Category: Repeat

The Democracy Papers.

by Peter Lowry

This is the eighth of the Democracy Papers written in 2007 in answer to the Ontario referendum that year on electoral reform.  The referendum was defeated but the need for reform continues to rankle.  We believe Canada must have an elected Constitutional Conference.  Electoral reform is just one of the topics to be brought to the gathering.  For this reason, the Democracy Papers are being updated and rerun.

Chapter – 8   Referendum could spell an end to democracy.

Do you want to trade our democracy for a parliament of minorities? Probably not, but that is one of the possible results of a referendum on mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting.   The people promoting MMP see it as the perfect opportunity for more minorities to have a say in the Ontario legislature.   They say it is fairer.   It is certainly more than fair to minority parties.   It is just not as democratic.

People promoting proportional representation argue that it is not fair for a party that might have won 45 per cent of the popular vote to win maybe 55 per cent of the seats in the legislature.   At the same time, they argue that a party that won 10 per cent of the vote but only 3 per cent of the seats should be given another 7 per cent of the seats to make up the difference.   That is how they see proportional representation working.

But all they prove by this argument is that they do not understand or want our democracy.   Evolving from the Parliament of Westminster, our democracy is not based around political parties.   It is a representative-based system of responsible government built on the principle that the people rule.   Added to the rule by the people is the protection of minority rights that makes democracy work.   This protection of minority rights has evolved to a strong judiciary.

But now people want to throw out the very basis of our electoral system.   They want it based on parties and not the representatives we choose.   They argue against the first-past-the-post election system that can see someone win with less that a plurality of votes.   These same people argue against run-off elections that could ensure that our representatives were all elected with majorities.   They argue that because what they really want is a parliament of minorities.

This can occur when many smaller political parties are created to take advantage of a political system such as proportional representation.   A recent example of proliferation of smaller parties occurred in the early 1990s when a number of new parties were formed to take advantage of changes in election funding.   With the taxpayers picking up more than 80 per cent of the cost of campaigning, Canadians found they now had new parties such as the Natural Law Party that had people as candidates who claimed they could levitate.

Other federal parties that formed or revived in this time of opportunity, and are still with us, are the Canadian Action Party made up of people who claim they do not approve of large banks or supra-national corporations, the Christian Heritage Party that claims principles based on biblical ethics, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and the Green Party.   These are all parties that would hope to have some of their people appointed to a proportional legislature.

In the proposed MMP system, a party needs at least three per cent of the party vote to be eligible for a portion of the appointments.   With as few as 200,000 votes across the province, a party could have no elected seats but be appointed to as many as five seats in the legislature.   From being a loser, this fringe party is being given a great deal of power.   They could demand concessions from a minority government for their support.   They could even demand seats in the cabinet.

What if the Green Party won enough party support across Ontario to be entitled to seats in a proportional legislature?   What are they going to do now that they are there?   There are few people who would complain about the Green Party’s objectives of preserving our environment.   In fact, the Green Party platform is actually well represented in the platforms of all the major parties.   Maybe not as prominent or as forceful but it is there.

The Green’s first choice might be to form a coalition with a party that needs a few extra bodies to form a majority government.   That is a common solution for legislative bodies with proportional voting systems.   The major party will promise to carry out some of the Green party’s ‘green’ promises, which are in its platform anyway, in exchange for the voting support to keep the party in power.

At the same time, consider how a larger party, needing a partner to form the government, accommodates a minority party with absolutely no similar policies?   For the Conservative Party, for example, to find any common ground with the Marxist-Leninists or the Canadian Action Party would be difficult.

The problem is the narrow focus of most of these splinter parties.   They can rarely win a riding because of that narrow focus.   They bring nothing to the legislature but their narrow view.   And they only represent the people who share their view.   Given enough of these parties, the legislative body can descend into a parliament of minorities.   Who then represents you?

©Copyright 2007, 2011, Peter Lowry

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

The Democracy Papers.

by Peter Lowry

This is the seventh of the Democracy Papers written in 2007 in answer to the Ontario referendum that year on electoral reform.  The referendum was defeated but the need for reform continues to rankle.  We believe Canada must have an elected Constitutional Conference.  Electoral reform is just one of the topics to be brought to the gathering.  For this reason, the Democracy Papers are being updated and rerun.

Chapter – 7  Asking the ‘Why’s’ of the referendum.

In the 2007 provincial election, Ontario voters were presented with a referendum question that was not just a choice between one electoral system and another.   It was a challenge to the democratic principle of one person: one vote.

The referendum question was whether you favoured the current first-past-the-post electoral system or would you like to have something called mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting that was proposed by Ontario’s Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform?

Superficially, the citizens’ assembly proposal could be seen as fairer.   It was not.

The first and most basic difference about the proposed system was that voters would get two votes, one for an individual candidate and one for a political party.   If you vote for the individual, are you not, in fact, voting for that candidate’s party?   Think about it. Under what circumstances would you, as a voter, want to vote for a candidate and then vote for another party?

This can produce a frown on a thinker’s face.

‘Ahh but,’ a little ‘idea light’ comes on.   ‘Maybe,’ you think, ‘I can vote for the individual and then for a party that I would like to see represented in the legislature.’

That idea produces an even deeper frown.   This ‘why’ is confusing.   It is ‘why can’t this party get anybody elected to the legislature?   Will their members not be as good legislators as the candidate I already voted for?   Are they going to be a second class member of the legislature, members with seats but who do not report to any constituents other then the party bosses?   Do these appointed people represent their party or me?’

And the questions continue.   They become even more complex.   And there is really nowhere to turn with questions where you might expect an unbiased answer.

To be fair, and Ontario voters are fair, they might ask questions of some of the cheerleaders for the citizens’ assembly idea.   The citizens’ assembly web site can explain that now a party with ten per cent of the popular vote can be topped up to have ten per cent of the seats in the legislature.   ‘That is generous,’ you respond, ‘but why does your proposal, in turn, take the win away from a party with 53 per cent of the elected seats but only 40 per cent of the party vote?

The mathematical implications of MMP voting are staggering.   There are many permeations and scenarios that can be as intriguing as they are frightening.   The conclusion is that the most likely split of candidate and party vote is where there is a strong candidate who has earned a personal following but whose voters usually support other parties.   This scenario can only work against the smaller parties.

The MMP cheerleaders such as Fair Vote Ontario will also tell you that more women and minorities can be appointed to the legislature from the party lists.   That evokes a very big ‘why?’   If you look around the legislature as it is at the present, you will see women and various minorities already there.   Many of these people will be insulted if you suggest to them that they could be appointed instead of elected.

The MMP cheerleaders also tell you that the at-large, supernumerary appointees to the legislature under MMP will be eager to represent voters in ridings that are not represented by their party.   That is a very nice fairytale but reality is that there is no incentive for persons who are representing a party to waste time looking after voters’ needs.   (In Germany where a mix of proportional representation is used, they had to create a petitions committee of the Bundestag to make sure voters’ concerns were heard.)

The appointed members under MMP are chosen by their political parties.   They would probably be chosen in very much the same way as Canadians choose the Senate of Canada.   They are just not as likely to be as useful.   These are the losers in the ridings and party hacks who do not want to have to run for election.   Under MMP, they would be mixed in with the general population of members.   We would never know if they do anything.   If we simply gave the party leader the number of votes to cast as these people would have exercised, it would be a far cheaper solution.

But the cheerleaders tell us that in the new MMP legislature, the parties will have to work together in coalitions and that the system will reward cooperation, compromise and accountability.   This seems based on the supposition that there would no longer be majority governments.   They think that minorities spell an end to partisan rigidity, trivial bickering and narrow thinking.   They obviously had not been to Ottawa lately to see how that minority government was getting along!

©Copyright 2007, 2011, Peter Lowry

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

The Democracy Papers.

by Peter Lowry

This is the fifth of the Democracy Papers written in 2007 in answer to the Ontario referendum that year on electoral reform.  The referendum was defeated but the need for reform continues to rankle.  We believe Canada must have an elected Constitutional Conference.  Electoral reform is just one of the topics to be brought to the gathering.  For this reason, the Democracy Papers are being updated and rerun.

Chapter – 5  Proportional voting comes at high cost.

If ‘mixed-member proportional’ (MMP) voting comes to Ontario, it is taxpayers who will pay, and pay, and pay! The Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform that came up with this aberration seems to have ignored the costs.   And you do not just multiply the number of appointed members (39) by $110,775 per year that we are now (2007) paying each of our MPPs. The salaries for the unelected supernumerary legislature appointees will only be the beginning.

To $4.2 million in salaries, you have to add far more for the care and upkeep of these party stalwarts.   For example, if you have not parked a car in downtown Toronto in the past few years, you might have no idea how much it costs to park all the MPPs’ personal autos at Queens’ Park.   Suffice to say, if they all travelled to the legislature by Toronto Transit Commission, we could probably buy each of them a nice compact car every couple years from the savings.

And do not forget that they have a subsidized lunch room and paid meals if the legislature sits late.   This is even a better deal when the legislature is not sitting.   Our MPPs collect additional pay and expenses for each day of committee meetings they attend during these times.   If the chair of the committee can arrange it, they also can get excellent perks by holding meetings at luxury locations with a decent golf course.

Nobody should complain about the cost of constant travel by members of the legislature if they are going to and from their ridings.   They represent the people in those ridings and need to meet with them on a regular basis.   The proposed political appointees to the legislature will only represent their party.   Can we hope the 39 political appointees will all be from Toronto?

The really expensive travels for our MPPs are on what are called ‘fact-finding missions.’   These are often arranged by the party whip after the doors are locked at party caucus meetings.   Imagine, if you will, the whip or party leader asking, “Who hasn’t been to Europe yet this year?   We have a lovely cruise down the Rhine for those who want to look as though they are checking on municipal sewage solutions.”

The party stalwarts get their pick of these plums.   Conversely, the caucus bad apple who made the mistake of arguing openly with the party leader will get offered a fact-finding mission to examine policing for unauthorized weapons on the streets of Baghdad.   (This probably explains why so few politicians are seen to argue with their party leader.)

As the 39 party appointees would obviously all be good party people, we can assume that they could get first pick at the travels if they are not kept busy with cabinet appointments.   That is its own expense item as cabinet members are not only paid more but do not have worries as mundane as parking problems.   They are driven at the taxpayers’ expense by government-paid chauffeurs.   No cabinet member is allowed to worry about things such as having toonies and loonies for parking meters.   (That is outside downtown Toronto where what you really need for parking is a paid-up, no-limit American Express card.)

The good news for party leaders with the citizens’ assembly proposal is that they can list all their potential cabinet ministers at the top of what the citizens’ assembly calls ‘list seats.   (Political people are calling them ‘loser seats’).   That way, if the cabinet hopeful loses in his or her riding, the leader still gets a chance to get them into the legislature.

Mind you, if out of the 90 members to be elected from ridings, your party gets 50 seats, you would expect to feel like a winner.   Yet, you might be a loser if you do not get as high a percentage of the party vote.   If the voters perversely only gave your party 40 per cent of the party vote, the complex formula might refuse you any list seats.   You need to have 65 members in total for a majority government.

Obviously there is endless speculation among political junkies about what could happen under MMP voting.   It is a potpourri of ‘what-ifs?’   Luckily for them, the citizens’ assembly did not have to worry about any of this.   The assembly members were chosen by lottery on the basis (one voter from every electoral district in Ontario) that they probably knew nothing about politics or voting systems.   And it appears that they really knew nothing.   They were indoctrinated and since they did not want to appear to be wasting the taxpayers’ time and money, they chose one of the options presented to them.  An expensive one!

©Copyright 2007, 2011, Peter Lowry

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

The Democracy Papers.

by Peter Lowry

This is the fourth of the Democracy Papers written in 2007 in answer to the Ontario referendum that year on electoral reform.  The referendum was defeated but the need for reform continues to rankle.  We believe Canada must have an elected Constitutional Conference.  Electoral reform is just one of the topics to be brought to the gathering.  For this reason, the Democracy Papers are being updated and rerun.

Chapter 4 – Brush up on your calculus for voting methods

In October, 2007, Ontario voters were presented with a referendum ballot that asked them if they wish to have mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting.   This is a system in which each of the political parties provides a list of people eligible to be appointed to 30 per cent of the seats in the legislature.   If chosen, these selected people would not have a constituency and would not be directly responsible to the electors.

On top of that, if the voters agreed to MMP, they would have to learn a new math.   It is all in the plan for MMP produced by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform.   What the citizens’ assembly attempted to do was to give more legislature seats to smaller political parties by appointing members to the legislature instead of electing them.   This requires a very confusing if not mind-boggling mathematical process for appointing 39 people to the legislature.

With this new math also comes a new language for elections.   The simplest of these terms is quotient.   We learned that one in the lower grades at school because it is what you call the answer when you divide one number by another.   The example given is when you divide the Ontario population of 12,160,000 by 90 electoral districts and you find there is a quotient of 135,100 people per riding.   Those are very large ridings.

But the quotient, according to this new math, can change if you have an ‘overhang.’   This is one of the more interesting of the new terms.   Overhangs occur when your party wins more local ridings than the number to which it would be entitled according to the party vote which has been separated from the candidate vote.

In effect, the system penalizes parties that win more seats than the citizens’ assembly think they should.   Under these game rules, parties who overhang will not get any of their list candidates appointed to the legislature.   A party with more elected seats than all other parties combined could thus be restricted in its ability to form a government.   The final results are determined by a calculation using something called the ‘Hare formula.’   This formula is used to help distribute seats to losing candidates.

This means a candidate who has lost the election in his or her riding can still be a member of the legislature because of the Hare formula.   Technically, loser candidates are known as ‘list candidates.’   These are people who run in ridings and are listed in order of preference by their political parties and the names are given to Elections Ontario before the election.   These listed people will be available for appointment to the legislature, only if they have been rejected by the voters in their riding.

What this means is that the citizens’ assembly was trying to give political parties the decision making power over that of the voters.   If the party’s candidates are rejected by the voters in a riding, the party can still appoint them.   This conclusion is not surprising.   Since the citizens’ assembly members were themselves chosen by lottery, there was no requirement for them to understand democracy.

Under this formula, to form a majority government, a party has to have a minimum of 65 members in the legislature, holding either riding or proportional seats.

Much of the 2007 effort of Elections Ontario was to try to simplify the citizens’ assembly proposal for Ontario voters.   We expect that was the reason literature spent little time clarifying the disproportionality figures.   We also remain somewhat in the dark about the so-called Loosemore-Hanby Index.

Luckily for Ontario voters, all this confusion was to be swept away by the people (one per riding) hired by Elections Ontario.   These people were there to explain MMP voting to Ontario residents before the October 10 election.   Elections Ontario decided to spend just $6.8 million on all of their educational efforts.   The ‘Yes’ side thought they should spend at least $13 million of taxpayers’ money to help people understand the proposal.   Judging by the mathematics involved, that figure was low.

The people who did not help clarify the situation were the Conservative and Liberal parties.   Why should they?   The proposal did nothing good for either of them.   The citizens’ assembly was just another election promise from Dalton McGuinty that he really should not have kept.

But the funniest error of all was the union support that was going on riding by riding, organizing for a pro-MMP organization called Fair Vote Ontario.   The unions thought that MMP would bring the NDP more seats in the legislature.   Now there is a group that really needs to study the mathematics.

©Copyright 2007, 2011, Peter Lowry

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

The Democracy Papers.

by Peter Lowry

This is the third of the Democracy Papers written in 2007 in answer to the Ontario referendum that year on electoral reform.  The referendum was defeated but the need for reform continues to rankle.  We believe Canada must have an elected Constitutional Conference.  Electoral reform is just one of the topics to be brought to the gathering.  For this reason, the Democracy Papers are being updated and rerun.

Chapter 3 – Vote for a new system without knowing cost?

If ‘mixed-member proportional’ (MMP) voting had come to Ontario, it is taxpayers who would have had to pay, and pay, and pay! The Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform that came up with this aberration seems to have ignored the costs.  And you do not just multiply the number of appointed members (39) by $110,775 per year that was the current annual pay for MPPs. (They had recently given themselves a nice 25 per cent raise.)  The salaries for the unelected supernumerary legislature members would only be the beginning.

To $4.2 million in salaries, you have to add far more for the care and upkeep of these party stalwarts.  For example, if you have not parked a car in downtown Toronto in the past few years, you might have no idea how much it costs to park all the MPPs’ personal autos at Queens’ Park.  Suffice to say, if they all travelled to the legislature by Toronto Transit Commission, we could probably buy each of them a nice compact car every couple years from the savings.

And do not forget that they have a subsidized lunch room and paid meals if the legislature sits late.  This is even a better deal when the legislature is not sitting.  The MPPs collect additional pay and expenses for each day of committee meetings they attend during those times.  If the chair of the committee can arrange it, they also can get excellent perks by holding meetings at luxury locations with decent golf courses.

Nobody should complain about the cost of constant travel by members of the legislature if they are going to and from their ridings.  They represent the people in those ridings and need to meet with them on a regular basis.  The proposed political appointees to the legislature will only represent their party.  Can we hope the 39 political appointees will all be from Toronto?

The really expensive travels for our MPPs are on what are called ‘fact-finding missions.’  These are often arranged by the party whip after the doors are locked at party caucus meetings.  Imagine, if you will, the whip or party leader asking, “Who hasn’t been to Europe yet this year?  We have a lovely cruise down the Rhine for those who want to look as though they are checking on municipal sewage solutions.”

The party stalwarts get their pick of these plums.  Conversely, the caucus bad apple that made the mistake of arguing openly with the party leader will get offered a fact-finding mission to examine policing for unauthorized weapons on the streets of Baghdad.  (This probably explains why so few politicians are seen to argue with their party leader.)

As the 39 party appointees would obviously all be good party people, we can assume that they could get first pick at the travels if they are not kept busy with cabinet appointments.  That is its own expense item as cabinet members are not only paid more but do not have anything as mundane as parking problems.  They are driven at the taxpayers’ expense by government-paid chauffeurs.  No cabinet member is allowed to worry about things such as having toonies and loonies for parking meters.  (Mind you, what you really need for parking in downtown Toronto is a paid-up, no-limit American Express card.)

The good news for party leaders with the citizens’ assembly proposal is that they can list all their potential cabinet ministers at the top of what the citizens’ assembly calls ‘list seats.  (Political people are calling them ‘loser seats.’)  That way, if the cabinet hopeful loses in his or her riding, the leader still gets a chance to get them into the legislature.

Mind you, if out of the 90 members to be elected from ridings, your party gets 50 seats, you would expect to feel like a winner.  Yet, you might be a loser if you do not get as high a percentage of the party vote.  If the voters perversely only gave your party 40 per cent of the party vote, the complex formula might refuse you any list seats.  You need to have 65 members in total for a majority government.

Obviously there is endless speculation among political junkies about what could happen under MMP voting.  It is a potpourri of ‘what-ifs?’  Luckily for them, the citizens’ assembly did not have to worry about any of this.  The assembly members were chosen by lottery on the basis (one voter from every riding in Ontario) that they probably knew nothing about politics or voting systems.  And it appears that they really knew nothing.  They were indoctrinated and since they did not want to appear to be wasting the taxpayers’ time and money, they chose one of the options presented to them.

It was left to the voters to reject the concept.  During the 2007 election campaign, neither the Liberals nor Conservatives commented.  Most backroom politicos had other fish to fry at the time.  The NDP and the smaller parties embraced it.  That was understandable.

©Copyright 2007, 2011, Peter Lowry

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

The Democracy Papers. Revisited.

by Peter Lowry

The Democracy Papers were written in 2007 in answer to the Ontario referendum that year on electoral reform.  The referendum was defeated but the need for reform continues to rankle.  We believe Canada must have an elected Constitutional Conference.  Electoral reform is just one of the topics to be brought to the gathering.  For this reason, the Democracy Papers are being updated and rerun.

Chapter 1

It was the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform that suggested a ‘mixed-member proportional’ (MMP) electoral system be voted on in a referendum in the October, 2007 provincial election.   It was courageous because the citizens’ Assembly consisted of a majority of people who had no experience with politics, political parties or the various electoral systems they reviewed.   They must have assumed that the rest of Ontario’s voters were as confused as themselves.

The citizens’ assembly naively suggested in their deliberations that people have two votes, one for a candidate in an enlarged riding and the other for a party.   In this manner, they believe, there could be a fairer representation in the legislature of the popular vote between parties.   They never explained why this should be necessary.

The assembly members were under the impression that just because a party’s candidates receive maybe 15 per cent of the popular vote, then that party should be allowed to have 15 per cent of the seats.   The unasked question is: ‘Why?’

With only 15 per cent of the vote in a general election, your party is a loser.   Reality is that if your party cannot garner more than 15 per cent of the popular vote, it really needs to improve its platform strategy, reconsider its leadership and take a long hard look at its candidates.   To reward any party for this showing is to encourage mediocrity.

What used to happen to this 15-per cent party is that it got maybe three or four candidates elected.   This could be because these are outstanding people and the voters recognize this and vote for them despite their party affiliation.   It could also be that there is a large concentration of people sympathetic to the party’s ideals in that riding.   Or maybe so many people in that riding are related to the candidate and s/he cannot lose.   Whatever the reason, it does not take long to figure it out.

If, for example, you are the New Democratic Party, it is not hard to understand that the party can do well in areas of the province with a strong union vote.   While the party fields candidates in electoral districts where there might be little union support, such as in the more affluent parts of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), these party stalwarts are there to establish their credentials in the party. Realistically, they know to limit their campaigning to showing some signs and making appearances at all-candidate meetings.   And any long-term NDPer is realistic about how that works.   Most of the good workers in these throw-away ridings are asked to put their efforts into ridings with better possibilities.  And if the throw-away candidate makes a good showing despite the situation in the riding, they might be offered a more NDP-friendly riding next time.

Conservatives and Liberals have had to spread themselves over far more ridings.   While there is always a tendency to slack off a bit in ridings where an opponent seems entrenched, there will be a renewed effort whenever the incumbent shows any sign of weakness.

Until the early 1990s, Ontario political parties were ‘riding-centred.’   This meant that local electoral district (riding) associations used to have the right to choose their candidate without too much interference from party headquarters.   While the system tended to produce the occasional maverick, everyone agreed that the stodgy legislature needed some livening.   One of the problems with this was sometimes it was hard to find the right riding for a star candidate favoured by the party leadership.

Today, of course, party leaders control the ridings because they sign off on candidates so that they can be funded with taxpayers’ money.   The day of the maverick has ended.   Instead of being riding centred, Ontario has been forced into a centralized political structure.   One thing that the citizens’ assembly MMP voting could ensure is that Ontario politics stays locked into being centralized.

And there is no question that centralized politics is a natural breeding ground for corruption.   The classic study of this is New York City’s Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party organization that controlled the city and its boroughs for 80 years.

Ontarians do not have to look far to see the potential problems with a centralized system.  Québec’s federal Liberals have been a good example.   The Montréal-based party organization appointed Liberal candidates across the province.   And that is another reason why Paul Martin’s Liberals were dragged from power by the sponsorship scandal. Successive prime ministers, Chrétien and Martin had ignored the corruption-prone system at the roots of their Québec support.

But for the apolitical citizens’ assembly in Ontario, political history such as this would have been a bore.   They were given the option of several voting systems.   They thought they were doing their job when they chose one of them.   They just did not have the political experience to know in what direction their option would send the province.

©Copyright 2007, 2011, Peter Lowry

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

The Ontario government and its gambling addiction.

by Peter Lowry

This monograph originally ran June 22, 2009.  With the provincial election happening this year, it seems like a good time to remind readers of the fact that our kindly provincial politicians are doing more than messing up rates for electricity, depriving us of family doctors, confusing the education system and overcharging us for beer and booze.  They look after all our sins!

When writing recently about the Ontario government’s addiction to alcohol, it occurred to us that the more serious addiction is gambling. If we were a religious person, worried about the immortal souls of our fellow citizens of this wonderful province, we would be down at the Ontario Legislature every day on our knees praying for the Members of Provincial Parliament to be cleansed in the blood of the lamb and exhorting them to renounce their corrupt and venal ways of taking money from the suckers.

Since we are not religious and try to be tolerant of most organized religions—at least the less harmful and less strident ones—we take our concerns to Casino Rama. It is only 25 minutes from Babel.

Nobody can be sanctimonious at Casino Rama. The place is an ugly barn with delusions of some connection to a long-gone nomadic aboriginal culture. Inside it is all about the business of taking your money. There are few allusions about the staggering amounts of money the place earns for government coffers. The place is cheap, badly designed, with gaming tables uncomfortably wedged together, narrow aisles of dreary slots and the ill-lit gaming floor surrounded with the necessary food places and restrooms. The theatre is one of those curtained expandable areas where you usually expect to see basketball nets folded up and you sit on uncomfortable chairs to see has-beens and wannabes with the rare good act that will agree to do a cheap gig.

They certainly do not overpay the staff either. Awkwardly structured shifts, poorly trained supervisors, constant, intrusive surveillance leads to a high staff turnover and, too frequently, the imposition of new, ill-trained staff on the players.

Mind you most of the gamblers are also novices. It is why there are so many blackjack tables. Blackjack is a game that any jackass can play, and they often do. It is a social game but playing along with people who really know how to play is a rare and delightful event. Most times you are playing with people who have no clue as to basic strategy or money management. They think they can guess what will be the next card out of an eight-deck shoe. They are afraid to take a card when they really need one. The worst players are the ones who play two spots on the table because they are afraid to lose and figure (incorrectly) that they will win at least one of their bets and lose less money.

But no table game is going to make you a winner if you always make the same bet. If you don’t use a flexible money management system, the simple odds of the game say that you will eventually lose your money. It hardly matters what you are playing, the smart gambler is one who takes advantage of his or her wins. In horse racing lingo, it is called parlaying. You rarely ever see anyone doing that at Casino Rama. The exception is at the craps tables. The best gaming odds in the casino are at craps because these tables attract the most knowledgeable players. They know to push their bets during a hot roll.

The best kept secret at any Ontario casino is the information that casinos compile on frequent gamblers. Many players carry a card to each table or slot that can be mined by the casino for information on money won and lost. The casino knows who to encourage to come more frequently and those who are less welcome. Players are offered free shows, meals and other benefits based on the information generated by their cards.

But many of the freebies have been cancelled over the last while. Some feel the recession mood has hit the casinos while others feel that they figure people will come without the encouragement. The real reason is probably lost in the schizophrenic management of gaming by the province. Between the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and constant interference from the politicians, it is hard to tell who is running the games.

And we know who are the worst possible people to be meddling in gaming. They are the people who know the least about it: politicians.

– 30 –

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

Canada’s Liberal Party, moving right or left?

by Peter Lowry

(A version of this monograph was run January 29, 2010.  Not much has changed.)

The Toronto Star ran a series on liberal philosophy that ended with a summation by Tom Kent, the guru of the 1960 Liberal conference in Kingston Ontario. In advocating major social reform such as medicare, the Kingston conference fit the tenor of aggressive social action of the times 50-years ago.

The question is what is the tenor of our times now? First of all, there is the anger and frustrations people feel. Betrayed by the sanctimonious right and then left in the lurch by the left wing of the political spectrum, why should the voters trust them? The growing distrust of politicians has lead to both lethargy and perfidy in voting. Lower turnouts, confusing choices and destructive voting can leave politicians equating the voters with unruly children.

And why should the voters not take it out on the politicians.  Banks betray them. Business lies to them. Churches castigate them. Family ties have become more tenuous, easily broken. Who do you trust? Why do you want to trust them? The truth is, in life, we need trust. We need trust to live. Hedonism is lonely. There is no such thing as the truly self-sufficient person.

People used to believe in their church. They used to accept the doctrines but today it is much safer to be born again and connect directly with your God. Priests and pastors used to be there to help you find God but you found out in recent times that there are priests who fondle little boys and pastors who fondle the organist. Connect directly to God and you cut out the weak go-betweens. Unless you think your priest or pastor is God and that leads to all kinds of problems.

It is the same with business. If you put your trust in a company today, it will put you on tomorrow’s bread line.

Are you going to trust a political party that reads the polls and then tells you what you want to hear? Are you going to tell a pollster anything? Least of all, the truth?

Be honest, would you not rather have friends with benefits than a spouse? You will only change that course when you find someone who can hopefully share a family and, at least some of a life together.

And that explains only a small part of the problem. The political party that wants to connect with voters today has to exhibit leadership, direction, confidence, excitement and look good while carrying out its program. And yet, Barack Obama, who excited voters in the United States, is dropping in the polls in a post-coital period of blues. Sustaining the expectations in today’s society is a monumental and, maybe, an impossible task.

Michael Ignatieff is challenging Liberals to think of the party’s future but he also needs to have the party recapture some of its past. For example, it needs to go back to the Kingston Conference to rethink the social issues that the party saw at that time and why the party chose that direction.

It was a different party. It was a party with strength and drive across Canada. It was a truly national party that was built from the ground up. It was not the centrally directed and controlled party of today. It was a party with strong riding organizations, effective regional and provincial organizations, solid policy development at what was referred to as the grass roots. It was a party that recognized the rank and file member as the very essence of the party’s existence.

Regrettably, that old Liberal party is gone. Not that we want to be maudlin about its passing but we do have to be disappointed with the weak, sham of a party structure that has replaced it. It is the same with all parties. They are all run today from the top down. Stephen Harper revels in the God-like control he has on the Conservatives. Even Jack Layton cannot believe the control he has now of the union organizers who always had such control of the old, more contentious NDP. Michael Ignatieff was out of the country during the transition from a strong Liberal party and is still trying to come to grips with this party that he is supposed to control.

Maybe one of the problems Michael is having is that the party apparatchiks around him are from the right wing of the party. Trying to find some left wing liberals in Ottawa is a tough job. People like John Manley who took over the right-wing role of president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives are among those around John Chrétien and Paul Martin who opened the door to Harper’s neo-conservatives. They have left our country floundering in the hands of an economist who in the last election refused to recognize the crumbling world economic problems.

It will only be a rebuilt Liberal party that will enable Canadians to once again have a confidence in politicians. There is a long road ahead……….

– 30 –

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Comment for today.

by Peter Lowry

(First run  Mar. 30, 2010)

The Americans have their new tea party, Canada the wild rose right,

They’re built on the ignorance: only people with money have might.

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