Pointless

James Wood reminds us that Elections Saskatchewan remains in a state of flux due to the Sask Party's stubborn insistence that anonymous caucus members should be able to veto the Chief Electoral Officer approved of by every party in the province without giving any reason for doing so. But perhaps the most interesting news involves the likely result for the 2011 election:

(W)ith the relative closeness of the next election, (Justice Minister Don) Morgan said it is difficult to gauge whether someone brought in from outside Elections Saskatchewan as chief electoral officer would be able to oversee a provincial election, even if that person was hired immediately.

"I don't know that. That would depend on the person. If it was somebody who was familiar with Saskatchewan, they might be. But if it was someone who came from outside they may well not be," he said.

Of course, there's no indication that anybody within Elections Saskatchewan has ever been under consideration for the CEO position other than...David Wilkie, the candidate vetoed by the Sask Party. But if it's already too late to bring in somebody from outside the province to oversee the run-up to the 2011 election, then presumably that job will fall to...David Wilkie, in his role as acting Chief Electoral Officer.

So for all the other criticisms that have been leveled at the Sask Party's obstinacy, let's add one more. The Wall government's stand against all-party agreement and cooperative appointment looks to be entirely useless, as it has no apparent chance of changing the identity of the individual in charge of the 2011 election.

Instead, the only impact the Sask Party's stand can have is to make sure that the temporary nature of Wilkie's appointment prevents Elections Saskatchewan from carrying out any long-term planning. And that deserves a new round of questions as to why Wall and company consider themselves entitled to stand in the way of a permanent appointment.

Well said

The Star-Phoenix editorial board tears into the Wall government for its attempt to give Sask Party MLAs a political veto over the appointment of Saskatchewan's independent elections commissioner:

(W)hen the government has a system in place to ensure a non-partisan selection process for a job as important is that of the chief electoral officer, the premier has the duty either to accept the results of that process or make it absolutely clear why he would allow his caucus to throw it out.

And if Justice Minister Don Morgan believes that it's acceptable to change the process after his party get caught fiddling with the results of what has been the accepted manner to choose other non-partisan officers of the legislature, he is as far out of touch with reality as he is with the seriousness of this matter. Top of the list of duties of the chief electoral officer is to remain non-partisan. This must be so only in action but also in perception. The appointment of the electoral officer was depoliticized in 1998, and it's best that it remain that way.

To have the Saskatchewan Party caucus throw out the results of a bi-partisan selection committee without explanation or excuse absolutely violates the perception that the electoral officer's position will remain a non-partisan appointment. Not only does it harm the office of this most critical public servant, it also throws into question Saskatchewan's democratic process.
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Given what Mr. Morgan has written about Mr. Wilkie's qualifications, and absent an adequate explanation, the unmistakable impression is created that the only reason the Saskatchewan Party would refuse his appointment would be an effort to gerrymander the electoral boundaries or to subvert the electoral process by stacking the office.

On fixes

The Sask Party's refusal to agree with a consensus among all five of Saskatchewan's political parties (including its own members on the provincial Board of Internal Economy) has to raise serious questions as to whether the Wall government is holding out for its own Kenneth Blackwell. But Murray Mandryk nicely points out the other factors which figure to be at play:

By way of background, the post of Saskatchewan's chief electoral officer has been vacant for almost 18 months -- unusual for such a senior position. The government's explanation -- at least before Monday -- was that it's difficult finding a candidate with suitable electoral office experience and "managerial skills".

However, there has clearly been more to it than that. For one thing, sources said that applicants were being asked questions like where they stood on voters requiring photo identification. Coincidentally, voter ID just happens to benefit wealthier Sask. Party voters than poor voters who tend to support the NDP. There's also the issue of the electoral boundary changes after the next election and Justice Minister Don Morgan confirmed at the legislature Monday that government caucus members had special interest in both issues.

But even more interesting is the suggestion that a Sask. Party MLA or candidate is under investigation and government members were queasy about appointing the acting chief electoral officer, David Wilkie, who would have responsibility for bringing forward any such investigation.
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Is a government MLA or Sask. Party candidate being investigated? It was a question Quennell asked in the House Monday.

Well, Morgan said after question period, he has no such knowledge. (However, he did strangely admit that his caucus members' only ability to independently assess the acting chief electoral officer's performance would be through whatever encounters they might have had with him on election expenses.)

Now, one can perhaps give the Sask Party points for gall in listing "experience" as its explanation for unilaterally rejecting a candidate who's actually doing the job in question (and has been for a year and a half). Indeed, from that starting point I'd fully expect their next line of messaging to be that they had to reject Wilkie in hopes that they could persuade their first choice, Wilkie, to take the job instead.

But however entertaining the spin may soon become, there's a serious issue when it comes to the question of who's going to be overseeing the next two Saskatchewan elections. And the worse the Sask Party's excuses for pushing any appointment past a point where it'll be too late to assemble consensus around any one candidate, the more reason for suspicion there will be that the Wall government is looking to rig the system in its favour.