Federal Politics – Page 119

Vote Reform Primer: FPTP.

June 20, 2016 by Peter Lowry

The following is an updated primer on First-Past-the-Post voting from the Democracy Papers of 2007. This is the fourth of the vote reform series.

First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) voting is an electoral system that we have known for hundreds of years. While some people tell us that FPTP is flawed it is hard to pin these people down to exactly what is wrong.

We should start with the misconceptions about FPTP. A vote under this system is never wasted. It is not wasted when you vote for someone who loses, nor is it wasted when the person you vote for already has enough votes to win. All votes are counted and all votes are important to the candidates.

The one complaint that is considered valid is that in a large field of candidates, a winner can be declared with a plurality rather than a majority. With Internet voting today, we can have inexpensive run-off elections to determine the majority choice. This is much better than preferential voting where the voter numbers the candidates as 1, 2, 3, etc. While an attempt at making the party representation more representative of the actual vote, preferential voting tends to over-inflate the winning party’s representation.

But it is the simplicity of FPTP voting that is its most important feature. It is your best guarantee of democracy. It reflects the concept of one person-one vote. It is the easiest system with which to vote and the simplest to count. There is no ambiguity.

One of the most important benefits of our FPTP system is that we are voting for people. You can vote for a specific party if you wish but it is the person who will represent you in the parliament or legislature or council. That person is responsible to you and your neighbours. They are there to take our concerns to the seats of government. They are your advocate.

It is important to always remember that government is there to serve people. You will find that when things are going well and people are complacent, they tend to be more casual about voting. If you want to increase the voter turn-out just have the government make some mistakes that annoy large groups of voters.

Your individual vote for your candidate is your direct contact with government. Other systems where you only vote for a political party, you are part of a large mass of votes for the party you selected and you lose all connection. Nobody has to deal with your concerns or your ideas. FPTP guarantees you that your representative will be able to present individual bills or by-laws of direct interest to constituents.

FPTP has been able to withstand real and imagined criticisms for many, many years. It is a system that has served us well. It works.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

If Canadians had their druthers on the Senate…

June 18, 2016 by Peter Lowry

The delays are over on the government’s Bill C-14 on assisted dying. The Senate showed its true colours: cowardice. After one effort to help fix the flawed bill from the Commons, the senators surrendered. It is disappointing to report that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s solution to the senate seems to be working.

When he was just third-party leader, the Prime Minister decided to solve the senate problem by telling the Liberal senators that they were no longer part of the Liberal Party caucus. And then as Prime Minister, he has tried to distance himself from his own appointments. These people—accept for the ‘government representative’—were supposed to act independently. And, to nobody’s surprise, they did—at first.

They had good reason to disagree with Bill-C14. The government bill on assisted dying was overly restrictive and missed the yardsticks suggested by the Supreme Court. It even seems to miss the yardsticks of public opinion. Canadians have clearly indicated that they are in favour of less restrictive end of life decisions.

But Justin Trudeau and his colleagues around the cabinet table would not accept the Senate changes. The Commons voted to send the bill back to the Senate unchanged. Pundits thought the cabinet had better options. They thought the cabinet might negotiate with the senators.

The only problem with negotiations is that the cabinet could only be seen negotiating with the senators through the government representative and nobody is sure how that would fly.

Obviously, the government did not want to be seen agreeing to the senators’ changes as that would guarantee a long line of bills over the next several years coming back with changes. It is not that the new ‘independent’ senators are all that political but most of them would certainly have enjoyed this new sense of power.

Of course, the best solution is still to do something about the Senate itself. If it is just going to defer to the House of Commons, what use is it? What kind of house of sober second thought have we created? Why are we wasting money on it and people who have no clear understanding of their role as senators? We need to be rid of it.

Sure, it would require changes in the constitution but Canadians are in a mood for that to change and Justin Trudeau still has the credits with Canadians that they would agree to it.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The braggadocio of the blogger!

June 13, 2016 by Peter Lowry

That is one way to describe it. There is a hollowness in the endeavour. It is not just a hobby or an interesting way to waste away a few hours in your day. A daily commentary develops a life of its own. It is not like a Facebook page that you tend like a garden (and use lots of manure). Nor is it as simple as a daily ego trip down Memory Lane. And it is hardly a “Look at me. Ain’t I erudite and bright just like the twits on Twitter?”

A blog is more like a daily massage. You pay for it to make you feel good about yourself. If you had a point to make it soon becomes lost in the challenge of creating pithy daily commentary on the rest of the world.

While we originally intended to be more wide ranging in our comments, the readership seemed to grow more rapidly with political matters. We have readers from sea to sea and also around the world of the web. There is no problem with coming up with opinions on politics.

But before we forget the objective today, the intent was to apologize to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The freedom of a blog does not excuse rudeness. And being angry at our Prime Minister is no excuse. He is not a boy and this commentator crossed a line in insulting him. Many of us lost respect for the office during Mr. Harper’s term but Mr. Trudeau has done nothing in that office to earn the scorn we had for Harper.

As a long-term liberal and Liberal Party Member, it is obvious to our regular readers that we do not agree all the time with our Liberal Prime Minister. That is our right. Obviously frustration is no excuse. We should always try to keep the commentary civil. And that is the apology about what we called him in the recent commentary on his problems with the Senate of Canada.

We are coming into what the media refer to as the summer hiatus. There is no concern for topics to discuss here. With the Three Amigo Summit coming up in Ottawa, the Brexit vote in Great Britain and the upcoming political conventions in the United States this summer, there will be much to fuel our commentaries.

But, please, can we make an exception for that despicable Donald Trump? He is obviously no politician. Be sure to drop by occasionally.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Vote Reform Primer: Preferential.

June 12, 2016 by Peter Lowry

The following is a new primer as we did not consider preferential voting a factor in the Democracy Papers of 2007. This is the third of the updated series.

Preferential voting is a system that is also known as alternative voting, instant run-off, ranked voting, transferable voting and other variables that have been considered and then forgotten. It is not as wide-spread a type of voting around the world as proportional or first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting.

The main concerns with this type of system is that there have to be many rules developed for the voters because of the ease of manipulating the vote and the confusion in the counting systems involved.

The basic premise is that the voter indicates a first, second, third or more choices among the various candidates. In some jurisdictions, the voter must indicate a number for all candidates to prevent what is called ‘plumping’ for a single candidate or multiple candidates.

The counting is based on creating a majority vote for a winner by adding the second choice of the lowest scoring candidate and adding those second choice votes to the other candidates’ totals. This can continue, taking the votes of lowest scoring candidates until one candidate has a majority. This is why the system is ridiculed as a method whereby ‘the losers are the choosers.’ Votes for losing candidates, in effect, determine the ultimate winner.

Proponents of proportional voting tend to reject preferential voting because the system can actually create the opposite results from proportional representation. It tends to over inflate the winning party’s share of the seats. A good example of this can be postulated for the recent federal election in Canada. There were three strong parties at the beginning of the election. All three of these parties were, at certain times during the campaign, in the lead in the polls.

But what was really happening was that it was a choice between two parties to remove the third from government. If there had been a preferential system of voting in that case, the winning party would have won as much as 65 per cent of the seats in parliament (versus the actual of 54 per cent), the former government party about 20 per cent (actual 29 per cent) and the former opposition party as few as 10 per vent (actual 13 per cent). That did not happen under FPTP and certainly would not have happened under proportional voting.

Many people think of preferential voting as an instant run-off. It is not. It does not allow the opportunity to consider the results of the initial voting. It is this consideration that makes a second or even third round of voting a much more acceptable solution than trying to do it all at once.

The reason for the rejection of run-off elections in Canada has been because of the perceived high costs of conducting a second vote. That is no longer the case today as Internet voting has become a practical solution. Instead of large numbers of voting locations, Canadians can now exercise their vote from home, at work, at public libraries, government buildings or from their smart telephone. It is easy for Elections Canada to update security systems as the need arises.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

He wanted an independent Senate; he got it.

June 11, 2016 by Peter Lowry

We told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that this independent Senate of his would bite him on the ass. And it happened sooner than anyone expected.

But to make the point on the assisted dying bill was pure justice. The Senate has challenged Justin on a key provision of this ill-considered bill. It is the very restrictive clause that was to keep people who might be depressed from their illness from calling it quits prematurely. The government bill was restricted to people who were sure to die shortly anyway.

It seems that the ‘Independent Senate’ was going along with many Canadians who cared about this bill. Justin’s Catholic sentiments aside, this was not what the Supreme Court had in mind when it insisted on Canadians having a say on life-ending decisions. ‘Severe and intolerable suffering’ is cruel and untenable in the 21^st Century and cuts a broader swath than the Trudeau cabinet might want to go.

But it is Justin’s Senate now and he better just suck it up. He stupidly kicked all the Liberal retirees from the Liberal caucus and told these loyalists that they were no longer Liberals. And he hurt more than a few feelings in the process. To make matters worse, he sent a retired civil servant to the Senate—and at a nice stipend—to run the place. You just knew how that would work out.

And the Senate was just testing the waters when it sent the one amendment to the House of Commons. This was just the litmus test. If Justin and his gang reject the change, it will be war. If they do an end run and accept the change, the Senate wins and the government will be in danger with every single bill it sends to the Upper House.

And do not forget, the Senate can come up with some bills of its own. That will be the end of ‘Sunny Days’ for our boy leader.

Like it or lump it, our boy leader needs to accept the fact that his solution to the Senate is a crock. It does not make sense and does not work—at least for him. He needs to re-address his solution. He has either got to win some friends in the Senate and add enough other friends to control the damn place, or find another way to fix it.

The point is that somebody has to act responsibly. Our suggestion was that we ask all senators to resign and let all the political parties appoint replacements (until the next federal election) equivalent to their percentage of votes in the last federal election. That way the parties will be responsible for the Senate and the public will know who to blame if things do not work.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Politicians are just like us.

June 6, 2016 by Peter Lowry

Maybe it is because they are never a hero to their valets that we have never been overly impressed with politicians. As a publicist and confidante to many politicians over the years, we have found that they share the same foibles, failures and frustrations as anyone else. Nobody is perfect and the person offering to represent us that does not share any weaknesses with the electorate is usually unable to serve them.

These weaknesses are usually more obvious in populist politicians and can raise or destroy their hopes. The greatest weakness is vanity. An excellent example of this weakness is Donald Trump. It is his vanity—and some possibly sociopathic characteristics—that drive him. His misogyny, his bigotry and his bluster are also weaknesses that will bring him fame but keep him from the American presidency.

There have been many populists in Canadian politics over the years. One of the most interesting was Prairie populist John George Diefenbaker. ‘Dief the Chief’ was brought down finally by the president of his own party, Dalton Camp. Dalton was convinced that Diefenbaker had taken the reins of the Conservative Party for too long and called for a leadership convention. Dief tried to succeed himself and it was a sad end to a fascinating career.

The most celebrated populist in Canadian politics—and also the most successful—was Justin Trudeau’s father. Compared to Pierre, a populist, his son is a politician. The son identifies with the populist father but uses the relationship effectively as a politician.

We can always start arguments among our New Democratic friends by pointing out that Saskatchewan’s Tommy Douglas was very much a populist. There are quite a few others but the most obvious was Toronto’s late councillor and mayor Rob Ford.

Ford failed finally as a politician when cancer brought him down. What also failed him was the effort to create a dynasty. Ford used his bombast and ‘in your face’ style effectively but no other Ford can match it. And he really did—for a while—call people back.

But politics can hardly survive on the few populists—good or bad—that come forward from time to time. We need good people who care. We need people who understand and want to help their fellow Canadians build a country with a rich and fulfilling future.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Minister Monsef, hurrying to do nothing.

June 2, 2016 by Peter Lowry

It looks like someone in the Trudeau cabinet came to the aid of the party and exerted some influence on the vote reform file. It is not that the Minister of Democratic Institutions was causing anything to happen. Ms. Monsef has been looking like a deer caught in the headlights. It is about time someone got around to telling her what to do.

What she is now doing is softening her approach and suggesting that she might listen to the opposition parties. This approach will certainly take the wind out of the sails of the Conservatives. All they have said to-date is that they wanted a referendum on any change. The other parties were more concerned about the idea of having a parliamentary committee dominated by Liberal MPs. They have been wanting to slash the tires on that bus before it gets out of the garage. Now that the Liberals are listening, it will be interesting to see if they come up with anything positive.

Not that there is any unanimity among the opposition parties. Maybe the Greens and New Democrats can come to terms on proportional representation but neither the Conservatives nor Liberals will buy into that kind of reform. All it would do would help ensure that there would be no majority government other than potential coalitions involving multiple parties.

The Conservatives have taken a safe tack on this as they are saying they are in favour of some reform but only if there is a referendum for the voters to have the final say. They are counting on the public wanting to stay with first-past-the-post that we have always used.

If the minister was pro-active or knew what she was doing, she would have called for a series of meetings with Elections Canada officials and computer experts to discuss the idea of open Internet voting in elections with run-off voting for the top two candidates in electoral districts where nobody had a majority. It could be the inexpensive solution that could satisfy the objectives of all the reform advocates.

What the opposition needs to realize is if the leading party already has a majority in the first round of voting on the election, the voters will be far more willing to add opposition MPs. That can also be a factor when there is no majority as the voters might pick their own coalition. The key is that you give the voters some time to think about it and the pundits could be surprised what the voters come up with.

And the point is with run-off elections, the Liberals can claim they are enriching the voting process and there is no need for a referendum. There is no serious change. There are only better results.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Bill Blair, won’t you please come home?

June 1, 2016 by Peter Lowry

We never have been able to find Bill Blair when we needed him. Back when Bill was Toronto Police Chief in 2010, he was nowhere to be found when his police officers were busy kettling innocent citizens out for an summer’s evening walk. Now as Justin Trudeau’s Minister of Pot, he is nowhere to be found while his Toronto Police successors are terrorizing the entrepreneurs of legalized Pot.

And why is nothing happening on the Pot front? Since Justin Trudeau told the poor unsuspecting Liberals of Scarborough—Southwest that Blair was their new Liberal candidate, Blair has been leading a charmed life. He has been visiting Canada’s ‘River’ cities as a ‘Music Man’ to extol the virtues of legalized Pot.

But everyone is waiting for this ‘Music Man’ to produce a law freeing Pot from the stigma of being an illegal substance. Not having a real department behind him, Blair cannot let a gopher go and get him a law that does that. He has to go to the Minister of Justice and get in line. He is waiting for the same people who just made such a crock of assisted-dying legislation, which is why nobody in Ottawa trusts that department anymore.

But in the meantime, you would not believe what Blair’s incompetent successors in Toronto have been kettling. Chief Saunders had his officers raid some of the more obvious pot-selling establishments in the city the other day. They then called a news conference to show how much marijuana, cocaine, marijuana edibles, cash and miscellaneous trash they had swept off the streets. Mind you, it will take a while to test those edibles and determine if there really is a little pot in every sucker and cookie.

The very indignant pot sellers and their lawyers are all in full cry for Saunders’ head for interfering in free enterprise. They are working on the assumption that Bill Blair will have the selling of pot legalized within the year. What they have not figured out is that this is Bill Blair’s sinecure. He is working on legalization in his lifetime.

After all, what would you want to do in his place? He can be condemned for life for the all the human rights violations of the 2010 G-20 meeting in Toronto or be the candy man distributing pot to the nation?

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

“This is Justin Trudeau’s Party.”

May 31, 2016 by Peter Lowry

Those were the wrap-up words from Toronto Star reporter Susan Delacourt from the Winnipeg Liberal convention to Global reporter Tom Clark whose weekly show was originating in Vancouver at the Conservative convention. Delacourt had told viewers that Justin had arrived from the G-7 in Japan during the convention and seemed to be everywhere dominating his convention for his party. It had even surprised us that more than 65 delegates had dared to publicly vote against Trudeau’s new Liberal Party constitution.

Justin seems to have no idea of the seeds of defeat he is sowing with this controversial constitution. If he had looked around more often, he would have seen the mistake he was making. Those young party delegates with the money to come from across Canada, dominated the convention and were hardly representative of the Liberal Party as a whole.

The party has always recognized the need to refresh itself and to encourage young people to participate in the party activities. To do that you want to have a party that provides challenges in organization, communications, policy, leadership development, campaign planning and management, Instead, this new party of Justin Trudeau is a top-down party structure that takes away these opportunities. It is to be a cult centred on the party leader.

Frankly, the concept is appalling.

Liberalism is an ideal based on the gaining of greater rights and opportunities for the individual in society. Canadians have an expectation of civil freedom and Canada is considered to be a relatively free society but it still has a long way to go to achieve the freedoms possible in an open and democratic society. We can only create this society by having democratic and open political parties. Allowing the Liberal Party to become a cult of personality is taking the party backwards and contradicting its hopes and objectives.

But the worst thing progressive liberals can do is to walk away. The party desperately needs the academics, the greybeards, the apparatchiks, the party workers, the believers in what the party should be to hold on.

The one thing we can do though is to call Trudeau’s bluff that he does not need our membership money. Since he says he does not need it, we should withhold it. This greybeard for one is cancelling the monthly stipend he gives willingly to the party. The Justin Trudeau Party does not need my money.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The Liberal Party is not computer competent yet.

May 30, 2016 by Peter Lowry

Before you think the writer is a computer Luddite, it should be mentioned that we spent a lengthy business career explaining computers and computer software through the media. Our last company was a pioneer in database development that helped usher in the excesses of the Internet era. It was only when Katie Telford told the Liberal Party meeting in Winnipeg how the last campaign was won because of computer competence that we knew the party needed a reality check.

Computer programs can never be a sole solution to campaigning but are an important aid in analysing information on voters. You just have to remember that a database is only as good as the data that has been input. It is like we would still like to talk to the wise-ass at party headquarters who switched our records from our home electoral district of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte to Toronto’s Beaches—East York. Frankly the Beaches riding information was far more interesting and more plentiful than that from our riding. We would have been more aware of what was wrong in our riding if we had all the information.

And that is the bone we would pick with Katie Telford and her team’s compilations of the Liberal database information. The problems in our riding should have stuck out like a sore thumb. There were a lot of local Liberals who believed we would win this riding. When the recount showed that we were less than 90 votes off the mark, they felt betrayed.

The people running the central campaign would not send Trudeau to Barrie during the campaign for the wrong reasons. Their data was corrupted and they had no intelligence on what was wrong. There are algorithms to help correct database errors but as many people have figured out with Google, they can go much to far and you end up with garbage.

You can never replace humint—human intelligence gathering. The late Keith Davey, who never had the Internet to help him win elections, always started his day with a fresh sheet of 8.5 by 14-inch paper. By the end of the day, Keith had it filled with very tiny notes from talking to his contacts from coast to coast. Those sheets of paper told the story of every day of that particular election campaign.

What was most obvious about the campaign in 2015 was that announcement timing was not under the control of people with good political instincts. While Telford gave the credit for the campaign to the computer edge, she was also laying blame. It seems that actions that instinct told you should have happened a week earlier, would have to wait for a computer program to make it happen.

-30-

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]