Federal Politics – Page 51 – Babel-on-the-Bay

Democracy Defied.

October 13, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Canadians kid themselves about our democracy. It is not by any stretch a true democracy. According to official records, it is a constitutional monarchy, where the governor general represents the monarch. In our faux House of Lords, we have the party in power appointing the senators. It is certainly not a system suitable for a true democracy.

Democracy is based on the ancient Greek concept of ‘’demos” which is rule by the citizen body. This democracy is based on the freedom of the individual to hold meetings, speak freely to right wrongs, to be secure against arbitrary arrest, and to live where regular and free elections are held whereby all citizens get to choose their representatives and governments can be changed by the wishes of the electorate.

Canadians have never had a say in their system of government. The decisions for confederation in 1867 were made in London, England. And good luck in finding any Canadian politicians willing to try to change anything today. The only changes we have made in confederation have been to make it more difficult to make changes.

Canada’s constitution is tied in knots between the provinces and the federal government. We can laugh at those separatists in Quebec who think they would be better off without the rest of Canada. They have a far better deal within Canada than they would ever get anywhere else.

While Canadians have many organizations seeking to influence, change and sometimes, even protect, the degree of democracy that we do enjoy, there are very few who really understand that the people the least supportive of our democracy are politicians. They rarely volunteer to be voted from office. Those running political parties would much prefer to run them as oligarchies. Party leaders such as conservative Stephen Harper and liberal Justin Trudeau have concentrated far more political power in their offices than our constitution ever considered. Our only safeguard so far in this is that the political parties have a measure of control but it is less and less as time goes on.

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Democracy Denied.

October 10, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Canadians should stop worrying about the fascist leanings of that guy in the American White House and worry more about the death of democracy in Canada. Every day, we see the continued erosion of democracy in Canada’s political parties as another brick in the wall closing down our democracy.

I make no secret that I am a liberal. It is why I received an e-mail from Suzanne Cowan, president of the liberal party the other day telling me how it is going to be for people to become candidates for the party in the next federal election. I should send her an answer asking when the party agreed to this arrangement? There is nothing democratic about this selection of candidates.

The problem started back in the 1980s when the liberals ended up with some very bad choices for candidates when they were selected by a gang-up of their ethnic or religious group. It was during the 90s that Jean Chrétien’s liberals got parliamentary approval to having party leaders sign off on all candidates for their party.

Instead of the measure being used as a last resort, to block gang-ups in the electoral district associations, it became a way for the leader of each party to decide who would be their candidate. Leaders such as conservative Stephen Harper and liberal Justin Trudeau used this to further their discipline over their parties. It did little to further democracy in Canada.

We have effectively neutered Canada’s political parties. Instead of democracy, Justin Trudeau is ushering in his personal autocracy. He is an elitist, supported by his own cabal in parliament.

The only problem Trudeau has not addressed is what to do about the liberals who might object to being used as his personal piggy bank. There are too many times that more than one e-mail from the party in a day will ask for more money.

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O’Toole’s new hue of blue.

October 9, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Erin O’Toole, the new conservative party leader brought a new hue of blue to parliament on his late arrival. Delayed by covid-19, the conservative leader brought a new approach to the minority parliament. Where catcalls and rudeness have prevailed for so long, the new leader brought reason, conciliation and understanding. It was an approach to politics readily understood by most Ontario politicos over 50. It was the politics of former Ontario premier William Davis.

Bill Davis turned 91 this year and while his health might not be the best, his legacy in Ontario continues to be honoured. It all boiled down to one word: decency. He was conservative premier of Ontario from 1971 to 1985 and he made sure Queen’s Park during that time was a friendly place. In those years, I worked closely with the liberal caucus under Bob Nixon and, when at Queen’s Park, I often had a friendly word with people on Bill Davis’ or NDP leader Stephen Lewis’ staff.

But I think for Erin O’Toole, sincere or not, this approach will be a hard sell to his caucus, his supporters and his provincial conservative backers. Today’s political divide is too broad, the acrimony too deep and the distrust ingrained.

Too many of the conservative caucus are former Steven Harper MPs who went through the hard-fought years of his partisan governments which dealt more with conservative ideology than the needs of Canadians. O’Toole was there for the last and in cabinet in that final four years.

It is hard to imagine that he would not realize the difference in style he is trying to utilize from that of the provincial conservatives where they are in power. This is with some of the provincial conservative governments routinely condemning the federal liberals for their efforts on climate change, bringing lawsuits to the supreme court and even putting advertising stickers on all provincial gas pumps condemning the carbon tax—until the practice was stopped by the courts.

Mind you, this kinder, gentler conservatism might be just to impress the voters. Time will tell.

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Dredging Down in Green.

October 4, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Congratulations to the new leader of the Green Party of Canada. The party has selected a Torontonian named Annamie Paul to be its new leader. The party leader is a 47-year old lawyer.

As in the recent conservative party election, it took considerable counting to arrive at a majority choice. Ms. Paul was selected after eight counts of the ballots to arrive at a choice by over 50 per cent of the voters.

As the mathematics works in a preferential ballot, it is not necessarily the primary choice of candidate who wins when there is a large number of candidates in the running. In each subsequent count, the last candidate in the count is dropped off the ballot and that candidate’s second votes go to the indicated candidates. One of the possibilities in that form of balloting is the election of the candidate known as ‘None of the Above.’ It is when none of the multiple candidates achieves a count in excess of 50 per cent.

Without a rule to cover this situation, a secondary balloting process becomes necessary—less the candidate who came last in the first ballot, of course.

While there is, at least one candidate challenging the correctness of the Green Party vote, there is little likelihood of the count being declared invalid. Paul led in many of the ballots and ended up with just over 12,000 of the 24,000 votes cast.

Ms. Paul succeeds Elizabeth May who led the Greens for the past 13 years and was the first Green Party candidate elected to the House of Commons. The Toronto native has already been nominated to contest the upcoming bye-election for the Toronto Centre electoral district.

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Please Note: If you intend to castigate me for criticizing the preferential voting, please come up with some better arguments.

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This business of news.

October 2, 2020 by Peter Lowry

From an early age, I was always fascinated by this business of news. Understanding news as a commodity is an essential background for people in the business. It helps if you are a fisherman. It is best you get the value for your product before it ripens.

One of my first jobs was with the Toronto Globe and Mail. It was experience in every department. While a titular national advertising sales person, I found myself in meetings with the publisher, getting banned again from the strictly union composing room, chatting with reporters, writing editorial for travel and trouble-shooting with annoyed advertising agencies.

This was all on top of some very good early training in broadcast reporting and production. I never liked my performance on radio or television but the experience was helpful to others. It provided an easy segue into a later role in the computer industry. I was an early adopter.

One of the most annoying aspects of news has been how computer services such as Google and Facebook think they know about news—and use it at their will, without payment or understanding of the product.

One of the best examples of the bad use of news has been by Microsoft. The computer company takes a mishmash of news, Hollywood pandering and hard advertising, mixes it for the opening pages of Internet services and might forget to pay the news companies that paid reporters to produce the news content.

What I have failed to understand was the unwillingness of politicians and regulators to recognize copyright on that news content. Even in the freely distributed product of the Hollywood gossip mills, there is an inherent copyright to the name of the personality being plugged. After all, how do the Kardashians make any money if their name is left out?

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What if we had switched the speeches?

September 27, 2020 by Peter Lowry

Justin Trudeau short changed us. It was so obvious. The speech read by the governor general should have been for the United Nations (UN). It was dull and obvious but better suited to the world body as it lacked enthusiasm, adventure, inspiration or drive. It was boring and so much of it was just a rereading of promises of the past.

The attendees at the UN headquarters in New York last Friday got the gist of what a real throne speech should be. They could enjoy their speech. Presented on giant screens in the main hall, their speech had gravitas and credibility.

Mr. Trudeau delivered the speech to the UN and he put an effort into it. His words were important. His premise was that the pandemic has exposed the failures of humans to make the systems they had created for the UN to work. They are not working for the countries of the UN.

Trudeau might as well have said to Canadians that the systems to make the Canadian Federation work more that 150 years ago have also failed us. And it is our politicians who are to blame. They fear the need to modernize. They fear change.

The Canadian prime minister told the United Nations members that the world is in crisis. He did not admit that to Canadians two days earlier.

But facing facts, how many politicians do we know who will admit they do not have a clue on how to fix the world’s problems.

Mr. Trudeau called for a new way of thinking “on climate, inequality and health.”

He complained that “to often, concerted action is blocked—the needs of our citizens are denied.” He said this was because there are few consequences for countries that ignore international rules.

He made direct reference to countries that find few consequences when opposition figures are being poisoned “while cyber tools and disinformation are being used to destabilize democracies.”

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But all we got was business, as usual.

September 24, 2020 by Peter Lowry

It was supposed to be a reset. We were waiting for the grand scheme. Frankly, the Governor General’s speech was boring and really nothing we had not heard before. It took too long to read. It took little time to critique. And the prime minister wasted our time with his recap.

If this stance was chosen as a chance to sucker the opposition into an election, it might make some sense. Neither the leader of the conservatives nor the leader of the bloc québécois seemed sick enough to get any sympathy votes for having caught covid-19. It comes down to the new democrats. And it is really hard to believe that Jagmeet Singh has the intestinal fortitude to want to force an election.

Nor do we see the new democrat caucus forcing Jagmeet to make the call for an election.

And what would it prove? A few more seats in Ontario for the conservatives would be the only upside for the Tories. A few more losses for the NDP to the liberals. And you end up with the status quo. That would hardly be to anyone’s advantage.

The weasel words on the environment and the oil industry were less that pleasing. It simply meant that the status quo applies which pleases neither Alberta politicians nor environmentalists. Jason Kenney and friends will continue to demand more pipeline support and Justin Trudeau will continue to say he is an environmentalist.

The major promise will be the day-care support from the federal government. This has to happen.

The only other promise of interest was the promise to address the needs of those incapable of earning a living. We will watch that one closely.

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The ‘Right’ advice for Freeland.

September 21, 2020 by Peter Lowry

It seems guaranteed that the liberals will introduce an extensive plan for child care on Wednesday. There are two factors pushing Chrystia Freeland in this direction. The first is the growing concern about a second wave of the pandemic and then the right-wing advice that she has been getting from previous liberal finance ministers. If she is listening to them, she will be shrugging off her chance to make a bold mark as Canada’s first female finance minister.

But what would you expect by way of advice by three of the most right-wing liberal finance ministers in the past 30 years?

Paul Martin set the stage in the 1990s with his draconian effort to produce a balanced budget by getting the money from Medicare. His right-wing style made Stephen Harper much more acceptable as prime minister but not to the extent then of giving him a majority government.

Former MP Paul Manley was another of the right-wing finance ministers consulted. He gave the advice that it was fun to spend money but less fun to have to shut something down (to pay the bills).

Long-serving Ralph Goodale did not divulge his advice but told the news media that Freeland is a highly consultative person. He did agree that child care spending adds both economic and social benefits. He sees this funding as contributing to gender equality and gender fairness.

The upshot of all this advice is that we are expecting a less innovative speech from the Governor General. It looks as though Jagmeet Singh and his NDP will have to settle for promises we have all heard before.

There will be less innovation and less greening of our environment. Be prepared to be disappointed.

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Where does the Toronto Star get off?

September 20, 2020 by Peter Lowry

What? The Toronto Star threw a grenade at the idea of a guaranteed basic income the other day. The paper had me choking over my morning coffee. It had to be one of their senior female writers.

Toronto Star writer Heather Scoffield thinks the silver bullet needed today is more emphasis on high quality day care. Her premise seems to be that since, she thinks, we cannot look after all the needs of society, we should not.

I would not only question her judgement on the matter. I would challenge her mathematics. When discussing a guaranteed basic income, we need to stop adding on supplements for this and that. We need to understand that one size does not fit all and have a flexible management system that accommodates the needs of individuals.

And I have a hard time understanding why Scoffield thinks it would be legally difficult to replace the multiplicity of programs we have today with one basic program. There is highly likely to be some serious push back from the provinces when they see hundreds of their programs being wiped out.

But if this is a program that can really define this country for years to come—then it is worth the time and effort to implement it.

It is not that I disagree with the obvious need for good quality before and after school day care as well as affordable and high-quality day care. We can have those as well.

The liberals opened the door with the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB). It was a guaranteed income in all but name. It made the mistake though of pointing out how many Canadians were left out. It is when you realize how many are left out by all the previous programs that you realize the need to finally make this step into the future. We can do it.

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Trudeau’s circle does it again.

September 18, 2020 by Peter Lowry

It seems as though Justin Trudeau and his circle of friends are immune to learning from past mistakes. They no sooner manage to bury one of their gaffs and they come up with another. Now it is Justin’s good buddy, David MacNaughton, who has blotted his copy book.

McNaughton was Justin’s choice as Ontario campaign chair for the 2015 election. I expect I could have named four of five liberal apparatchiks who could have done a better job but Justin was pleased enough with MacNaughton’s effort to make him ambassador to Washington.

But, like his father before him, Justin tried for a repeat in the 2019 effort. It was when he tried to show how smart he was in his second campaign as leader that he ended up with a minority government.

When that happened to Pierre Trudeau in 1972, he brought in senior liberals and asked them for advice. On the advice of the party, Pierre brought knowledgeable party people into the prime minister’s office (PMO) and appointed Senator Keith Davey as the liberal party campaign manager.

Justin Trudeau did not ask for any advice and was soon enmired in the ‘WE Charity’ fiasco.

And what (temporary) civil servant does not carefully read his or her conditions of employment? MacNaughton has had more than enough temporary jobs in his career not to read the fine print. And yet, by not understanding the ‘conflict of interest’ law and by taking “improper advantage” of his position, he ran afoul of Mario Dion, the federal ethics commissioner.

MacNaughton was named Canadian president of U.S.-based spook-firm Palantir Technologies Canada just two weeks after officially leaving his position of ambassador. He had to wait a year before he could be selling the Canadian government the products of his new firm. It was just seven months later that he was in Ottawa offering their software capabilities for military planning and strategic analysis. (This is despite his claim that he was only offering a pro bono sample of the software to help with covid-19 planning.)

And anyone interested in computer analysis, planning and U.S. politics should read up on Palantir. It is fascinating reading.

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