Federal Politics – Page 113

CETA: The devil is in the details.

October 24, 2016 by Peter Lowry

Tried the other day to reread the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) and finally gave up in disgust. Maybe this deal between Canada and the European Union is just too comprehensive for this non-trade expert to comprehend. And when you find the mainly French-speaking Wallonia area of Belgium is the last hold-out on the deal, you know the deal will happen sooner than later.

It is not that we are sceptical of free trade, but we intensely dislike the idea of industry tribunals ruling over our elected government and allowing willful industry associations to hamstring our exports. It smacks too much of Italian fascism. And besides, anything that elicits the ready acceptance by both Conservative and Liberal politicians is cause for concern.

You can expect the Walloons will be bought off their high horse. It seems routine in Belgium that the different language groups are less than civil to each other. We once made the mistake of hiring a French-speaking taxi driver in Brussels to take us to a friend’s place in a Flemish enclave. The driver listened to our version of Canadian French, thought of the fat fare and agreed but got hopelessly lost. It took our bad French to get us out of trouble and to get directions for our driver.

There seem to be different versions of this trade agreement because you will hear on one side that it can mean as much as C$2 billion to Canada from this new agreement. That is not such a big deal when you consider that Canada already exports more than C$52 billion per year to Europe and Europe sends us about $62 billion. The import duties on both sides are already not all that significant.

But it is the exchange of professionals between Canada and Europe that will also be a factor. Accepting the qualifications of accountants, engineers and other professionals opens stronger bonds between the member countries of the EU and this country.

At least with this European trade agreement, Canadians have access to the details. We were often of the impression that the average citizen in any of the countries needed an unbiased plain language version of the deals.

American Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been providing his own comic book version of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Few Canadians know or would trust him, but, in some ways, it is too bad his suggestion of tearing up the agreement will not happen. Canada needs a better deal than the existing one with the U.S.

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Trudeau tests veto on vote reform.

October 23, 2016 by Peter Lowry

This scenario has taken place before. He does it in Quebec thinking nobody in the rest of Canada is going to hear about it. Justin Trudeau is hardly the first politician to test the waters before diving into the deep end of the pool. In this case the prime minister gave an interview to Quebec’s Le Devoir and suggested that the enthusiasm for vote reform was less now that the Liberals are in power.

Someone must have woken up the lame-duck leader of the New Democrats. Thomas Mulcair was on his feet in the House of Commons accusing the Prime Minister of going back on his promise that the 2015 election would be the last using first-past-the-post.

It has the MPs on the special commons committee on voting reform telling their friends how they wasted their summer. Mind you, as one academic suggested, if they have really been paying attention over the summer, they might now be qualified to present post-graduate university courses on democratic voting systems.

But what most academics and others eager for change could not tell the committee was how changes in voting systems will impact our political parties and how we conduct elections. We need to be very, very careful with these people so eager for change that they do not see the devastation that they can cause.

Prime Minister Trudeau has been so busy crippling the formerly strong and democratic Liberal Party of Canada to prevent revolt on a change in voting systems, you would think he was more committed. He seems to equate the leadership of the Liberal Party as similar to the task of herding cats. Liberals are much too independent in his opinion.

Trudeau’s father understood that independence of liberals and was always amused by the evidence of it. He also respected it on an intellectual level and could enjoy a laugh about it. His son has a different sense of humour.

It was the senior Trudeau who understood the failures and wrong directions of the Charlottetown Accord and told liberals in his maison du egg roll speech in October 1992 that it was alright to say ‘no.’ And they did.

It is too bad that the elder Trudeau tried to protect his sons from politics. No doubt there are many times these days that Justin Trudeau wishes he had his father’s advice on the questions he faces.

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What’s in it for us?

October 19, 2016 by Peter Lowry

That is not a selfish question. It came up the other day when reading another boring presentation to the House of Commons special committee on electoral reform. “What is in it for us” is likely to be the cri de coeur of Canadians when they see what the months of gestation of the electoral reform question have produced.

An official report is in the offing.

For months we have been told of a democracy deficit, the false majorities, the policy lurches of alternative governments, how your vote does not count and how magically your vote can count if Canada just had proportional representation in parliament. We have been told of making every vote count, how to transfer our vote and how to ensure every minority is represented in parliament. We have had Canadians standing, waiting at alternative microphones to tell the committee of their alternative system of voting.

And we have also been told that nobody cares.

In Canada’s largest city, we were told that the news media did not bother to come to see democracy in action. And if the media are apathetic, are the citizens far behind?

But we are becoming increasingly convinced that the real problems are in Ottawa. The problem is in the all-powerful Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The problem is in an elitist, non-elected Senate of Canada. It is in electing gutless, sycophants of a party leader instead of people we would be proud to have as our member of parliament. It is the rigid control of parliament’s agenda by the PMO. It is the hand-in-glove relationship of our leaders and big business. It is in the increasingly complex and legalistic free-trade relationships that leave the people concerned in confusion.

This does not excuse the role and manipulations of the provinces that make up the Canadian federation. We are lucky today that we get the first-past-the-post winners from the provinces in Ottawa. We hardly need or want the malcontents of provinces that proportional representation would bring to Ottawa. And we are not just thinking of Quebec.

Maybe we wasted our time following this common’s committee process. It looks like whatever is reported will be an eight to three split. The Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc and Green are likely to agree on something while the Conservatives will hold out for a referendum.

The Liberal government will then have to decide just how much of its political capital it wants to spend on a foolish election promise by its leader.

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The one shouting loudest tells the truth.

October 17, 2016 by Peter Lowry

What? You do not believe that? Why just the other day, we received a large envelope from the Liberal Party of Canada. In big capitol letters across one side of the mailing were the words “Transparent. Open.” and “Real.” And if you believed that you were deluding yourself. Inside the overly large envelope were the usual plea for money and an interesting note from Liberal Party President Anna Gainey. What she had to say was more disingenuous than the misleading words on the outside.

She mentions in passing that the recent biennial convention in Winnipeg threw out the party’s constitution. The partying attendees agreed to a top-down, tightly controlled party organization—with details to come later. This new constitution gutted the ability of local liberals to have effective say in developing party policy, reviewing the leadership and selecting their local candidate. And by canceling membership fees, it took away most of the independent funding of the grassroots by its local members. Mind you, the party no longer has any members by edict of our Leader.

Gainey tells us that 26,000 people have said they wanted to be registered (for free) in the first month. That is a long way from the hundreds of thousands who were once proud to be active (paid up) members of the Liberal Party.

Maybe this expensive mailing piece is a failure in effective communications. It makes sure you know where to send your money but neglects to tell you where to sign up to have your say.

We should also admit that there was also a letter from Justin Trudeau in the package. It started out “Dear Peter” and ended with Justin’s signature. We obviously got this package because we used to give the party some money every month. We cancelled that benevolence when the Winnipeg convention belittled our support of the party that went back before Justin was born.

This liberal had high hopes for Justin Trudeau. When we first met him six years ago it was amazing to see him work the small crowd we had assembled for him. We had a chance to talk at the time and we learned a lot about him.

Independently the wife came to the same conclusion that he is more like his mother than his father. It is unlikely that we will ever really understand his agenda—if he has a long-term one? His elitist solutions to the senate and supreme court appointments must be motivated by a fear of addressing Canada’s constitutional needs. He seems to have a mental switch that enables him to turn his public persona on and off.

There was no need to respond to his recent letter though. It was just one more among thousands.

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Justin’s honeymoon rolls on.

October 16, 2016 by Peter Lowry

The other day columnist Bob Hepburn of the Toronto Star gave Justin Trudeau’s Liberals an ‘A-‘ for their first year grade in office. Bob is a fine gentleman and a good writer but much too generous in his assessment. The truth is that much of this first year in power has been wasted by a vain and cocky prime minister who is failing to live up to his promise.

And that is the shame of it. The words Prime Minister of Canada can roll so smoothly off the tongue that it becomes the goal and not the opportunity. Somehow the out-of-country trips became a chance to show the world that there was a new sheriff in town for Canada instead of tutorials for a newby. The Liberal Party prostrated itself and he abused it. He seems to prefer fashion over form. His gender-balanced cabinet was too facile.

His elitism is showing in his solutions to both the Senate and the Supreme Court. His priorities among his promises are scattered, uneven and unorganized. Voting reform is being used as a distraction instead of a real analysis of how Ottawa functions. Sure he helped the middle class with their children and tax cuts. Ask any senior how great that was?

But dammit all, he can do much more. His goodwill with Canadians need not be exchanged for pipelines. And whether he puts us in hock for another $20 billion, we have to have better funding for Medicare. And Medicare has to be unified and run the same across the country. We can argue with bigots another time but there is a worldwide refugee crisis out there and Canada has proved it can be part of the solution.

While he has shown his impatience with parliament, he has few excuses with the disorganized state of the other major parties and their lame duck leadership. This is a parliament that could make things happen if he put his mind to it. And sometime in the next year or so, he will have to decide what to do about marijuana. The situation and the cop he put in charge are becoming less amusing.

He has finally got the enquiry on murdered and missing indigenous women under way and that process will continue for some time. That one got a plus.

But the National Energy Board continues to be a thorn. He can leave it in Calgary but it has to have some balance and some guts. And do not even think of approving that Energy East pipeline.

Sure, the honeymoon could go on a while longer but we still need to know what kind of stuff Justin sees in the country’s future. We were always enthusiastic about Pierre Trudeau’s just society. We are not sure his son knows what that means.

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What gender wars are these?

October 11, 2016 by Peter Lowry

It is among the usual platitudes of those proposing proportional voting systems for Canada that more women will be elected if we just switched to a proportional voting system. Nobody can tell you why this is supposedly the case but they point to countries such as in Scandinavia that have a higher ratio of women legislators than do North American countries.

Our best guess for this difference is that it is far more likely to be sociological than political. The Liberal Party of Canada has always worked at encouraging women candidates and gives them additional support. And we can hardly deny that the Conservatives had the first female cabinet member and the first female Prime Minister of Canada. Nobody seems to be standing in the way.

But there is no excuse for any country using a closed list proportional voting system to not have roughly equal male and female representation in their parliaments. Last time we checked on the Swedish Storting (parliament) there was still only about 45 per cent female representation. This is despite the law in that country that there must be 50 per cent.

When Prime Minister Trudeau chose to introduce a gender balanced cabinet last year, it was obvious that it could only stay balanced until changes had to be made. As it stands at this time, the balance is on the distaff side. Nobody seems to care about that.

But nobody expects our prime ministers to be putting gender balance ahead of other considerations. They are presented with enough concerns in selecting cabinets such as language and regional representation before they can even consider gender.

Having worked with both male and female candidates for office, all this apparatchik can say is that there is not much difference. Male candidates can require just as much propping up and reassurances as female. They can be equally determined and as fragile. You have to ensure that both pay attention to their family needs throughout a campaign. You will have enough problems on the campaign trail without letting things slide at home.

But the real tensions with family start when the candidate wins. Commuting to Ottawa is what makes the work of an MP onerous. The workload can be staggering for those who make it to cabinet and sometimes boring for the back bencher. MPs have to discipline themselves and choose their off-hours pursuits with lots of common sense.

Canadians do not seem to be all that worried about the gender of their politicians but they do worry about how well they are represented. The mix of party, policy and personality is more important than gender.

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A nugget among the dross.

October 9, 2016 by Peter Lowry

When you find you have been panning the provincial and federal Liberal parties, it is wonderful to come across someone who just might be a nugget of real gold. This is a liberal who thinks for himself, invests time in research and speaks out with truths as he sees them.

We are speaking here about Toronto’s Ward 5 City Councillor Justin Di Ciano. He spoke to the House of Commons special committee on electoral reform on the one day that the committee spent in Toronto and in Ontario on their recent cross country hearings. He spoke some truths for many Canadians who are being given no chance to be heard.

The first question Di Ciano asked of the committee was what is so pressing about the subject of electoral reform when so few Canadians are interested in the debate? He asked them if they are not searching for a solution to a problem that does not exist?

He bluntly told the committee that “If we want to engage Canadians on issues, then our governments need to engage Canadians on the issues that need fixing.”

He pointed out that our first-past-the-post voting system works well. It provides “representation from a geographical, descriptive and ideological perspective” and “produces stable and efficient governments capable of enacting timely legislation.”

Hear, hear!

While we are still reading the transcript of that day’s proceedings, we feel pleased that Mr. Di Ciano made a case for us that the committee refused to allow us to make.

Babel-on-the-Bay has its own test of what is of interest politically speaking. It is our own readership as reported by Google Analytics. Our readership has been almost falling off the scale lately when talking about electoral reform. There is just not that much interest even among our politically conscious readers. Mind you if you want your readership to skyrocket, you only need to mention Donald Trump.

It says in the transcript from the Toronto meeting of the parliamentary committee that there was nobody there in Canada’s largest city from the news media. That should be indicative enough.

But the best news was Justin Di Ciano. We had already noticed him when he spoke out against ranked balloting in Toronto. A former council had asked the province to allow ranked votes and Di Ciano was an emissary to tell the provincial powers that they had changed their mind. His point was simply that ranked balloting does not deliver what it promises.

What was best though when addressing these Liberal-controlled bodies, he had no problem with admitting that he was a life-long Liberal but was quite willing to speak out. He is definitely worth watching.

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Patience: Elites at work.

October 7, 2016 by Peter Lowry

It seems we might be seeing more of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s elitist senate. A committee of senators think they should have their own television channel. It is just a recommendation at the moment but you never know with these things. After all, who would have believed a TV channel that does nothing but burn a yule log on an endless loop? Watching elite senators snore in their seats might be just as exciting.

But is this not the house of sober second thought designed by our Fathers of Confederation to keep us colonials from running amok? Our prime minister has gone one better. Rather than worn and tired politicos being retired to the senate’s sinecure, we now have a committee of elites choosing elites for the PM to appoint. Political has-been’s need not apply.

Like Christ chasing the money-changers from the Temple, Mr. Trudeau proclaimed that Liberal senators were no longer Liberals. He was not allowed to fire them, so he did the next best.

But now he needs more elites to appoint or the remaining politicos will start to take control. There is already a recommendation that any group of nine or more senators be able to create a caucus of their own naming. And the idea includes budgets for caucus staffs and expenses. These people do not do things by half measure.

One of the more popular caucuses could be the one called something like “Wonderful Wednesday Wonkies.” This will be drawn from among those who only show up from Tuesday to Thursday to be sure to collect their fat paycheque. They could appoint Senator Mike Duffy as their honorary chair.

We hear that the elite committee already has a bunch of names from which Justin Trudeau can pick the finest and brightest if he wishes. There have even been some names leaked to show that the elitists are on the job.

But the more serious question is whether Canadians really want this farcical approach to a second house of parliament?

It is strange having known and talked with both Pierre Trudeau and his son. They are very different. Pierre Trudeau did not understand politics at first but he learned to accept it and use it. The son takes an entirely different approach to politics, he uses it but seems to detest it. He has used the Liberal Party and has set out on a path to destroy it. He has an almost pathological fear of re-opening the Canadian constitution and has come up with this silly elitist approach that has little chance of benefiting Canadians.

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How green is my gas?

October 1, 2016 by Peter Lowry

There has been another example of how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can suck and blow at the same time. It took three federal cabinet members to burst the environmental bubble in B.C. They travelled from Ottawa unnecessarily to provide word that the government would allow the building of a gas pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast where the gas would be converted to Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and loaded on tankers for the trip to China and the far east.

The good news was supposed to be that the amount of carbon allowed to be released would be capped at the equivalent of putting one million more automobiles on the road across Canada. The problem was that how you cap carbon emissions, how you count carbon emissions and who gets the money for the carbon tax were never discussed.

These LNG operations are touted to be the largest sell-off of Canadian resources ever. The operation is going to cost Malaysia-owned Petronas about $36 billion—if it can make it a profitable investment despite the currently low prices of natural gas.

If this huge expense creates just 300 (maybe) permanent jobs, it is not very impressive. (B.C.’s Premier Christie Clark was smiling because it looks like her province gets to tax the pipeline, the LNG plant and shipping terminal.) Alberta is where the natural gas will likely be sourced, compressed and pumped over the Rockies to the new plant.

The good news is that the gas pipeline is much safer for the environment than the pumping of diluted bitumen. The gas tends to harmlessly mix with air unless there is something to ignite it. Even a very small leak near a pumping station could be a very explosive proposition.

The pipeline is supposed to follow the Skeena River to the sea. As it is the second largest salmon run in British Columbia, the native communities in the Skeena area and environmentalists are appalled. They feel that Prime Minister Trudeau continues to break promises and ignore concerns.

This is on top of the Trudeau government’s recent approval of the $8 billion mega-project known as the Site C Dam on B.C.’s Peace River. This mega-project is going to flood 83 kilometres of valley near St. John. This flooding will cover traditional hunting lands and ancient burial grounds of B.C.’s indigenous people. They claim it is just one more example of Prime Minister Trudeau promising one thing and then doing another.

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Another redneck heard from.

September 30, 2016 by Peter Lowry

You would think in this era of instant communications and extensive broadcast media coverage throughout rural Canada, there would be little excuse for rural politicians to have so little understanding of their country. And yet, Leamington, Ontario Mayor John Paterson has joined Conservative MP Kelly Leitch in demanding that newcomers to Canada conform to their version of Canadian culture.

Xenophobia must be rampant. (Our Oxford Concise tells us that xenophobia is a morbid fear of foreigners.) Promoted by Trump in the U.S. and shouted out throughout Europe, xenophobes have been less evident in Canada. They can be embarrassing—like the bad manners of that premier’s son who stood in line to greet the royals with his hands in his pockets.

But the small-town mayor further embarrasses Canadians by suggesting that Canada’s history is tied to Great Britain and the monarchy. He thinks those ties are more important than promoting multiculturalism. It makes one wonder about the quality of his education about Canada.

The first question for both of these Ontario rednecks is what the heck do they think Canadian values might be? They need to think long and hard before answering that question. It might also help if they can also think about the answer in French and some of the country’s aboriginal languages.

Mayor Paterson says “Come to Canada and be Canadian.” He thinks that means you have to be an Anglophone and a monarchist. We expect Kelly Leitch would echo that but we have never heard her say it.

But in the same way as the Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency uses this fear of foreigners to rail against Latino’s, Muslims, blacks and women, you begin to wonder if there is anyone he likes besides himself. These Ontario rednecks are certainly not doing their political careers much good. Leitch is hardly going to take her campaign for the Conservative leadership to Quebec. While her Canadian values might translate and have a certain appeal to the Parti Québécois, those people are not really in tune with your typical Conservative Party supporters.

Canada has every right to be proud of its reputation around the world for its tolerance and acceptance of multiculturalism. It is a wonderful country but it only takes a few dimwits with the wrong attitude to screw things up!

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