Monthly Archives: February 2012

The Cons found a scapegoat

Canada, Conservatives, Elections

It seemed pretty obvious when Harper claimed no knowledge of the Robocon scandal that someone in the Conservative party would quickly have to take the fall.

Guelph staffer Michael Sona took that fall today, despite a lack of any “public evidence” that he was involved.

I doubt this will be enough to quiet the opposition, Elections Canada, or the RCMP. Let’s hope the pressure stays on – perhaps we can get a do-over in some of these ridings.

Finally, for all the flack thrown at Postmedia, I am quite impressed by the quality journalism done by the Ottawa Citizen here, as well as the rest of the media’s latching onto this story. A CTV piece on TV the other night even did the amazing thing of tying this scandal to the growing narrative of Conservative dirty election tricks – like the in and out scandal and the recent guilty plea.

Niki Ashton’s Vancouver visit #ndpldr

NDP, Politics, Vancouver

I should have posted about this ahead of time, but here’s a video I took of Niki Ashton on Tuesday evening when she spoke at the Lion’s Pub in Vancouver. Besides this stump speech, Niki spent most of the evening very casually talking to people (very literally) young and old. Along with the youth for Niki contingent was a 94-year old veteran who was very supportive of her campaign.

I’ll have some thoughts on the leadership race and my preferences soon. I got a call from NDP HQ today that voter packages are heading out next week.

Analysts remarks reveal underlying bias, I say

Conservatives, Liberals, Media, Politics

Sometimes PostMedia News goes so far as to almost parody itself. One might even think that this article from the Vancouver Sun could have been written by Fox News North Sun News.

Justin Trudeau betrays his political immaturity and narcissism in suggesting that his commitment to a united Canada is dependent on whether the Conservative government validates his personal values, say prominent political analysts.

And just who are these “prominent political analysts”?

First, we have Calgary School professor and (un)Friend of Science Barry Cooper. Ever the expert on talking about Quebec separation, in 1991 Cooper argued that Canada would be better off if Quebec separated in his book in Deconfederation: Canada without Quebec.

Second, we have Carleton philosophy professor Tom Darby. I couldn’t find much on this “prominent” analyst other than an obscure dystopian e-novel he wrote last year and another article by the journalist same person who wrote the above Sun article. In standard Conservative rhetoric, Sibley quotes Darby:

The most conservative people in this country right now are Liberals and New Democrats. Politics is all about change. Conservatives are supposed to be the ones afraid of change, but now those who fear change the most are the people who like to think of themselves as progressive.

Third, breaking the trend we have University of Ottawa political science professor Robert Asselin. His bio from an iPolitics article he wrote

Robert Asselin is the Associate Director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He has served as an advisor and speechwriter to the prime minister of Canada, communications director to the Leader of the Official Opposition, policy advisor to the minister of intergovernmental affairs as well as chief of staff to the associate minister of National Defence. He was a senior adviser and speechwriter for the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada for three national election campaigns.

The only other source they quote is a Conservative back bencher decrying the situation.

I wonder how many professors Sibley called before he got enough trash-talking Trudeau to fill an article or if he just has the same guys on speed dial.

More on the Cullen plan #ndpldr

Canada, NDP, Politics

It’s always interesting when I post a piece that was mainly intended to give an extended response to one of my friends on Facebook, and then suddenly Macleans picks it up and I get responses from all over the internet. I hope to do my best here to respond to some of the comments raised on my piece about why joint nominations are still the wrong idea.

First, my criticisms aren’t directed at Leadnow.

Leadnow is an advocacy group, that I signed onto early and continue to support, which seeks to promote progressive politics and more engagement.

When I criticised their survey, it was more people using it for their own purposes. That poll is only useful for exactly what Leadnow is using it for: Deciding whether the organization should support cooperation. It clearly should.

What the poll doesn’t support is anything but what the members of Leadnow believe. It doesn’t tell us anything about Canadians in general, NDP/Liberal supporters, or even about progressives in Canada. Any extraction of those to a larger population (as Michael Wheeler did in his original post) is a fallacy. It’s like using a poll of a pro-life group to support the notion that all Conservative voters are anti-abortion.

There is nothing wrong with Leadnow (or any group) polling its members – in fact, it’s generally a great idea – but those numbers are only useful to that group.

Second, vote splitting doesn’t exist in Canada.

How can I say such an outlandish statement? Let’s even grant that the Liberals are a progressive party (which many would debate) for a minute. Isn’t it obvious that if we simply combined the Liberal and NDP votes that we would beat Harper’s Conservatives in enough ridings to install a progressive majority government?

Setting aside the fact those votes are not transferrable, this argument is still wrong.

In the vast majority of ridings in Canada, the number of non-voters is large enough to swing any election. This means if people who are not voting in the bluest riding in Calgary showed up and uniformly voted Orange (or Red or Green), they could toss out such horrible MPs as Rob Anders. Nearly 38,000 people didn’t vote in Calgary West in 2011. Anders only received 40,000 votes (11 000 for the Liberals and around 6000 for both the NDP and Greens). And Calgary West is an extreme example where Anders received over 60% of the vote, in most ridings we only need to inspire a few thousand more people to drastically alter the outcome of a vote.

We don’t need to eliminate choices to defeat the Conservatives, we need parties and candidates that inspire Canadians. Imagine a Canada where 80% of people voted.

Third, electoral reform is a losing campaign issue.

I am a strong supporter of elector reform. I believe we would be much better represented under either MMP (proposed by the NDP) or STV (as proposed under two BC referendums).

However, attempts to reform provincial electoral systems have repeatedly failed. The reasons are many but the fact remains. While students, academics, and many political geeks believe strongly in electoral reform, to a large number of Canadians it ranks well behind the economy, the environment, health care, and every other issue that affects our daily lives.

I have a strong suspicion that if we followed Nathan Cullen and Leadnow’s idea to put electoral reform front and centre as the single issue of a number of united campaigns that the media and Conservatives would tear it to shreds. Our progressive candidates will look like they are putting irrelevant issues ahead of the important issues of today.

Again, I see the anger coming for this, but I will offer an alternative path to reform. Most NDP leadership candidates recognize PR as necessary; however, I believe only Brian Topp so far has called for it to be passed as legislation instead of a referendum.

While referenda seem to be the preferred way to try to implement PR these days, it wasn’t always the case. Alberta had a proportional voting system for Calgary and Edmonton between 1921 and 1959. The system was implemented, reformed, and abolished all through legislative acts (by successive Liberal, UFA, and Social Credit governments). Passing such a reform through legislation will be seen as less democratic (because it is) but can be done in a consultative way to identify the strengths and weaknesses.

This path has several advantages. First, it saves money. A national referendum, even in conjunction with an election, would costs in the millions. Second, it’s more likely to be successful. Most of the provincial referendums in Canada have seen special interest groups (typical business groups that like FPTP for its ability to produce right-wing majorities with a minority of the votes) confuse the issue. Third, it will be faster. While I wouldn’t call for this legislation to be passed with Harper-esque closure, it can be done in under a year after a progressive government is sworn in. A bill would have to be passed to hold a referendum which would then take another few months to plan, count, and implement.

So let’s not lose focus. ER is important, but I don’t see it as a promising campaign to bring large chunks of Canadians back to the polls (feel free to prove me wrong).

Fourth, I am not opposed to cooperation.

I don’t mean to contradict my other piece at all with this point. In fact, as Jack Layton showed through his politics, one can be incredibly partisan (he likely bled orange) and still find ways to work across the hall. I support coalition governments and prefer minorities to majorities.

Jack won Quebec under the banner traivillier ensemble, working together. The appetite for cooperation is there, and I share it. That doesn’t mean we have to resort to cheap tricks to win elections.

Finally, it’s not the old way versus joint nominations, there are better ways.

Following directly from my last point, and in response to the few who seem to think I am advocating that we just keep doing the same things that haven’t worked in the past (the definition of insanity), we can do politics better. Jack laid the ground work while leader, reaped many of the rewards in the 2011 election, and the sentiment continued with his last letter and Steven Lewis’ eulogy.

Somewhere since then we’ve lost some steam. Rather than focussing on building a Canada that works together, we’re squabbling over the fastest path to victory. It doesn’t help that the media has been underplaying the race to replace Jack. Yet candidates like Paul Dewar are talking about building a “stronger, more caring Canada,” and Niki Ashton speaks about the need for a New Politics.

I like each of the candidates so far and was sad to see Romeo Saganash bow out. These women and men each represent a positive, progressive vision for Canada.

Conclusions

I don’t begrudge people for wanting to push this electoral cooperation plan. I can understand the frustration with our government and the fact that our electoral system is screwing the majority of voters out of having their voices heard. Nevertheless, I believe that this idea is born more out of an appeal to hipster post-partisanship. Similar to the calls for strategic voting in 2008, this argument is misguided at best, and potentially dangerous at worst (if it makes our candidates come off as single-issue opportunists).

If it all comes to pass that Nathan Cullen’s plan gains the support of the NDP and Liberals, I will get behind it, but I see far more successful paths to a progressive Canada, which don’t involve reducing our democratic choices.

In defense of partisanship

Canada, Politics

I touched on many of the reasons I disagree with Nathan Cullen’s (pre-)electoral cooperation proposal a few days ago, which was primarily a reiteration of my previous statements on the issue. At the end I alluded to a post I wanted to write about the need for partisan party politics. This is that post. I did mean to have this done earlier but life somewhat got in the way.

The problems

It’s become increasingly hip to describe oneself as “post-partisan”. Political parties are seen as vessels for blind ideology, personal ambition, and are antithetical to real progressive change.

The bitter debates in the House of Commons between Conservative attack dogs and the opposition are held as evidence of the systemic inability of our institutions to look out for the public. Power is increasingly held by the Prime Minister’s Office, which is mirrored in parties by the position of party leader. Parties control messages, stifle individuality, and emphasize conformity.

The fact that the term hyperpartisan carries such negative baggage points to the general disgust with the status quo.

In Alberta, the desire to rise above the rhetoric led many progressives to form two movements – ReBoot and Renew Alberta – which hoped to find solutions to the apparent issues and find a way to bring progressive policies. One movement sparked a few conferences and the other resulted in the Alberta Party – a post-partisan political party. Sadly for their ambition, the Alberta Party remains at the level of popular support typically reserved for the Social Credit and Communist Parties, and behind the de-registered Greens.

Federally, this has led to calls for strategic voting, uniting-the-left, and more recently for joint nominations.

Why we have parties

But before we can talk about discussing a future without political parties, perhaps we should actually take a brief tour of where parties came from. I won’t claim to be a historian, so don’t discount me if I gloss over or omit some details, but here’s my basic understanding (i.e. high school Social Studies supplemented by Wikipedia).

Canada’s political system grew directly out of the the British Parliamentary system. The first political parties (as we might recognize) were the Whigs (Liberals) and the Tories (Conservatives). They were created primarily so that a number of politicians could either support or oppose the Exclusion Bill of 1678-81. The basic story is that a number of likeminded people realized the strength of organizing themselves for political gain.

As Alain de Botton said in a recent TED talk on Atheism 2.0, “if you want to change the world, you’re going to have to work together.”

This idea is clearly not lost on modern groups like Leadnow.ca who are also organizing to affect change in the world. In our federal (and most provincial) systems, independents are at a serious disadvantage to those supported by a political party. Parties provide branding and a coherent message that can grant a candidate legitimacy.

Parties provide some division of labour too. If I’m campaigning as an independent, I have to be an expert on everything that could come up at the level I’m campaigning for. By affiliating with a party that I generally agree with, I can focus my efforts (which will likely be more successful) on a few key issues. I can then also count on my caucus colleagues to support my issue as it’s understood that I will support their portfolios.

Alternative systems

Now, it’s worth recognizing that not all political systems require formal political parties. Most cities in Canada (except for Vancouver, Montreal, and a few other cities) have no party system and Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are operated with a consensus legislature.

The absence of parties doesn’t preclude political alliances though. The Toronto City Council is notorious for its unofficial partisan divisions (left, moderate-swing, and right wings) and any mayor must balance at least two of the groups to pass policy. Further, vote splitting is rampant in the Toronto mayoral races where a half-dozen candidates with a chance of winning have to fight for a plurality, whereas the Vancouver mayoral race is a near de facto two (or three) person race.

Why I am a partisan

Within our political framework (a parliamentary democracy – which is far from ideal), political parties still have relevancy. From branding to being effective vessels for policy implementation, our parties should not be done away with hastily.

This is not to say our parties are perfect. The centralization of power in the Prime Minister’s Office has been mirrored in every major party (including the NDP and Greens to varying degrees). Ideas seen as unelectable will be pushed out while the general ideology will shift centrist. Dissent is viewed negatively by the media (how many articles talk about anonymous sources and infighting).

Yet every party retains a desire to reach to its grassroots. The Conservatives have the most successful Canadian political fundraising machine in history and the NDP allows every member an equal vote for the party’s leadership. If the parties isolate their grassroots too much, they risk the lessons (potentially) learned by the Liberals after neglecting their supporters under Chretien and Martin. If the leadership refuses to listen to the members, there will be few volunteers during the elections.

So I look at our country as it stands and I imagine how I want it to be. The best vehicle I see to get us there is the New Democratic Party. It is not a radical communist group, but a modern progressive group of social democrats. I won’t agree with the party on everything (nuclear energy and naturopathy tend to spring to mind), but I see enough potential to make this country a better place.

Concluding thoughts

There is no reason to fear political parties. If one doesn’t work for you, quit and join another. Thomas Mulcair jumped from the Quebec Liberals to the federal NDP, while Bob Rae jumped from the Ontario NDP to the federal Liberal Party.

The system may be broken but change is often easier from the inside. Join the team you believe best represents your values and vision and help them win.

In my next piece I will respond to a few of the comments to my last article on Joint Nominations – which even got featured on Macleans.com thanks to Aaron Wherry.

Shooting themselves in the foot

Anti-choice, Canada, Conservatives, Politics

There’s nothing like the comfort of a majority government to let even the most secretive governments let slip a couple guffahs but rarely do we get multiple instances in a matter of days.

The abortion debate

From the CBC:

A Conservative MP is calling for a special committee to examine when human life begins, a call opponents say is an excuse to reopen the debate over abortion.

Stephen Woodworth, who ironically likens himself to be morally equivalent to a nineteenth century feminist (his ideas are definitely situated in that era), believes that “It’s simply not legitimate — not even to achieve some important or desired result — for Parliament to accept a law that says that some human beings are not human beings when they are.”

Stephen Harper says his government won’t open the abortion debate but do we really believe this man – known for his tight caucus control – would freely let these motions hit the press if he wasn’t hoping to score at least a few points with Canada’s wingnut fringe?

Liberals are Nazis now

Whoops goes the tongue:

[Bruce Grey-Owen Sound MP Larry] Miller, an opponent of the [long-gun] registry, quoted former Liberal senator Sharon Carstairs as saying that "the registering of hunting rifles is the first step in the social re-engineering of Canadians."

"Mr. Speaker, can you believe that statement? The social engineering of Canadians. Mr. Speaker, that is what Adolf Hitler tried to do in the 1930s," he claimed, over a chorus of catcalls in the Commons.

"The long gun registry is at its core solely about an idea that the Liberals had that guns are inherently evil and must be taken out the hands of the general population. Again, who does that sound like?" Miller said.

Harper and Baird are trying hard to be the world’s best friend to Israel – even if it means dragging us first into World War 3 with Iran – to court the Jewish and wingnut Christian fringe. Too bad for them their caucus occasionally speaks.

Torture away, CSIS

Continuing our government’s pastime of ignoring the evidence, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has advised CSIS that information acquired under torture is useful:

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews quietly told CSIS the government now expects the spy service to "make the protection of life and property its overriding priority" and may under exceptional circumstances share information based on intelligence that may have been derived from the use of torture.

"Information obtained by torture is always discounted. But the problem is, can one safely ignore it when Canadian lives and property are at stake?" Toews said in question period.

YES. Ignore the crap out of it.

Not just because torture is horribly inhumane, but because we know people will say anything under torture. There is no moral, ethical, or practical argument that holds up to justify torture. Of course, that only applies if we assume we have a government that operates with reason at its core.

Cullen is still wrong #ndpldr

Elections, NDP, Politics

Leadnow.ca recently polled its email contacts to declare whether they agree/disagree with the statement “The NDP, Liberals and Greens should work together to defeat Conservative incumbents. After the election, they should cooperate to pass electoral reform.” They posted their preliminary results with nearly 8000 votes, and 95% of respondents agreed, with most strongly agreeing.

If this were a scientific poll of public opinion, the results would be definitive.

Of course, it was not a scientific poll but rather a straw poll of the small subset of actively involved young progressive Canadians. Not exactly a representative sample. But I won’t quibble with the results other than to emphasize that all this shows is what Leadnow members think, not all progressives or Canadians.

Yet, this is still urging some to argue that Nathan Cullen’s plan is on the right track to unseat Harper and replace him with something better. A friend linked me to this post on Praxis Theatre by Michael Wheeler where he argues that we need to work outside partisan lines to defeat Harper. Specifically he uses the Leadnow poll and some comments by EKOS pollster Frank Graves to defend his position.

The Graves article is on iPolitics (which requires registration to view, so I can only quote the conclusions Wheeler posted) and claims several things:

  • First that Canadians have strong negative views of political parties.
  • Second, that only 44% of people disagree that political parties have outlived their usefulness, which means nothing when phrased as a double negative. Further, this number is isolated from the other options – how many people have no opinion or think parties are out-dated – which means that political party supporters may still be the plurality.
  • Third, he concludes that NDP supporters are less supportive of the party system than Liberals and Conservatives. This doesn’t bode well for those hoping to get the Liberals to buy-in to any cooperation scheme though. It also likely reflects the fact that the NDP base has been only 10-15%, and it was only last year that Jack Layton brought the vote up to 30%. All this proves to me is that the NDP vote is softer than the (larger) Conservative vote or the (smaller) Liberal vote.
  • Finally, Graves states that young, non-voting Canadians have less trust in the government. It’s not clear to me how joint nomination deals will improve trust in government, as this seems to be taken on faith.

Wheeler’s conclusion sounds noble too:

Moving beyond their own self-interest to that of the country may ironically be their best chance for electoral success. Increasingly, progressive Canadians seem to be demanding cooperation from their political opposition that will allow them to vote FOR and not AGAINST something, through  a serious and credible movement to form a government that represents the majority of Canadians.

Yet, as I said back in October when I first considered Cullen’s joint nomination suggestions, this amounts to little more than uniting AGAINST something. The only reason people seem to be suggesting any cooperation is so that they can vote against the Harper Conservatives. It makes absolutely no sense to me how joint nominations somehow present a candidate you can vote for when  each of those candidates could simply run in the general election.

Here’s a scenario: Imagine you get three progressive visions for Canada coming to the joint nomination meeting in a Conservative held riding. The first argues that inequality is the issue of the day and that we must raise taxes on the 1%, lift seniors out of poverty, and reduce tuition fees. The second argues that the environment is the biggest issue. We should review the Enbridge pipeline, invest in Green Energy, and offer more investment to green energy, while not hampering the economy with unnecessarily high taxes. The third candidate wants to see a balanced approach of fiscal responsibility with social liberties. The government should implement smarter solutions to today’s problems while also seeking to reduce the deficit. Each candidate agrees on electoral reform as the first priority and that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have done untold damage to our country.

Because of the supporters who show up to vote (or who cast their ballot online or by mail) one of these people becomes the riding’s “progressive” candidate. It turns out during the campaign though that this candidate is actually against abortion, leaving many progressive pro-choice voters in the riding with a dilemma. Do they support a candidate who may roll back women’s rights (imagine that the despite the electoral cooperation, Harper still wins another government and one of his MPs brings forward a private member’s bill against abortion) or do they stay home on election day and protest the situation?

While this example is extreme, there are a number of sitting Liberal MPs who are pro-life, and similar issues will be just as passionate for voters in any riding. Some right-Liberals strongly oppose the NDP as neo-Communists, while some New Democrats see the Liberals as Conservative-light. Some Greens have left-wing economics, while others are quite right-wing – the only thing truly uniting their party is a concern for the environment.

In every riding will exist partisans who will not vote for one party or another. Many will switch to the Conservatives before they vote for a different party as well. Progressive votes are not transferable.

By reducing the number of options on a ballot, we necessarily reduce our democracy, and force strategic voting against someone rather than for someone.

The implementation issues

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that joint nominations won’t work if they happen, let’s also recognize that they probably won’t even be able to happen. The entire idea rests on getting each party to agree to allow these meetings. While a local riding association may choose to hold this meeting with their rivals, there is no guarantee that the parties will respect this decision. Each party has the ability to parachute candidates, so unless there is agreement from the leadership of each party, this idea is dead before it lifts off. To date, only one NDP leadership candidate has expressed any support for this idea and no one from the Liberals has agreed to it.

And as Denny Holmwood points out, even if Cullen wins the NDP leadership, he may not be able to implement the policy in his own party. It may be necessary for him to actually ask the members of the party for a constitutional amendment for this. Whether such a motion would pass is an open question as delegates to last year’s convention defeated a resolution to “reject any proposals to merge with the Liberal Party.”

Finally, Alice at Pundit’s Guide dissected the nitty gritty of what would actually happen if there was buy in from the NDP and the Liberals. She remains very sceptical of the entire situation. I strongly suggest reading her post, as she does the most thorough take-down of the entire proposal.

Conclusions

This post is already too long at over 1000 words. In a coming post I’ll try to lay out a defense of partisanship and the role that political parties have in our democracy.

I want to see Harper lose but there are no shortcuts to progressive victory. We have to actually get ready to do some real work to earn people’s votes.

This is the 1%

Politics, USA

I really hope Americans aren’t just paying attention to the race for the Republican nomination, but are actually giving each of these candidates a good look to see how contemptible each one is.

Take Mitt Romney:

Figures released Tuesday show that Mr. Romney was able to raise nearly $24.3-million in the last quarter of 2011, and spending about $20-million of that in the same quarter.

In an analysis of that data by Bloomberg News, eight of the 10 biggest donors worked for banks and investment firms.

“Wall Street supports someone they consider one of their own and the candidate perceived to be the most committed to promoting policies they prefer,” Costas Panagopoulos, director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy at Fordham University in New York, told Bloomberg News.

The Republicans are going to try to run on an anti-establishment campaign, decrying Obama’s “big government” and will promise to protect the average Joe. Instead, the front-runner is literally in the pocket of those same Wall Street crooks that just ran the US economy into the ground, only to get bailed out by the government.

Mitt Romney represents everything that the Occupy protests are against. But the others are no better. Newt Gingrich held the US government hostage because of his own brand of vindictive politics and Ron Paul is a racist homophobe whose ideas are so dangerous they are borderline sociopathic.

The fact that any of these old white men are serious candidates to lead the most powerful nation on Earth should give everyone pause.