A recently released report from Statistics Canada, "Greenhouse gas emissions from private vehicles, 1990 to 2007" shows that, on average, Greater Sudbury is now the second dirtiest city in Canada. The study, available through the Statistics Canada website, provides some startling revelations for anyone who lives in a community where residents rely primarily on cars to get around town (click here for the study's highlights).
The study reports that the Transportation Sector produces approximately 27% of all greenhouse gases generated in Canada. Of that, road transportation accounts for 69%. On average, 2,149 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions are produced for every Canadian from personal vehicle use alone!
Of course, not everyone contributes equally to the production of greenhouse gases from personal vehicles. People who don’t own vehicles, for example, contribute nothing to these totals, yet they are impacted just as much by rising emission levels. According to Statistics Canada, the wealthiest amongst us (those making more than $100,000 a year) produce, on average, a staggering 5,737 kg of greenhouse gas emissions from personal vehicle use.
In Greater Sudbury, 2,844 kg of greenhouse gases are produced from personal vehicles for every resident, which makes us the second dirtiest city in Canada, behind only Kingston (at 3,035 kg per person). In contrast, Montreal, Canada’s lowest level per capita emitter, produces only 1,219 kg of greenhouse gases per person from personal vehicles.
There is no question that Greater Sudbury profited from the economic boom of the last decade. While there were economic benefits, we must acknowledge that we’ve made choices which have led to our disproportionate contribution to Canada’s greenhouse gas emission totals. These greenhouse gas emissions are fuelling the climate crisis.
To compensate, we need to start making investments in alternative means of transportation, in order to better facilitate walking, cycling and public transit use. A significant number of Sudburians do not own personal vehicles, and many more are choosing to leave their cars at home in an effort to make a real contribution in the fight against climate change. However, as many Sudburians can attest, it’s not exactly easy getting around this city on foot or by bicycle. This has got to change.
While there remains the need to improve infrastructure for cars, we can’t neglect necessary improvements for those making green transportation choices, whether by design or because of personal economic circumstances. We need safe, well-designed sidewalks and pedestrian crossings, especially for seniors and for those living in outlying areas. Designated lanes on major roads for bicycles, and more public bike storage will encourage more cyclists to take to the road without fearing for their personal security.
Together, we can do a lot to improve our community without significant cost. Mainly, what’s required is a change in the way we think about transportation. In our community, Rainbow Routes has recently been leading an exercise to produce a Sustainable Mobility Plan for active transportation. A presentation before Council is currently scheduled for the evening of June 16th, 2010, at Tom Davies Square. Efforts like these are a good start in moving forward with changing perceptions about transportation.
Let’s all try to lower Greater Sudbury’s overall greenhouse gas emissions by making the healthy choice to leave our personal vehicles at home a little more often. It’s time to start thinking more about walking, cycling or taking the bus.
(originally submitted as a letter to the Editor of the Sudbury Star, May 20 2010; as of this date, the above letter has not been published)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Smorgasblogpost
I’ve been away from the blogging for the past little while. Real life seems to have a way of intervening, and taking up many of my hours. So, today, in an effort to try to catch up on a few things, I’m going to deliver a bit of a smorgasboard of issues. In no particular order. And I use the word "smorgasboard" deliberately here, although I might have chosen "salad bar" instead. "Smorgasboard" is a tip-of-the-hat to my highschool music teacher, Mr. Darraugh, who used words in a way which were highly appropriate, if somewhat unexpected. Earn the Burn, baby!
Policy Resolutions for the Party Convention
So, the Green Party Convention is coming up (August 20-22, in Toronto). Early Bird registrations must be in by June 5th. I have to say, I like what the Party is doing, charging registration fees by Zone. I’m in the Zone closest to Toronto, so I get dinged with the biggest fee, but realistically, that’s ok, because I have a much shorter distance to travel, and far smaller travel costs than many others who will be heading to T.O. for the convention. I was a little surprised at the cost, not having attended past conventions, but I like the tax receipt. I’m looking forward to attending this year, and meeting many Greens face to face, most for the first time.
What I’m most looking forward to in the near future, though, is seeing all of the proposed Policy Resolutions up on the website. From what I’m hearing, there may be some very interesting resolutions proposed indeed. We Party Members need to use the time pre-convention to hash things out: identify our support for desirable resolutions, and try to have the problematic ones amended or outright kiboshed. I’ll certainly be hanging out on the Party’s website, adding my two-cents.
Some of the interesting ones I’ve been hearing about:
1) A Resolution from Federal Council proposing to change our by-laws to remove the requirement for a Leadership Contest, and replacing it with a leadership review 6-months after a federal election (I’ll be supporting that resolution, or a variation of it, because if we don’t change our by-laws, we’ll be obligated to have a leadership contest in the fall. I believe having a contest now, in advance of an anticipated federal election, is the very worse thing that we as a Party can do.
2) A Resolution from a nominated candidate on allowing elected MP’s to vote their conscience on certain issues, such as abortion and marijuana legislation (and presumably other issues, if added to a list). Right now, I don’t think I’ll be supporting that resolution, as I strongly believe that Greens, when elected, should vote in accordance with member-approved policy, unless there is some very good reason why they shouldn’t.
Coalition Talk
Seems like the pundits are speculating that talks are under-way between prominent Liberals and NDP-types (Chretien’s and Broadbent’s names are mentioned) in an effort to see whether or not some sort of deal might be reached to bring the two parties a little closer together in terms of how they approach the next election or the period shortly afterwards.
Although the folks over at Rabble.ca are always up to the challenge, there’s no sense on speculating whether these talks might lead anywhere. I just can’t see the Liberals and NDP agreeing not to run candidates against each other anywhere, unlike the sort of talk Gillian Steward reports that Alberta Provincial Liberal Leader David Swann has been on about.
However, these talks might actually go somewhere, especially if Ignatieff’s poll numbers keep plummeting (I don’t think that they will...I mean, how low can they really go? Not much lower than they are currently. I have to figure that the numbers are scrapping the top of the Liberal core vote right about now, at around the 25% mark).
Many in the Green Party will be tempted to try to force our way into those talks (we certainly won’t be invited, as we have so very little offer either the Liberals or the NDP, and in fact, we pose more of a threat to either of them if it starts looking like we’re a "legitimate" party).
Mark Taylor has already given his opinion on whether the Green Party would benefit from joining an NDP-Liberal Coalition. Here’s mine:
The Green Party has nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by agreeing to some sort of formal coalition with these two parties, especially if that agreement means that we don’t run candidates in certain ridings. I’ve always been a firm believer in the need to offer voters a true choice, and not just the "best of a bad lot" in an effort to get rid of a government. If we are serious about democracy, we need to be able to offer voters a Green choice, even if it’s just a paper candidate.
The policies of the NDP and the Liberals are not our policies; they are the tired policies of the brown economy, and although they’ve started to green themselves a little bit, both parties are still a long way from where they need to be. Simply put, Orange and Red don’t make Green.
And, from a practical side of things, if we were to bully our way into some sort of coalition, likely our condition for inclusion would be to have the NDP and Liberals back down their candidates in Saanich-Gulf Islands, so that our Leader would run virtually unopposed against the Conservatives. That...would be a minimum. And likely that would be the only riding offered to the Greens. Again, we bring so little to the table.
Where would that leave us, though? A whole federal election would slip by, and we’d be involved primarily in one riding. And what about our own issues? Would this bring us any closer to a carbon tax? Or proportional representation? I doubt it.
No, an NDP-Liberal coalition likely won’t materialize pre-election anyway. All bets are off, though, after an election is held, and if the balance of power could be shifted away from a hypothetical Conservative minority situation, I think that the NDP and Liberals would be foolish to continue to let Harper govern in that circumstance. And if we have a few Greens elected in the mix, well, that would certainly change things up a little bit. The problem would be, who would lead? Ignatieff and Layton would have just been "rejected" at the ballot box, having not formed a government (the same problem which the "Coalition" faced back in 2008 with lame-duck Dion at the helm). The Liberals aren’t even in a position to offer up a good second-choice (unlike Gordon Brown’s gambit in the U.K., resigning as Leader of the Labour Party in an attempt to entice Nick Clegg to join a coalition; Labour had a number of quality candidates waiting in the wings. The Liberals have...Bob Rae, who I like, but whom many Liberals really don’t like...and even fewer NDP like). Maybe Layton should lead, if the NDP does better than they did in 2008.
Ah, but there’s no use speculating, I think I said earlier. But it’s oh-so fun!
Deep Water Oil Drilling
With the ongoing environmental disaster occurring south of the border, I know that many Canadians are thinking about deep water drilling. I’m glad to see that the press in Canada has started to talk about what could happen here, and is concluding that, yes, such a disaster really could happen in Canadian waters and we need to be vigilant. They’re not swallowing the government line that our Regulations are so much better than the American’s (because the fact is, they aren’t, and if anything, they’re worse!).
Yes, it’s true that in the States, a lot of the media coverage seems to be focussed around BP’s techno-fixes or the finger-pointing game (which is much more interesting that watching oil float on the surface of the ocean). But the slick has started to make landfall now, and dead seabirds coated in tar do make for good TV, so we can expect a bit of a shift in U.S. coverage for a few days. I’m almost tempted to say that the fact that BP’s techno-fixes seem to keep failing looks good on them...but the environmental damage from the uncapped well is just too great for me not to want it to stop.
As reported in Sun Media, a recent Leger poll about deepwater drilling suggests that a majority of Canadians are really very uncomfortable with drilling; 54% want drilling suspended until safety concerns can be addressed; another 24% want drilling stopped altogether. To me, that means that Canadians really are cognizant of the disaster going on in the Gulf, and are aware that the same can happen here. That level of awareness is encouraging. And some in the media have started drawing the connection between the environmental devastation taking place in the Gulf with that taking place in the tar sands. Good.
Neighbourhood Gardens
One of the things which has been occupying my time lately has been my involvement with a new community garden, which is going to be built this weekend in a municipal park close to my home. A lot of work has gone into this initiative, and I have to say that I’ve been overwhelmed with all of the positivity coming out of this. Donations are being made by community businesses, the City has been incredibly supportive, the local Councilor has been on-board since day one, and the media has started to cover the garden. All in all, it’s been just great so far.
I recall attending one of the first meetings where the Community Garden was discussed, and went home and talked to my wife about it. She told me that she would do something similar in our backyard, which has essentially been "wasted space" from her perspective (my dog, who spends most of his time out in the yard, was not consulted). Since we live in a mixed neighbourhood where there are good number of apartments, we figured that it would be easy enough to generate interest to have between 6 and 8 garden planters, which people in our neighbourhood could use to grow their own vegetables in. Our yard is entirely fenced in, thanks to the dog, and we’d be comfortable with people coming and going (and we suspect that the dog would too, if properly introduced up-front).
Little neighbourhood gardens on un-used private yards! What a great concept, we thought.
Boy, were we ever mistaken. Our plans haven’t progressed very far, as we seem to have run into two issues, one of which seems insurmountable, the other just expensive to deal with.
Turns out that we’re not zoned for this sort of use. I spoke with a guy from the City about this, and he explained it to me: if you’ve got a garden in your yard for your personal use, well that’s considered accessory to the primary use (which is a residence, ie. living in your house), so that’s all kosher. However, inviting people to come and use your yard for the purpose of gardening is not accessory to the primary use (because the people you’re inviting to your yard are not primary users of the property). He said that 6 to 8 planters might not seem like many, but potentially how many people would that be bringing into your yard at any given time? What might your neighbours think of that (we fully anticipated discussing the garden concept in advance with our neighbours anyway...but if we were someone else and just went ahead without saying anything to anyone, well, ya, I can kind of see that a neighbour might not take too kindly to the idea). And, what if our property were bigger, as many other properties with the same zoning in the City are? What about 20 planter boxes? What about 50?
Anyway, I can see that zoning is an issue. A minor variance would be the answer, although the guy at the City cautioned that their Committee of Adjustment isn’t big on granting variances for use (they’re better with setbacks). However, the option remains available, although potentially it would be expensive, being $600 just to make an application, and who knows how much more for other documents, and maybe an appeal to the OMB. Still, though, it might be doable, right?
Wrong. I also spoke with my insurance company. They advised me that if I were inviting people onto my property to engage in a hazardous activity (gardening), and I were sued, they would drop me like a hot potato, and I would never get home coverage again. If you think about it, they’re actually onto something too, because they are looking out for my interests. As much as it might be funny to think that gardening isn’t all that dangerous of an activity (when compared to trying to get around this City on a bike...but I anticipate myself), the fact is people do find new and inventive ways to hurt themselves all the time. For example, I’m not a gardener; I tried my hand at some weeding the other day at another Community Garden in the City, just to see what it’s all about. I almost took my toe off with the whatever it was I was using (some kind of shovel-like implement). So, if that were to happen on my property, someone might be thinking "lawsuit" and my insurance company would be asking me why I was foolish enough to invite someone to do that in my yard in the first place. And while I told my insurance company that really this isn’t all that different than having a friend come over to help me change a light bulb and fall off of a ladder and sue me, they remarked that I really shouldn’t be engaging in that sort of activity either, and that I should change my own lightbulbs.
Anyway, I see where they’re coming from, and I see why the City is concerned as well. But it’s still disappointing. We’ve created so many rules in our society, that sometimes doing a good thing can be a dumb idea. I remember when I was reading a few years back about two separate fires. In the first fire, a building just outside of a municipal boundary (literally on the other side of the road) was burning, and the volunteer fire department rushed to the scent and put out the fire, saving the pets stuck inside the building. One of the firefighters was slightly injured, and had to miss work. Because he was injured outside of the municipality, there was no insurance coverage for him. Had he died, it would have been too bad so sad. The moral of the story: don’t fight a fire when there’s no insurance. Having learned from this situation, another fire happened just outside of a municipal boundary; realizing this to be the case, although the volunteer fire fighters rushed to the scene, they elected to watch the house burn to the ground, and all of the homeowner’s contents were destroyed in the process (no lives were lost). They caught royal hell from area residents. Talk about "no win".
And that’s where I think my wife and I are at with the backyard garden: "no win". Well, maybe my dog will be the ultimate winner, because it looks like he’ll be able to lord over the backyard for another year yet.
Sudbury Cyclists Union
One of the other initiatives that I’ve been involved with lately has been helping with getting a new advocacy organization off of the ground here in Sudbury. A few of us have decided that it’s time that Sudbury had a Cyclists Union, to advocate for the needs of the cycling community. We’ve seen so many streets being resurfaced and expanded lately, many with the benefit of federal stimulus money, but the City hasn’t considered the needs of cyclists. In fact, I’ve heard that the City couldn’t add bike lanes to the federally-funded projects because they would have had to expand the roads outside of the original envelopes to do so, and thus would not have been eligible for funding (yet another "oversight" for stimulus spending). In some cases, the City has been calling for wider curb lanes to accommodate the possibility of cycling, but aside from a few kilometres of bike lanes painted on two roads about 5 years ago, there’s been nothing new for cyclists in this City.
I often ride my bike to work. When I do, I’m taking my life into my hands. Sudbury doesn’t have the greatest reputation when it comes to roads anyway (or drivers, for that matter). Try riding a bike on the roads here. Many don’t: they ride illegally on the sidewalk. And I can’t blame them. It’s damn scary to be a cyclist on the road.
Recently, Statistics Canada released a report about greenhouse gases generated from personal vehicles. Per capita, the City of Greater Sudbury ranked as the second dirtiest city in all of Canada, behind only Kingston. Barrie clocked in at #3, although quite a ways back from Sudbury. Montreal was the best. Why was Sudbury so bad? Could be because of all of the SUV’s and pick-ups on the road here. But it also probably has something to do with the fact that if you want to get around town, likely you’re doing so in a personal vehicle of some sort, because forget about it if you’re a pedestrian or cyclist. Transit, also, leaves a lot to be desired, although apparently 1/3 of Sudburians who are within the age-range to own and operate a personal vehicle do not do so.
So, we’ll be moving ahead with the Sudbury Cyclists Union here locally. Not sure what it’s going to look like. We’re hoping to get a Steering Committee nominated at a meeting on June 24th. If you’re in Sudbury, look for us on Facebook ("Sudbury Cyclists Union), or come out to the presentation of the Sustainable Mobility Plan, developed by Rainbow Routes, on Wednesday June 16th (wear your helmet!). I...hope to be there too, but the last personal initiative that I’ve been involved with might impact my attendance.
Parenthood
Yes, my wife is due to give birth on June 16th. Just about everything that we’ve both been involved with these past couple of months have been in anticipation of this wonderful event. This is going to be our first child. So, needless to say, we’re both really excited about this. I’m hoping to take some time off of work when the baby is born. I suspect that some of the other things I’ve been involved with might have to be put on hold from my perspective as well, at least for a little while. Of course, if my constant availability on the home-front begins to grate on my wife’s nerves (a distinct possibility, or so I’m told), I may be looking to become more involved with some projects. I certainly continue to plan to attend the Convention in August.
And I think that brings things just about full circle for today. Hope you enjoyed the smorgasblog!
Friday, May 7, 2010
Some Observations on the UK Election, from a Canadian Green
I’m an election junkie, there’s no doubt about it. I’ve watched a lot of election coverage in my time, mainly Canadian, but also a fair bit of U.S. coverage as well. I recall staying up until 3 AM to see which way the votes in Florida would finally go back in November, 2000, only to go to bed disappointed, not knowing. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. It reminded me of a playoff game between the Washington Capitals and the New York Islanders back in the 80s, which I watched at my grandparent’s place in Newfoundland (already an hour and a half ahead of the Eastern Time Zone) which went into, well, I don’t know, quadruple overtime or something silly. I had no vested interest in the outcome (being a Leaf fan, I’m sure that I wanted both teams to lose, an impossibility to be sure, but nevertheless), but I watched it all unfold...or not, until a winner was declared.
Watching last night’s UK election was similar, only it became apparent quite early on that there would be no final resolution. And, as the polls predicted, there wasn’t. So it wasn’t like I was hanging on to the edge of my seat, waiting for Al Gore to score that game winning goal in the Florida Islander’s net.
Which, in a way, was kind of a relief, because it meant that I could sit back and enjoy the election coverage for what it was. Now, this was the first time that I’ve ever tuned into the BBC to watch their election coverage. You’ve got to understand that everything I knew about elections in the UK up until last night, I had learned from Monty Python’s "Election Night Special" sketch, where the Sensible Party goes head to head with the Silly Party. Me and a friend of mine in highschool actually parodied that sketch during a school field trip, but it was really only last night that I finally "got" the jokes about the swing and the swong - the swong being kept alive in cardboard box with airholes. But I digress.
So, let me offer to you, dear reader, a few of my observations on the UK election. At least those parts that I saw covered on BBC.
The Results are In, Part 1
First of all, I raced home from work last night to watch the results pour in. The polls closed at 10pm local time – 5pm here in the Eastern Time Zone. I arrived home at 5:30, ran straight to the TV, passing my wife in the hall with barely an acknowledgment and without our usual welcome home kiss, turned the TV on to the BBC and....watched them discuss their Exit Poll and interview B-list British celebs I’d never heard of for the next hour.
Apparently, they do things a little differently on the other side of the pond. In Canada and in the U.S., the media appears to be plugged into receiving the results from each individual polling location, and then eventually declares a winner in a riding where the received results can be extrapolated as representative of all of the results (essentially, declaring a winner before all votes are counted). Only in close races do they wait, and even then, winners are often declared by the media before all polling locations report. "Official" results, of course, will be reported on the next day, like last night’s lottery numbers. We’re very big into receiving instantaneous information in our election coverage over here. Of course, sometimes media outlets look a little foolish, having declared someone a winner based on an extrapolated result, only to have to retract the declaration, as most US media did in 2000, giving Florida to Gore, and then to Bush, and then to neither. But even that makes for good TV!
Well, as I found out, it doesn’t work that way in Britain. Instead, it seems that all of the ballots might be brought to a central location (I saw one shot of people sitting at rows of tables, counting ballots...looked to be hundreds of people, so there’s no way that could have been a single polling station), counted, and the results are reported to the Chief Returning Officer. Finally, the CRO goes onto a stage, where all of the candidates are lined up in alphabetical order (or a close approximation of) behind the CRO, wearing their huge, gaudy, party-coloured badges. And then the results are read out, and the winner is declared. And that’s what the media reports: actual results.
What it means, though, is that the view has to wait a little while for all of the votes to be counted before knowing the actual outcome. That seems so strange...and then it seems so not strange at all! I mean, think about it...we here in North America don’t really seem to care so much about counting all of the votes. Examples: moments after polls close, the media "awards" certain ridings to a Party which has polled consistently well there. Take Alberta. Polls close at X o’clock. Well, within the next minute, the CTV (who always likes to be first) awards the whole province to the Conservatives, this before any votes are counted. And usually they get it right.
Stage Managed
Anyway, back to the UK. I really like that all of the candidates are brought out together, and they each receive a moment’s worth of recognition, in the public’s eye. While there are over 600 ridings to report, the speed at which results trickle in, given this system, means that most of the time, BBC was able to go live when a result was being reported. And the BBC announcers did not often talk over the CRO, even when the results were being reported for a guy dressed up like Jesus on the Cross representing the Monster Raving Loony Party (I'm not making that up), who most would have to figure really wouldn’t have much of a hope of winning. It was respectful. And much better than reporting from a candidate's "victory celebration" in some rented party room like we do here.
Bantering Brits
I also noted that BBC commentators don’t seem to shy away from calling some of the politicians out when foolish remarks are made. Once, they were interviewing a Conservative Party MP live, when the camera cut away to other coverage of a car driving down a dark street. The voice-over interview continued, but the announcer tried to get the MP to stop talking. "We now have pictures of Gordon Brown on his way to" wherever he was being driven in that car. The Conservative MP, not missing a beat, "Oh by all means cut away from me to follow a car driving down the road." or something like that, which was kind of funny and kind of true at the same time. Whatever it was, though, in Canada, no media would have touched that remark; it would have been left hanging. This announcer, though, went on to scold the MP to the effect of saying that his remark was completely uncalled for! The thing about it was, though, that this kind of fearless, unscripted banter, made for really good TV!
The Results are In, Part 2
Well, it looks like sometime in the middle of my night, the results came in for Brighton Pavilion, the one and only riding I was actually watching for all night long, but eventually gave up on before going to bed. In Brighton Pavilion, located somewhere in Sussex, apparently, Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas was running against a new Labour candidate in a Labour-held riding where the incumbent had stepped down (and what was with about 150 MP’s stepping down for this election? Many because of scandal, apparently, involving their expenses being made public! Something that the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP are all in agreement on that MP’s in Ottawa should not be obligated to do!). The media and the bookies were both predicting the Green Party’s first seat in a UK election (yes, apparently you can bet on election outcomes in Britain, although I don’t think they have a state-sponsored lottery that lets you do so).
Anyway, congratulations are in order to Caroline Lucas, who took Brighton Pavilion for the Greens with 31.3% of the vote, to Labour’s 28.9% and the Conservatives’ 23.7%. This apparently represented a constituency swing of 8.3% from Labour to the Greens, whatever that means. Well, whatever it means, it means that Lucas will now sit as a Green MP in Westminster.
Green With Envy
The Green Party, overall, gathered only about 1% of the popular vote, yet still managed to elect an MP. Contrast that with Canada’s Green Party, which received 6.7% of the national vote in the 2008 election, and elected nobody. Apparently, in the UK election, the Green Party was following a strategy of putting most of their resources into 3 "winnable" ridings (including Brighton Pavilion), and running candidates on shoestring budgets in only half of the other UK ridings. What I found interesting about this strategy (aside from the fact that it worked) is that it worked with Green candidates in only a fraction of UK ridings.
Now, it’s true that there were other Green Parties involved in this election which might have taken some of the popular vote. There was a Scottish Green Party and a Green Party (Northern Ireland) which ran candidates in their local regions or "nations" as they refer to Scotland and Wales (do they call Northern Ireland a nation? I didn’t catch that reference if they do). So, perforce the Greens under Lucas were not going to run candidates everywhere.
Interestingly (to me, at least) is the fact that none of the Parties actually run candidates in all of the ridings. In Northern Ireland in particular, there were no Conservative or Labour candidates, and maybe not even Liberal-Democrats. Seems like "national" ("regional") parties, some small "c" conservative, some small "l" liberal/labour, are the norm in that part of UK, likely based on many of the complicating factors Irish political history has been famous for. Point is, though, none of the parties run everywhere, and maybe that’s why the Greens thought that they could still be serious if they ran candidates only in some places, and not others.
Personally, I’m not a fan of this approach. If I were a Green voter in a riding where no Green was running, I would be forced to cast my ballot for a second choice. That’s hardly representing my interests. Yes, I understand, there might just not be the money available for the Party to run people everywhere (and I understand that there are many in the UK who are calling for party financing reforms right now), but I think that I would still feel cheated a little bit. So don’t anyone take this observation of mine as my thinking that we Canadian Greens would be better off to not run candidates in all ridings, because I do not feel that way (and not just because of the per-vote subsidy).
The Minor Parties
What struck me about the minor parties in the election, beyond the Northern Ireland / Scotland / Wales - specific "national" parties like the Ulster Conservative and Unionists - New Force, Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish National Party, was that there are a couple of other minor parties which seem to have some big ambitions, running candidates in many ridings in England (more than the Greens). Here I’m talking about the U.K. Independence Party (which I had never heard of prior to last night) and the British National Party (of which I was more familiar). UKIP garnered 3.1% of the national vote (more than 3x that of the Green Party) and elected nobody. The racist BNP received a (shocking) 1.9% of the vote, also electing nobody.
Since I don’t know much about UKIP, beyond their desire to take the UK out of the European Union, let me say a few things about the BNP. Apparently, this party had a "whites only" policy for Members until 2001, when they opened their membership rolls up to anyone non-whites foolish enough to join them. Their policies used to include the forced "repatriation" of non-whites to their countries of origin (or, if they were born in the UK, presumably ancestral country of origin), but that also fell victim to their "softening" in 2001. Now they just want to end all immigration, and promote the voluntary relocation of immigrants out of Britain. No doubt through creating a culture of hatred from which immigrants and upright British citizens alike might feel compelled to escape from.
And 1.9% of the electorate voted for these guys (and I do mean guys...all of the candidates seemed to be guys, at least the ones that I saw). That's. Just. Great.
The Lib-Dem Dilemma
Let me tell you about the Liberal-Democrats, Britain’s ne’er do-well third party. They’re kind of like Canada’s NDP (they even go in for the orange colour) in that they don’t form government, but they can play spoiler once every few decades (as they are doing right now). Unlike the NDP, this party sits between the right-wing Conservatives and the left-wing Labour Party, firmly occupying the middle of the political spectrum, if you believe the pundits. Having found out more about this Party, I’m not sure that I would agree outright with that statement, especially since Labour’s move to the right over the past decade, but for now, take it for granted that the Lib-Dems are centrists who not many really like.
For me, this situation is kind of like the situation federally in British Columbia, where voters seem to alternate between the Conservatives and the NDP, and the rest of the country can’t really understand why someone who voted blue in the last election would now want to vote for Jack’s boys and girls. Well, likely it’s because the Liberals in B.C., federally, have the same level of cred as the Lib-Dems do historically. And federal Liberal results seem to suggest just that. But I digress (again).
So, the Lib-Dems received 24% of the national vote last night, but only took 57 seats out of a parliament containing 650 seats (although, as an aside, apparently only 649 seats were up for grabs last night, as the election in Thirsk & Malton has been postponed, due to the death of a candidate. What a humane decision by someone. Not sure that a death of a candidate would put a stop to an election here). With 24% of the vote, one should have thought that Lib-Dems might have taken about a quarter of the seats available, which would have been 156, but instead they received almost 100 fewer seats than their proportion of the popular vote would have ascribed.
Needless to say, one of the big planks on which the Lib-Dems campaigned is changing the British electoral system from the increasingly archaic first-past-the-post system, to a more balanced form of proportional representation (which is apparently how legislators in Scotland and Wales are elected to National assemblies right now). After results like the Lib-Dems received last night, you can understand why they might be a little miffed with the system.
There Can Be Only One
Of course, now that all of the votes have been counted, there can be only one Prime Minister to emerge from the election. The way that the British system works (despite what Conservative Leader David Cameron, a Stephen Harper-wannabe, would have the British public think), Labour Leader Gordon Brown remains the Prime Minister until he: a) resigns, or b) loses a confidence motion in the House, when parliament resumes sitting on May 25. So, right now, Brown remains the PM. And it seems he’s not ready to resign.
Nick Clegg, Leader of the Lib-Dems, has a chance of playing King-maker. If he forms a partnership/coalition with the Conservatives, David Cameron will be able to govern as if he enjoyed a majority, and there’s nothing Labour can do to stop him. Most pundits, though, believe that Labour and the Lib-Dems are actually closer to one another politically, though, so it’s anything but a foregone conclusion that Cameron and Clegg will be able to work things out to the Conservative’s advantage.
And that’s probably why David Cameron and his Party have been going out of their way to convince the British people that Labour has no mandate now to govern, after having "lost" the election. We here in Canada have seen this all before, during the Coalition Crisis of 2008, when Harper and his cronies trotted out the same sorts of arguments, which many Canadians fell for, not understanding the way in which the system works. I was cringing last night when I heard Cameron say that Brown had been defeated. He hasn’t been; in fact, he was re-elected by his constituency. Yes, his Party lost seats in the House, but he’s still the Prime Minister. Brown might now have an opportunity to work with the Liberal-Democrats to build a partnership or coalition, and most importantly, to govern.
Clegg’s price for partnership, though, many have reported, is proportional representation, which is a no-go for the Conservatives. Labour hasn’t exactly been thrilled with it, but Brown apparently has been saying today that it’s time, especially given the lop-sided results experienced by the Lib-Dems last night. Even the Prime Minister can’t claim that first-past-the-post is at all fair, when it so obviously is not.
My prediction: we’ll see a coalition between Labour and the Lib-Dems, with Lib-Dems in cabinet. And maybe with another Party represented in cabinet as well.
Because, the fact is, a coalition between Labour and Lib-Dems still won’t be enough in terms of numbers for the coalition to govern as if it were a majority. Together, Labour and the Lib-Dems would have 315 seats to the Conservatives’ 308. But there are 28 other MP’s from "other" parties out there (and 1 seat which has yet to elect anyone) which, if they worked with the Conservatives, could topple the coalition.
So nothing is a foregone conclusion, unless some of the other minor parties are brought into a coalition. Likely one of the Labour-friendly parties from Northern Ireland could do it (the Democratic Unionist Party, with 8 seats, I think is a good candidate and has supported Labour traditionally). Plaid Cymru with 3 seats might another. Not sure about the Scottish National Party with 6 seats. Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland is a Conservative surrogate? I don’t have a clue.
Anyway, there is much which remains to be decided, but I’m sticking with my prediction. And I don’t think that there’s going to be anything like a "coalition crisis" in the UK as a result. I base that on, what to me seems to be, a knowledgeable media which isn’t afraid of stating facts clearly (something which I found to be lacking back in December 2008). Cameron can make a case, but ultimately the rules favour Brown (if he partners with Clegg). And "moral argument" or not, the British are probably more plugged in to how their system works than we in Canada are for the most part.
One Last Observation: Where Were The Women?
Yes, this is my last observation. With all of these parties running around trying to get elected, where the heck were all of the women leaders? Cameron, Clegg and Brown, all men. The only woman Leader I knew about last night was Caroline Lucas of the Green Party. I had to go online when I woke up this morning to discover that there were, in fact, very few women leaders for any of the other parties. Apparently, the Social Democratic & Labour Party, which took 3 seats in Northern Ireland (with only 0.4% of the national vote, mind you), is led by a woman. The only other woman leader I could find heads the anti-war Respect - Unity Coalition, which didn’t fare all that well, with less than 0.1% of the vote. What’s up with that? Frankly, I’m very surprised that there aren’t more women leading political parties in the UK.
Watching last night’s UK election was similar, only it became apparent quite early on that there would be no final resolution. And, as the polls predicted, there wasn’t. So it wasn’t like I was hanging on to the edge of my seat, waiting for Al Gore to score that game winning goal in the Florida Islander’s net.
Which, in a way, was kind of a relief, because it meant that I could sit back and enjoy the election coverage for what it was. Now, this was the first time that I’ve ever tuned into the BBC to watch their election coverage. You’ve got to understand that everything I knew about elections in the UK up until last night, I had learned from Monty Python’s "Election Night Special" sketch, where the Sensible Party goes head to head with the Silly Party. Me and a friend of mine in highschool actually parodied that sketch during a school field trip, but it was really only last night that I finally "got" the jokes about the swing and the swong - the swong being kept alive in cardboard box with airholes. But I digress.
So, let me offer to you, dear reader, a few of my observations on the UK election. At least those parts that I saw covered on BBC.
The Results are In, Part 1
First of all, I raced home from work last night to watch the results pour in. The polls closed at 10pm local time – 5pm here in the Eastern Time Zone. I arrived home at 5:30, ran straight to the TV, passing my wife in the hall with barely an acknowledgment and without our usual welcome home kiss, turned the TV on to the BBC and....watched them discuss their Exit Poll and interview B-list British celebs I’d never heard of for the next hour.
Apparently, they do things a little differently on the other side of the pond. In Canada and in the U.S., the media appears to be plugged into receiving the results from each individual polling location, and then eventually declares a winner in a riding where the received results can be extrapolated as representative of all of the results (essentially, declaring a winner before all votes are counted). Only in close races do they wait, and even then, winners are often declared by the media before all polling locations report. "Official" results, of course, will be reported on the next day, like last night’s lottery numbers. We’re very big into receiving instantaneous information in our election coverage over here. Of course, sometimes media outlets look a little foolish, having declared someone a winner based on an extrapolated result, only to have to retract the declaration, as most US media did in 2000, giving Florida to Gore, and then to Bush, and then to neither. But even that makes for good TV!
Well, as I found out, it doesn’t work that way in Britain. Instead, it seems that all of the ballots might be brought to a central location (I saw one shot of people sitting at rows of tables, counting ballots...looked to be hundreds of people, so there’s no way that could have been a single polling station), counted, and the results are reported to the Chief Returning Officer. Finally, the CRO goes onto a stage, where all of the candidates are lined up in alphabetical order (or a close approximation of) behind the CRO, wearing their huge, gaudy, party-coloured badges. And then the results are read out, and the winner is declared. And that’s what the media reports: actual results.
What it means, though, is that the view has to wait a little while for all of the votes to be counted before knowing the actual outcome. That seems so strange...and then it seems so not strange at all! I mean, think about it...we here in North America don’t really seem to care so much about counting all of the votes. Examples: moments after polls close, the media "awards" certain ridings to a Party which has polled consistently well there. Take Alberta. Polls close at X o’clock. Well, within the next minute, the CTV (who always likes to be first) awards the whole province to the Conservatives, this before any votes are counted. And usually they get it right.
Stage Managed
Anyway, back to the UK. I really like that all of the candidates are brought out together, and they each receive a moment’s worth of recognition, in the public’s eye. While there are over 600 ridings to report, the speed at which results trickle in, given this system, means that most of the time, BBC was able to go live when a result was being reported. And the BBC announcers did not often talk over the CRO, even when the results were being reported for a guy dressed up like Jesus on the Cross representing the Monster Raving Loony Party (I'm not making that up), who most would have to figure really wouldn’t have much of a hope of winning. It was respectful. And much better than reporting from a candidate's "victory celebration" in some rented party room like we do here.
Bantering Brits
I also noted that BBC commentators don’t seem to shy away from calling some of the politicians out when foolish remarks are made. Once, they were interviewing a Conservative Party MP live, when the camera cut away to other coverage of a car driving down a dark street. The voice-over interview continued, but the announcer tried to get the MP to stop talking. "We now have pictures of Gordon Brown on his way to" wherever he was being driven in that car. The Conservative MP, not missing a beat, "Oh by all means cut away from me to follow a car driving down the road." or something like that, which was kind of funny and kind of true at the same time. Whatever it was, though, in Canada, no media would have touched that remark; it would have been left hanging. This announcer, though, went on to scold the MP to the effect of saying that his remark was completely uncalled for! The thing about it was, though, that this kind of fearless, unscripted banter, made for really good TV!
The Results are In, Part 2
Well, it looks like sometime in the middle of my night, the results came in for Brighton Pavilion, the one and only riding I was actually watching for all night long, but eventually gave up on before going to bed. In Brighton Pavilion, located somewhere in Sussex, apparently, Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas was running against a new Labour candidate in a Labour-held riding where the incumbent had stepped down (and what was with about 150 MP’s stepping down for this election? Many because of scandal, apparently, involving their expenses being made public! Something that the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP are all in agreement on that MP’s in Ottawa should not be obligated to do!). The media and the bookies were both predicting the Green Party’s first seat in a UK election (yes, apparently you can bet on election outcomes in Britain, although I don’t think they have a state-sponsored lottery that lets you do so).
Anyway, congratulations are in order to Caroline Lucas, who took Brighton Pavilion for the Greens with 31.3% of the vote, to Labour’s 28.9% and the Conservatives’ 23.7%. This apparently represented a constituency swing of 8.3% from Labour to the Greens, whatever that means. Well, whatever it means, it means that Lucas will now sit as a Green MP in Westminster.
Green With Envy
The Green Party, overall, gathered only about 1% of the popular vote, yet still managed to elect an MP. Contrast that with Canada’s Green Party, which received 6.7% of the national vote in the 2008 election, and elected nobody. Apparently, in the UK election, the Green Party was following a strategy of putting most of their resources into 3 "winnable" ridings (including Brighton Pavilion), and running candidates on shoestring budgets in only half of the other UK ridings. What I found interesting about this strategy (aside from the fact that it worked) is that it worked with Green candidates in only a fraction of UK ridings.
Now, it’s true that there were other Green Parties involved in this election which might have taken some of the popular vote. There was a Scottish Green Party and a Green Party (Northern Ireland) which ran candidates in their local regions or "nations" as they refer to Scotland and Wales (do they call Northern Ireland a nation? I didn’t catch that reference if they do). So, perforce the Greens under Lucas were not going to run candidates everywhere.
Interestingly (to me, at least) is the fact that none of the Parties actually run candidates in all of the ridings. In Northern Ireland in particular, there were no Conservative or Labour candidates, and maybe not even Liberal-Democrats. Seems like "national" ("regional") parties, some small "c" conservative, some small "l" liberal/labour, are the norm in that part of UK, likely based on many of the complicating factors Irish political history has been famous for. Point is, though, none of the parties run everywhere, and maybe that’s why the Greens thought that they could still be serious if they ran candidates only in some places, and not others.
Personally, I’m not a fan of this approach. If I were a Green voter in a riding where no Green was running, I would be forced to cast my ballot for a second choice. That’s hardly representing my interests. Yes, I understand, there might just not be the money available for the Party to run people everywhere (and I understand that there are many in the UK who are calling for party financing reforms right now), but I think that I would still feel cheated a little bit. So don’t anyone take this observation of mine as my thinking that we Canadian Greens would be better off to not run candidates in all ridings, because I do not feel that way (and not just because of the per-vote subsidy).
The Minor Parties
What struck me about the minor parties in the election, beyond the Northern Ireland / Scotland / Wales - specific "national" parties like the Ulster Conservative and Unionists - New Force, Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish National Party, was that there are a couple of other minor parties which seem to have some big ambitions, running candidates in many ridings in England (more than the Greens). Here I’m talking about the U.K. Independence Party (which I had never heard of prior to last night) and the British National Party (of which I was more familiar). UKIP garnered 3.1% of the national vote (more than 3x that of the Green Party) and elected nobody. The racist BNP received a (shocking) 1.9% of the vote, also electing nobody.
Since I don’t know much about UKIP, beyond their desire to take the UK out of the European Union, let me say a few things about the BNP. Apparently, this party had a "whites only" policy for Members until 2001, when they opened their membership rolls up to anyone non-whites foolish enough to join them. Their policies used to include the forced "repatriation" of non-whites to their countries of origin (or, if they were born in the UK, presumably ancestral country of origin), but that also fell victim to their "softening" in 2001. Now they just want to end all immigration, and promote the voluntary relocation of immigrants out of Britain. No doubt through creating a culture of hatred from which immigrants and upright British citizens alike might feel compelled to escape from.
And 1.9% of the electorate voted for these guys (and I do mean guys...all of the candidates seemed to be guys, at least the ones that I saw). That's. Just. Great.
The Lib-Dem Dilemma
Let me tell you about the Liberal-Democrats, Britain’s ne’er do-well third party. They’re kind of like Canada’s NDP (they even go in for the orange colour) in that they don’t form government, but they can play spoiler once every few decades (as they are doing right now). Unlike the NDP, this party sits between the right-wing Conservatives and the left-wing Labour Party, firmly occupying the middle of the political spectrum, if you believe the pundits. Having found out more about this Party, I’m not sure that I would agree outright with that statement, especially since Labour’s move to the right over the past decade, but for now, take it for granted that the Lib-Dems are centrists who not many really like.
For me, this situation is kind of like the situation federally in British Columbia, where voters seem to alternate between the Conservatives and the NDP, and the rest of the country can’t really understand why someone who voted blue in the last election would now want to vote for Jack’s boys and girls. Well, likely it’s because the Liberals in B.C., federally, have the same level of cred as the Lib-Dems do historically. And federal Liberal results seem to suggest just that. But I digress (again).
So, the Lib-Dems received 24% of the national vote last night, but only took 57 seats out of a parliament containing 650 seats (although, as an aside, apparently only 649 seats were up for grabs last night, as the election in Thirsk & Malton has been postponed, due to the death of a candidate. What a humane decision by someone. Not sure that a death of a candidate would put a stop to an election here). With 24% of the vote, one should have thought that Lib-Dems might have taken about a quarter of the seats available, which would have been 156, but instead they received almost 100 fewer seats than their proportion of the popular vote would have ascribed.
Needless to say, one of the big planks on which the Lib-Dems campaigned is changing the British electoral system from the increasingly archaic first-past-the-post system, to a more balanced form of proportional representation (which is apparently how legislators in Scotland and Wales are elected to National assemblies right now). After results like the Lib-Dems received last night, you can understand why they might be a little miffed with the system.
There Can Be Only One
Of course, now that all of the votes have been counted, there can be only one Prime Minister to emerge from the election. The way that the British system works (despite what Conservative Leader David Cameron, a Stephen Harper-wannabe, would have the British public think), Labour Leader Gordon Brown remains the Prime Minister until he: a) resigns, or b) loses a confidence motion in the House, when parliament resumes sitting on May 25. So, right now, Brown remains the PM. And it seems he’s not ready to resign.
Nick Clegg, Leader of the Lib-Dems, has a chance of playing King-maker. If he forms a partnership/coalition with the Conservatives, David Cameron will be able to govern as if he enjoyed a majority, and there’s nothing Labour can do to stop him. Most pundits, though, believe that Labour and the Lib-Dems are actually closer to one another politically, though, so it’s anything but a foregone conclusion that Cameron and Clegg will be able to work things out to the Conservative’s advantage.
And that’s probably why David Cameron and his Party have been going out of their way to convince the British people that Labour has no mandate now to govern, after having "lost" the election. We here in Canada have seen this all before, during the Coalition Crisis of 2008, when Harper and his cronies trotted out the same sorts of arguments, which many Canadians fell for, not understanding the way in which the system works. I was cringing last night when I heard Cameron say that Brown had been defeated. He hasn’t been; in fact, he was re-elected by his constituency. Yes, his Party lost seats in the House, but he’s still the Prime Minister. Brown might now have an opportunity to work with the Liberal-Democrats to build a partnership or coalition, and most importantly, to govern.
Clegg’s price for partnership, though, many have reported, is proportional representation, which is a no-go for the Conservatives. Labour hasn’t exactly been thrilled with it, but Brown apparently has been saying today that it’s time, especially given the lop-sided results experienced by the Lib-Dems last night. Even the Prime Minister can’t claim that first-past-the-post is at all fair, when it so obviously is not.
My prediction: we’ll see a coalition between Labour and the Lib-Dems, with Lib-Dems in cabinet. And maybe with another Party represented in cabinet as well.
Because, the fact is, a coalition between Labour and Lib-Dems still won’t be enough in terms of numbers for the coalition to govern as if it were a majority. Together, Labour and the Lib-Dems would have 315 seats to the Conservatives’ 308. But there are 28 other MP’s from "other" parties out there (and 1 seat which has yet to elect anyone) which, if they worked with the Conservatives, could topple the coalition.
So nothing is a foregone conclusion, unless some of the other minor parties are brought into a coalition. Likely one of the Labour-friendly parties from Northern Ireland could do it (the Democratic Unionist Party, with 8 seats, I think is a good candidate and has supported Labour traditionally). Plaid Cymru with 3 seats might another. Not sure about the Scottish National Party with 6 seats. Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland is a Conservative surrogate? I don’t have a clue.
Anyway, there is much which remains to be decided, but I’m sticking with my prediction. And I don’t think that there’s going to be anything like a "coalition crisis" in the UK as a result. I base that on, what to me seems to be, a knowledgeable media which isn’t afraid of stating facts clearly (something which I found to be lacking back in December 2008). Cameron can make a case, but ultimately the rules favour Brown (if he partners with Clegg). And "moral argument" or not, the British are probably more plugged in to how their system works than we in Canada are for the most part.
One Last Observation: Where Were The Women?
Yes, this is my last observation. With all of these parties running around trying to get elected, where the heck were all of the women leaders? Cameron, Clegg and Brown, all men. The only woman Leader I knew about last night was Caroline Lucas of the Green Party. I had to go online when I woke up this morning to discover that there were, in fact, very few women leaders for any of the other parties. Apparently, the Social Democratic & Labour Party, which took 3 seats in Northern Ireland (with only 0.4% of the national vote, mind you), is led by a woman. The only other woman leader I could find heads the anti-war Respect - Unity Coalition, which didn’t fare all that well, with less than 0.1% of the vote. What’s up with that? Frankly, I’m very surprised that there aren’t more women leading political parties in the UK.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Reconfirming Runnymede: Speaker Says Parliament is Paramount in Conservative Contempt Case
Speaker Peter Milliken gave an historic ruling earlier today in the House in Commons. By all accounts, the eyes of the world were focussed on Milliken’s declaration that the Conservative government of Stephen Harper may be in contempt of parliament. While this may seem a mundane event to many, or at best posturing by the Opposition NDP and Liberals to score political points, the fact of the matter is quite different, and the implications of Milliken’s ruling will ring down through the annals of Canadian history, and indeed the history of parliamentary democracies throughout the world.
The only question yet to be answered: will this ruling lead to real reform, or will it ultimately be labelled as one of democracy’s last gasps?
Do you think that I’m overstating the case? Well, maybe so, but then again, maybe not. Let’s speculate for a moment, shall we, about where things might have ended up if Milliken had arrived at a different ruling.
As you know, the Opposition Parties have asked the Speaker to make a ruling on whether the government’s refusal to provide unredacted copies of correspondence related to prisoner transfers in Afghanistan constitutes contempt of parliament. The Opposition says that, because parliament has demanded access to these documents, if the government won’t make these materials available to elected Members of Parliament for their scrutiny, then the government is in contempt. The Conservative government says that there is a bigger picture here to consider, and that releasing these documents will compromise Canadian security, presumably as it relates to Canada’s and NATO’s role in Afghanistan.
Now that Milliken has ruled, you can bet that the Conservatives will begin attacking the Speaker personally. Remember, although Milliken has served in the non-partisan speaker role since his election by parliament to that position in 2001, Milliken is a Liberal. Clearly, today’s decision will be cast in a partisan light. A safer course of action for Milliken would have been to find in favour of the government, however that approach would have flown in the face of parliamentary tradition, and it would have been one of the final nails in democracy’s coffin. Here’s why:
The Conservatives claim that large portions of key documents are not being made public because of "National Security". So, we Canadians, and opposition members of parliament, don’t know what is in those documents. Maybe there are some real state secrets there which need protecting. Maybe there are just skeletons in the Conservatives own closet. Fact is, we don’t know. We have to trust the government that there are greater issues of National Security based only on their word at the moment.
Yes, the Conservatives have appointed retired Supreme Court Judge Frank Iacobucci to review the documents and determine whether or not the contents of these documents should be made public. Stephen Harper and the Cons believe that this approach will be fair and balanced, and that Canadians will accept the findings of the retired judge. And so should the Opposition, according to Harper.
Of course, this approach has no mandate within parliament. Parliament has asked for the documents, and they have not been delivered. The Opposition believes (as do I, and apparently so does the Speaker) that Cabinet must submit to the will of parliament, and parliament has decided that it wants to see these documents. This fact will not change if Iacobucci makes a finding in support of the Conservative position. And if he does, Canadians will never know why; we’ll simply have to trust Iacobucci as an honest broker without the benefit of knowing what’s in the documents.
Yes, but you may be concerned that some MP’s from all parties might go and leak information to the media after seeing the documents, and that these leaks may jeopardize security interests, or worse, put Canadians in harm’s way. Well, these issues have been addressed in the past when making certain secure documents available for parliamentarians, and the release of these documents could also be handled in such ways, as called for by Milliken. Release to a committee in camera, for example, of contentious documents has already happened.
Again, though, this argument does not change the fact that parliament has demanded to see the documents, and the documents are not being made available. And I personally don't buy it. We elected these MP's to look after our best interests. These are our decision makers. To suggest that they can't be trusted, well, that's really inappropriate.
Had Milliken sided with the Conservatives, and deferred to the process currently underway through Justice Iacobucci, he would have dealt a serious blow to our already-stressed democratic processes. In essence, such a decision would have been a slap in the face of parliament, and a declaration that real power lies only in the hands of Cabinet. And we know that cabinets are controlled by the Prime Minister, right from the get-go of appointments, to managing media messages. In essence, had Milliken ruled differently, it would have been a confirmation that the Prime Minister alone decides what all other elected officials can and can not know.
This would have led to a situation ripe for serious abuse. After all, if you can control the flow of information, you’ve set yourself up to be in a pretty position when the information might be somehow detrimental to you. Why share information with the Opposition in Parliament when you don’t have to? What, exactly, constitutes an issue of "National Security" anyway? I guess as the Prime Minister, unaccountable to anyone except the 50,000 or so electors who vote for him every few years, I suppose he gets to make that decision.
Our Prime Minister is already exercising power beyond that ascribed to his "first among equals" position. I often wonder what might have happened had the Governor General refused to prorogue parliament back in 2008. I suspect strongly that parliament would not have been sitting the next Monday afterwards, despite a negative ruling on Harper’s request. Remember that Minister Baird, a member of Cabinet, suggested that the Conservatives were ready to go over the GG’s head, directly to the Canadian people if they had to, in order to achieve the result that they wanted. This despite the fact that there would have been no parliamentary process to do so.
On the recent request to prorogue, well, no one is really sure why the reset button had to be pushed. Harper said it was so that the Conservatives could spend time refining the budget, but when the budget came out, there was no change of course. Pretty much everyone, including members of Harper’s own Party, realize that all of the reasons stated by Harper and his mouthpieces weren’t the real issues. Shutting the door on the detainee enquiry seems the likeliest reason, although we Canadians will never truly know why our parliament was shut down for several months earlier this year. Let’s hope that it wasn’t just so the PM could attend the gold medal hockey games.
Even these past few weeks we’ve seen Harper accept the resignation of one of his own Minister’s on so-called "serious allegations", and refer the matter to the police. We still don’t know why this Minister resigned. From the sounds of things, former Minister Guergis herself doesn’t know why she resigned, despite the fact that Harper indicated that, given the nature of the allegations, he had no choice but to accept her resignation.
And on the Afghan detainee hearing currently going on before the Military Police tribunal, we have a lawyer for the government claiming to have read the unredacted version of Richard Colvin’s correspondence to his superiors, and claiming that there was nothing substantive which Colvin brought to the attention of his superiors regarding the transfer of prisoners being problematic. Colvin can’t answer this accusation, because he’s under a gag order not to discuss the contents of his own correspondence due to "national security", but the government through its lawyer is free to make statements that there isn’t anything there. And to challenge Colvin to show where, in his heavily redacted correspondence, he was sounding the alarm. Of course, Colvin couldn’t point to the locations in the correspondence because they were blacked out. All of which prompted the tribunal chair to question, then, why the correspondence hasn’t been made public, given that there isn’t anything to it. The lawyer’s response was that he should take it up with his client the government. And that other documents would be delivered to the tribunal when the government was "good and ready" to provide them, and not a moment before, despite the fact that the absence of these documents were holding up the tribunal’s enquiry.
This is all truly bizarre. A ruling by Milliken in favour of the government’s position, that it is not in contempt of parliament, would have added fuel to the fire burning away at our democracy. It would have given carte blanche to the Prime Minister to declare matters to be within the purview of "national security" and to shut down on all discussion in parliament on them, aside from speculation. In some ways, that’s exactly where we are at right now, and I would suggest that this is due to the Conservative’s on-going contempt for the institution of parliament; their contempt isn’t confined to the prisoner detainee issue.
Milliken could have given his consent to the business-as-usual approach to governance as practiced by Stephen Harper, our modern day King John. This is the approach which we see in action today. Instead, the Speaker ruled that the Prime Minister and Cabinet is not above the will of parliament, who are after all, individuals whom Canadians have elected to look out for our best interests. MP’s are in Ottawa on our behalf, and Harper needs to remember this. MP’s and government do not work for Stephen Harper; they work for me and all other Canadians. Milliken’s ruling today should cause Harper to do a bit of a rethink, but I’m not holding my breath. Likely we’ll see the Supreme Court asked to intervene, or have an election before this can go much further. My money is on both outcomes.
But at least the supremacy of Parliament was acknowledged today, and that is a triumph for all who care about the state of democracy in this great nation of ours. Had Milliken ruled differently, well, Canadians would be left wondering what good, exactly, are all of these parliamentarians whom we elect, ostensibly to represent our interests, when the Prime Minister and Cabinet get to determine what can and can not be discussed. Likely the conclusion that just about everybody would arrive at would be: not much good at all. Which would please Stephen Harper to no end.
Thank you, Speaker of the House, for shoring up my eroding faith in Canadian democracy.
And now if we can just get Minister Clement to release the agreement the government made with Vale Inco when Canadian mining giant INCO was sold to the Brazilians for the "net benefit of Canada". Yet another example of the Conservatives telling us to simply trust them, in absence of releasing documents for us to make up our own minds.
The only question yet to be answered: will this ruling lead to real reform, or will it ultimately be labelled as one of democracy’s last gasps?
Do you think that I’m overstating the case? Well, maybe so, but then again, maybe not. Let’s speculate for a moment, shall we, about where things might have ended up if Milliken had arrived at a different ruling.
As you know, the Opposition Parties have asked the Speaker to make a ruling on whether the government’s refusal to provide unredacted copies of correspondence related to prisoner transfers in Afghanistan constitutes contempt of parliament. The Opposition says that, because parliament has demanded access to these documents, if the government won’t make these materials available to elected Members of Parliament for their scrutiny, then the government is in contempt. The Conservative government says that there is a bigger picture here to consider, and that releasing these documents will compromise Canadian security, presumably as it relates to Canada’s and NATO’s role in Afghanistan.
Now that Milliken has ruled, you can bet that the Conservatives will begin attacking the Speaker personally. Remember, although Milliken has served in the non-partisan speaker role since his election by parliament to that position in 2001, Milliken is a Liberal. Clearly, today’s decision will be cast in a partisan light. A safer course of action for Milliken would have been to find in favour of the government, however that approach would have flown in the face of parliamentary tradition, and it would have been one of the final nails in democracy’s coffin. Here’s why:
The Conservatives claim that large portions of key documents are not being made public because of "National Security". So, we Canadians, and opposition members of parliament, don’t know what is in those documents. Maybe there are some real state secrets there which need protecting. Maybe there are just skeletons in the Conservatives own closet. Fact is, we don’t know. We have to trust the government that there are greater issues of National Security based only on their word at the moment.
Yes, the Conservatives have appointed retired Supreme Court Judge Frank Iacobucci to review the documents and determine whether or not the contents of these documents should be made public. Stephen Harper and the Cons believe that this approach will be fair and balanced, and that Canadians will accept the findings of the retired judge. And so should the Opposition, according to Harper.
Of course, this approach has no mandate within parliament. Parliament has asked for the documents, and they have not been delivered. The Opposition believes (as do I, and apparently so does the Speaker) that Cabinet must submit to the will of parliament, and parliament has decided that it wants to see these documents. This fact will not change if Iacobucci makes a finding in support of the Conservative position. And if he does, Canadians will never know why; we’ll simply have to trust Iacobucci as an honest broker without the benefit of knowing what’s in the documents.
Yes, but you may be concerned that some MP’s from all parties might go and leak information to the media after seeing the documents, and that these leaks may jeopardize security interests, or worse, put Canadians in harm’s way. Well, these issues have been addressed in the past when making certain secure documents available for parliamentarians, and the release of these documents could also be handled in such ways, as called for by Milliken. Release to a committee in camera, for example, of contentious documents has already happened.
Again, though, this argument does not change the fact that parliament has demanded to see the documents, and the documents are not being made available. And I personally don't buy it. We elected these MP's to look after our best interests. These are our decision makers. To suggest that they can't be trusted, well, that's really inappropriate.
Had Milliken sided with the Conservatives, and deferred to the process currently underway through Justice Iacobucci, he would have dealt a serious blow to our already-stressed democratic processes. In essence, such a decision would have been a slap in the face of parliament, and a declaration that real power lies only in the hands of Cabinet. And we know that cabinets are controlled by the Prime Minister, right from the get-go of appointments, to managing media messages. In essence, had Milliken ruled differently, it would have been a confirmation that the Prime Minister alone decides what all other elected officials can and can not know.
This would have led to a situation ripe for serious abuse. After all, if you can control the flow of information, you’ve set yourself up to be in a pretty position when the information might be somehow detrimental to you. Why share information with the Opposition in Parliament when you don’t have to? What, exactly, constitutes an issue of "National Security" anyway? I guess as the Prime Minister, unaccountable to anyone except the 50,000 or so electors who vote for him every few years, I suppose he gets to make that decision.
Our Prime Minister is already exercising power beyond that ascribed to his "first among equals" position. I often wonder what might have happened had the Governor General refused to prorogue parliament back in 2008. I suspect strongly that parliament would not have been sitting the next Monday afterwards, despite a negative ruling on Harper’s request. Remember that Minister Baird, a member of Cabinet, suggested that the Conservatives were ready to go over the GG’s head, directly to the Canadian people if they had to, in order to achieve the result that they wanted. This despite the fact that there would have been no parliamentary process to do so.
On the recent request to prorogue, well, no one is really sure why the reset button had to be pushed. Harper said it was so that the Conservatives could spend time refining the budget, but when the budget came out, there was no change of course. Pretty much everyone, including members of Harper’s own Party, realize that all of the reasons stated by Harper and his mouthpieces weren’t the real issues. Shutting the door on the detainee enquiry seems the likeliest reason, although we Canadians will never truly know why our parliament was shut down for several months earlier this year. Let’s hope that it wasn’t just so the PM could attend the gold medal hockey games.
Even these past few weeks we’ve seen Harper accept the resignation of one of his own Minister’s on so-called "serious allegations", and refer the matter to the police. We still don’t know why this Minister resigned. From the sounds of things, former Minister Guergis herself doesn’t know why she resigned, despite the fact that Harper indicated that, given the nature of the allegations, he had no choice but to accept her resignation.
And on the Afghan detainee hearing currently going on before the Military Police tribunal, we have a lawyer for the government claiming to have read the unredacted version of Richard Colvin’s correspondence to his superiors, and claiming that there was nothing substantive which Colvin brought to the attention of his superiors regarding the transfer of prisoners being problematic. Colvin can’t answer this accusation, because he’s under a gag order not to discuss the contents of his own correspondence due to "national security", but the government through its lawyer is free to make statements that there isn’t anything there. And to challenge Colvin to show where, in his heavily redacted correspondence, he was sounding the alarm. Of course, Colvin couldn’t point to the locations in the correspondence because they were blacked out. All of which prompted the tribunal chair to question, then, why the correspondence hasn’t been made public, given that there isn’t anything to it. The lawyer’s response was that he should take it up with his client the government. And that other documents would be delivered to the tribunal when the government was "good and ready" to provide them, and not a moment before, despite the fact that the absence of these documents were holding up the tribunal’s enquiry.
This is all truly bizarre. A ruling by Milliken in favour of the government’s position, that it is not in contempt of parliament, would have added fuel to the fire burning away at our democracy. It would have given carte blanche to the Prime Minister to declare matters to be within the purview of "national security" and to shut down on all discussion in parliament on them, aside from speculation. In some ways, that’s exactly where we are at right now, and I would suggest that this is due to the Conservative’s on-going contempt for the institution of parliament; their contempt isn’t confined to the prisoner detainee issue.
Milliken could have given his consent to the business-as-usual approach to governance as practiced by Stephen Harper, our modern day King John. This is the approach which we see in action today. Instead, the Speaker ruled that the Prime Minister and Cabinet is not above the will of parliament, who are after all, individuals whom Canadians have elected to look out for our best interests. MP’s are in Ottawa on our behalf, and Harper needs to remember this. MP’s and government do not work for Stephen Harper; they work for me and all other Canadians. Milliken’s ruling today should cause Harper to do a bit of a rethink, but I’m not holding my breath. Likely we’ll see the Supreme Court asked to intervene, or have an election before this can go much further. My money is on both outcomes.
But at least the supremacy of Parliament was acknowledged today, and that is a triumph for all who care about the state of democracy in this great nation of ours. Had Milliken ruled differently, well, Canadians would be left wondering what good, exactly, are all of these parliamentarians whom we elect, ostensibly to represent our interests, when the Prime Minister and Cabinet get to determine what can and can not be discussed. Likely the conclusion that just about everybody would arrive at would be: not much good at all. Which would please Stephen Harper to no end.
Thank you, Speaker of the House, for shoring up my eroding faith in Canadian democracy.
And now if we can just get Minister Clement to release the agreement the government made with Vale Inco when Canadian mining giant INCO was sold to the Brazilians for the "net benefit of Canada". Yet another example of the Conservatives telling us to simply trust them, in absence of releasing documents for us to make up our own minds.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Climate Change and Freedom: How the Climate Crisis May Erode Civil Liberties
A few interesting things have been brought to my attention in the past few days which have started to formulate some sort of loose nexus of ideas in my mind. In this blogpost, I’m going to try to weave these threads together, and hope that I come out with a decent thesis.
Climate Wars
Tomorrow night in Toronto, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and international journalist Gwynne Dyer, will be making a presentation called "Finding Hope: Confronting Climate Wars". Presumably, they’re going to put a positive spin on the thesis Dyer offers in his excellent book, "Climate Wars". In short, that thesis is, climate change is real, has been understated by the international community, and is being taken into consideration by military planners. Some have described his book as "chilling". Certainly it should be a wake-up call to the climate-change deniers out there; and not just because of the science behind climate change, but also because of the seriousness which the coming climate crisis is being treated by military planners.
My wife gave me this book for Christmas in 2008, and I’ve read it twice since then. I’m very much a believer in Mr. Dyer’s thesis, and I am troubled by the social, political and military aspects which will occur as a result of the climate crisis. I saw Mr. Dyer speak about his book when he was here in Sudbury last year. I’m sure that those attending tomorrow’s presentation in Toronto are in for a treat, and I’m a little jealous. There certainly is hope amongst the doom and gloom, and we often forget about things such as hope when we turn our attention to the subjects which are so very overwhelming in scope.
However, let us also keep in mind that while "hope" is a great thing, it can also derail us from taking serious action. When we hope, we often remove ourselves from taking responsibility for action. For example, if we hope that a solution can be found to the coming energy crisis, it may mean that we personally put off doing all of the things that we really need to start doing to prepare for the crisis. I think most people understand this, but sometimes I’m not so sure. Hope can certainly inspire us to action, to "being the change that we want in the world" or something like that. But Hope is a double-edged sword, so we must be careful how we handle it.
Back to "Climate Wars", though, and why the climate change denier types should take a closer look at Dyer’s research. Even if you don’t believe in global warming, you should take seriously what the military planner-types are war-gaming with regards to the near future. In the U.S. especially, there has been a lot of concern about National Security, which many have largely come to think of as under threat by terrorists. A lot has happened in the past decade in the United States in the name of "National Security", including a significant erosion of personal rights and liberties. Today’s government has much more power over individuals than it did before September 11th and the Patriot Act. Many Americans are already concerned about these outcomes, and these concerns are manifesting themselves in different ways.
Dyer contends that national militaries are preparing for the political and military impacts of climate change: since people are going to be displaced due to drought, disease, rising sea levels, etc., and struggles for increasingly scarce resources are going to occur with more frequency, in the name of National Security, it makes sense to prepare for potential negative outcomes. Dyer offers a number of examples, but the one which I remember best (likely because it is closest to home) is what might happen on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Climate change will likely severely impact Central America and Mexico’s ability to produce enough food to feed itself. Given that the rest of the world will also likely not be in a position to export food surpluses which no longer exist, this will lead to a significant number of hungry people who might feel that they don’t have much to lose by migrating to a place which they perceive to be a better location for them. Certainly, throughout history, peoples have done just that.
While the U.S. southwest will itself be suffering from the ill effects of climate change the depletion of the Oglalla aquifer, relatively speaking, it might still seem a paradise to those from Central America who can not feed themselves. How will the U.S. protect itself from those seeking a better existence through illegal entry? Maybe some sort of wall should be built to keep other out. Maybe the wall should be armed with remotely operated weaponry, to deter those who might seek to challenge it. And don’t you think that landowners in Texas and Arizona are going to demand that their federal government take actions to ensure their security? To do so effectively, though, what might those who live in Texas and Arizona have to give up? Their right to assembly? Some of their property, wealth?
Certainly, this part of the world is already experiencing stresses which will be further exacerbated by a changing climate (witness the movement to "re-unify" the southwest with Mexico). Even if you don’t believe in climate change, you should recognize that the military is planning for a future which is going to be impacted by a changing climate.
Why would the military do that if the threat wasn’t real?
Climate Change: Not For Real?
Well, here’s why some people think that the military would be making all of its plans even though it knows that climate change is not real. I have become increasingly disturbed by the followers of Alex Jones and others who hypothesize that national governments, in the pockets of the military-industrial-banking complex, are using climate change as an excuse to stifle civil liberties, with the eventual goal of creating a corporatist world government run by the IMF and World Bank. Sometimes the ultimate goal of population reduction is brought into this belief.
I’m disturbed by this line of thinking mostly because I believe that there is a lot of merit to it, however I do not agree with that part of the hypothesis which suggests that climate change is not happening, and that scientists throughout the world are fudging the data and are part of an international conspiracy to make the rest of us live in fear. I guess I’m disturbed by its merit, because I, like many, don’t like to think about things like this.
That part of about the corporatist global government which is the ultimate goal, however, really does have a lot of merit, and I don’t think that there’s any question that we’re heading in that direction. This may be troubling for many Americans who have come to view their constitutional rights as paramount to all other rights, and that they should not be subservient or beholden to a government which refuses to recognize the U.S. Constitution as paramount. My concern here is that those people who might otherwise be allies in the fight against global warming are being lost to us and claimed by the denial industry.
The fact is that the green movement has a lot in common with the anti-corporatist, libertarian agenda which many in the U.S. and Canada subscribe to. Not all libertarians are right-wingers, and not all who oppose bailing out banks are left-wingers. Indeed, there is a lot of overlap if you go looking. There can also be a lot of opposition, given that the green movement was built out of the peace movement, while many libertarians with an anti-corporatist, anti-government agenda will fight to their last breath to hold onto their guns and ammo.
For all those areas where greens and libertarians might find common ground, it appears that the idea of climate change might turn into a losing proposition, thanks in part to the machinations of our national governments. This might be difficult to understand for those in the green choir, but picture the following scenario.
The President of the United States acknowledges that climate change is real, happening, and needs to be addressed, despite what the media says. The President decides to take action, without the approval of Congress, and announce a plan to do just that. He travels to Copenhagen to announce that America will participate in the creation of a fund wherein the wealth of the developed world can be transferred to those less-developed nations so that they may invest in green technologies instead of brown. The President goes on to say that this must happen because National Security may be jeopardized if we don’t act. All around the President, other international decision makers are talking about how all of this will hopefully lead to a global government.
Video clips go viral on the internet, showing youthful protestors interrupting speeches given by respected climate change deniers, some of whom are in governments. Protestors mindlessly shout down any and all who want to suggest that climate change isn’t happening. The protestors are compared to Hitler Youth and Brownshirts for their slavish actions. Green is seen as the new Black, Red & White; green is the heel of the latest jackboot.
The President is denounced for selling out the American people and the Constitution for his insistence on taking action to address the imaginative issue of climate change. Worse, the fears of many focus on the President’s use of Executive privelege over Congressional law (remember that the President of the U.S. can not make law – that’s Congress’ job. The President can only sign or veto a bill; if Congress doesn’t present the President with a bill to make a law, such as the one needed to address climate change, what legal right does the President have to insist that the government will do so anyway?). With this precedent, what else might the President do to enforce his view over Congress? Where does it end? Remember that the President is also the Commander-in-Chief of the military; the military does not answer to Congress, it answers to the President.
These are not small issues. While it seems that the denial industry has been largely funded by the corporations who appear to have the most to lose if we start to take action to address climate change (the very military-industrial-banking complex referenced above), there is a subset of individuals out there in the U.S. and Canada (and presumably elsewhere) who see climate change as the latest tool to be used by government to erode civil liberties. What bothers me is that I find myself sharing some of their concerns, because one doesn’t have to disbelieve in climate change to see how it might be used by decision-makers to advance a particular agenda. And one can see how that agenda might easily benefit the corporate elites.
Cap and Trade
Certainly a North American or an international emissions trading program is one which will benefit the banking industry and the corporate elite, and disadvantage those who are the least well-off amongst us. We have seen the European Emissions Trading scheme increase the wealth of corporations engaged in emissions trading, while little or no success has actually been achieved on reducing greenhouse gases. While it might be true that a successfully implement cap and trade scheme would eventually lead to a reduction in emissions, will it take us to where we need to be? How long will it take to get us there? And, who will disproportionately benefit in the process?
I’m certainly not optimistic about the timeframes involved in establishing a meaningful cap and trade scheme (by meaningful, I here mean one which actually reduces emissions). Cap and trade would be a great way of achieving intensity targets, and giving pats on the back to the corporations and politicians who are involved. Cap and trade will certainly enrich those who generate money from nothing. There is a lot to fear about cap and trade just from that perspective alone, neverminding the ghg reduction angle (or lack thereof).
Why, then, is this costly, incredibly bureaucratic method of potentially reducing greenhouse gas emissions the preferred method of governments? The answer, of course, is that because people will make money off of it. And by "people" I don’t mean you or me, as we stand to become further impoverished by a scenario which adds a premium to everything we purchase without the corresponding offsets on other taxes. In short, if I’m making the same income and am now expected to pay more for just about everything that I need, why the hell would I ever want to buy into that? And that’s why I don’t.
Now, if it were the only real option available, maybe I would accept this kind of program. But it’s not the only option available. It’s not even the easiest option available to implement. We in the Green Party know that there’s a better option: reducing personal income taxes while putting a premium on products and services which use carbon. This approach, misleadingly labelled a "Carbon Tax" (I say "misleadingly" because calling it a new tax is only half the story; the other side of the new tax is reducing the old tax), is a lot simpler to implement, and if handled correctly (through the provision of income offsets for those least well off amongst us), will end up impacting us much less, and contribute to health of our economy by providing us who are keen on conservation with more income.
A cap and trade scenario won’t do that at all. Instead, it will suck up our income and distribute it to the bankers and financiers who are running the scheme. Potentially, the governments involved will see a little of the dividend, but likely only after the administrators have taken their healthy cut. Look, I’m all for new revenue sources for governments, but I’m also for deciding how best to spend my own earnings.
Anyway, you can see that if you were an Alex Jones Libertarian how you might be very concerned about an international emissions trading scheme. The unfortunate part of it all is that if you were an Alex Jones Libertarian, you won’t be out there advocating for a carbon tax instead of cap and trade, because you’re likely not one to believe that climate change is happening in the first place. And that really makes me angry, because all things being equal, the Alex Jones Libertarians would be natural allies for moving forward a sensible carbon pricing scheme.
To Sum Up
I’m sure I’ll revisit some of what I’ve written here in a more specific format. Suffice it to say, though, that we can expect to hear a lot more about National Security in the coming years, and a lot of it is likely to have to do with climate change. We need to be very careful where these sorts of discussions end up going, and we should be very suspect at joining with those who want to take action on climate change through means which lead to the erosion of human rights and liberties. Yes, the future may be a very bleak one when it comes to human strife and suffering, and if the world for which the military planners are war-gaming for comes into being, we all stand to lose a lot. But let’s not also throw away our human rights in the name of national security.
Let us all also be vigilant with regards to those who would use the climate crisis to further their own agendas, be they governments or the military-industrial-banking complex. The threats to our civil liberties are very real, both in Canada and the United States. We simply can not allow the struggle against climate change to imperil democracy. If you don’t believe that climate change and democracy are inexorably linked, it’s time that you give it a second thought.
Climate Wars
Tomorrow night in Toronto, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and international journalist Gwynne Dyer, will be making a presentation called "Finding Hope: Confronting Climate Wars". Presumably, they’re going to put a positive spin on the thesis Dyer offers in his excellent book, "Climate Wars". In short, that thesis is, climate change is real, has been understated by the international community, and is being taken into consideration by military planners. Some have described his book as "chilling". Certainly it should be a wake-up call to the climate-change deniers out there; and not just because of the science behind climate change, but also because of the seriousness which the coming climate crisis is being treated by military planners.
My wife gave me this book for Christmas in 2008, and I’ve read it twice since then. I’m very much a believer in Mr. Dyer’s thesis, and I am troubled by the social, political and military aspects which will occur as a result of the climate crisis. I saw Mr. Dyer speak about his book when he was here in Sudbury last year. I’m sure that those attending tomorrow’s presentation in Toronto are in for a treat, and I’m a little jealous. There certainly is hope amongst the doom and gloom, and we often forget about things such as hope when we turn our attention to the subjects which are so very overwhelming in scope.
However, let us also keep in mind that while "hope" is a great thing, it can also derail us from taking serious action. When we hope, we often remove ourselves from taking responsibility for action. For example, if we hope that a solution can be found to the coming energy crisis, it may mean that we personally put off doing all of the things that we really need to start doing to prepare for the crisis. I think most people understand this, but sometimes I’m not so sure. Hope can certainly inspire us to action, to "being the change that we want in the world" or something like that. But Hope is a double-edged sword, so we must be careful how we handle it.
Back to "Climate Wars", though, and why the climate change denier types should take a closer look at Dyer’s research. Even if you don’t believe in global warming, you should take seriously what the military planner-types are war-gaming with regards to the near future. In the U.S. especially, there has been a lot of concern about National Security, which many have largely come to think of as under threat by terrorists. A lot has happened in the past decade in the United States in the name of "National Security", including a significant erosion of personal rights and liberties. Today’s government has much more power over individuals than it did before September 11th and the Patriot Act. Many Americans are already concerned about these outcomes, and these concerns are manifesting themselves in different ways.
Dyer contends that national militaries are preparing for the political and military impacts of climate change: since people are going to be displaced due to drought, disease, rising sea levels, etc., and struggles for increasingly scarce resources are going to occur with more frequency, in the name of National Security, it makes sense to prepare for potential negative outcomes. Dyer offers a number of examples, but the one which I remember best (likely because it is closest to home) is what might happen on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Climate change will likely severely impact Central America and Mexico’s ability to produce enough food to feed itself. Given that the rest of the world will also likely not be in a position to export food surpluses which no longer exist, this will lead to a significant number of hungry people who might feel that they don’t have much to lose by migrating to a place which they perceive to be a better location for them. Certainly, throughout history, peoples have done just that.
While the U.S. southwest will itself be suffering from the ill effects of climate change the depletion of the Oglalla aquifer, relatively speaking, it might still seem a paradise to those from Central America who can not feed themselves. How will the U.S. protect itself from those seeking a better existence through illegal entry? Maybe some sort of wall should be built to keep other out. Maybe the wall should be armed with remotely operated weaponry, to deter those who might seek to challenge it. And don’t you think that landowners in Texas and Arizona are going to demand that their federal government take actions to ensure their security? To do so effectively, though, what might those who live in Texas and Arizona have to give up? Their right to assembly? Some of their property, wealth?
Certainly, this part of the world is already experiencing stresses which will be further exacerbated by a changing climate (witness the movement to "re-unify" the southwest with Mexico). Even if you don’t believe in climate change, you should recognize that the military is planning for a future which is going to be impacted by a changing climate.
Why would the military do that if the threat wasn’t real?
Climate Change: Not For Real?
Well, here’s why some people think that the military would be making all of its plans even though it knows that climate change is not real. I have become increasingly disturbed by the followers of Alex Jones and others who hypothesize that national governments, in the pockets of the military-industrial-banking complex, are using climate change as an excuse to stifle civil liberties, with the eventual goal of creating a corporatist world government run by the IMF and World Bank. Sometimes the ultimate goal of population reduction is brought into this belief.
I’m disturbed by this line of thinking mostly because I believe that there is a lot of merit to it, however I do not agree with that part of the hypothesis which suggests that climate change is not happening, and that scientists throughout the world are fudging the data and are part of an international conspiracy to make the rest of us live in fear. I guess I’m disturbed by its merit, because I, like many, don’t like to think about things like this.
That part of about the corporatist global government which is the ultimate goal, however, really does have a lot of merit, and I don’t think that there’s any question that we’re heading in that direction. This may be troubling for many Americans who have come to view their constitutional rights as paramount to all other rights, and that they should not be subservient or beholden to a government which refuses to recognize the U.S. Constitution as paramount. My concern here is that those people who might otherwise be allies in the fight against global warming are being lost to us and claimed by the denial industry.
The fact is that the green movement has a lot in common with the anti-corporatist, libertarian agenda which many in the U.S. and Canada subscribe to. Not all libertarians are right-wingers, and not all who oppose bailing out banks are left-wingers. Indeed, there is a lot of overlap if you go looking. There can also be a lot of opposition, given that the green movement was built out of the peace movement, while many libertarians with an anti-corporatist, anti-government agenda will fight to their last breath to hold onto their guns and ammo.
For all those areas where greens and libertarians might find common ground, it appears that the idea of climate change might turn into a losing proposition, thanks in part to the machinations of our national governments. This might be difficult to understand for those in the green choir, but picture the following scenario.
The President of the United States acknowledges that climate change is real, happening, and needs to be addressed, despite what the media says. The President decides to take action, without the approval of Congress, and announce a plan to do just that. He travels to Copenhagen to announce that America will participate in the creation of a fund wherein the wealth of the developed world can be transferred to those less-developed nations so that they may invest in green technologies instead of brown. The President goes on to say that this must happen because National Security may be jeopardized if we don’t act. All around the President, other international decision makers are talking about how all of this will hopefully lead to a global government.
Video clips go viral on the internet, showing youthful protestors interrupting speeches given by respected climate change deniers, some of whom are in governments. Protestors mindlessly shout down any and all who want to suggest that climate change isn’t happening. The protestors are compared to Hitler Youth and Brownshirts for their slavish actions. Green is seen as the new Black, Red & White; green is the heel of the latest jackboot.
The President is denounced for selling out the American people and the Constitution for his insistence on taking action to address the imaginative issue of climate change. Worse, the fears of many focus on the President’s use of Executive privelege over Congressional law (remember that the President of the U.S. can not make law – that’s Congress’ job. The President can only sign or veto a bill; if Congress doesn’t present the President with a bill to make a law, such as the one needed to address climate change, what legal right does the President have to insist that the government will do so anyway?). With this precedent, what else might the President do to enforce his view over Congress? Where does it end? Remember that the President is also the Commander-in-Chief of the military; the military does not answer to Congress, it answers to the President.
These are not small issues. While it seems that the denial industry has been largely funded by the corporations who appear to have the most to lose if we start to take action to address climate change (the very military-industrial-banking complex referenced above), there is a subset of individuals out there in the U.S. and Canada (and presumably elsewhere) who see climate change as the latest tool to be used by government to erode civil liberties. What bothers me is that I find myself sharing some of their concerns, because one doesn’t have to disbelieve in climate change to see how it might be used by decision-makers to advance a particular agenda. And one can see how that agenda might easily benefit the corporate elites.
Cap and Trade
Certainly a North American or an international emissions trading program is one which will benefit the banking industry and the corporate elite, and disadvantage those who are the least well-off amongst us. We have seen the European Emissions Trading scheme increase the wealth of corporations engaged in emissions trading, while little or no success has actually been achieved on reducing greenhouse gases. While it might be true that a successfully implement cap and trade scheme would eventually lead to a reduction in emissions, will it take us to where we need to be? How long will it take to get us there? And, who will disproportionately benefit in the process?
I’m certainly not optimistic about the timeframes involved in establishing a meaningful cap and trade scheme (by meaningful, I here mean one which actually reduces emissions). Cap and trade would be a great way of achieving intensity targets, and giving pats on the back to the corporations and politicians who are involved. Cap and trade will certainly enrich those who generate money from nothing. There is a lot to fear about cap and trade just from that perspective alone, neverminding the ghg reduction angle (or lack thereof).
Why, then, is this costly, incredibly bureaucratic method of potentially reducing greenhouse gas emissions the preferred method of governments? The answer, of course, is that because people will make money off of it. And by "people" I don’t mean you or me, as we stand to become further impoverished by a scenario which adds a premium to everything we purchase without the corresponding offsets on other taxes. In short, if I’m making the same income and am now expected to pay more for just about everything that I need, why the hell would I ever want to buy into that? And that’s why I don’t.
Now, if it were the only real option available, maybe I would accept this kind of program. But it’s not the only option available. It’s not even the easiest option available to implement. We in the Green Party know that there’s a better option: reducing personal income taxes while putting a premium on products and services which use carbon. This approach, misleadingly labelled a "Carbon Tax" (I say "misleadingly" because calling it a new tax is only half the story; the other side of the new tax is reducing the old tax), is a lot simpler to implement, and if handled correctly (through the provision of income offsets for those least well off amongst us), will end up impacting us much less, and contribute to health of our economy by providing us who are keen on conservation with more income.
A cap and trade scenario won’t do that at all. Instead, it will suck up our income and distribute it to the bankers and financiers who are running the scheme. Potentially, the governments involved will see a little of the dividend, but likely only after the administrators have taken their healthy cut. Look, I’m all for new revenue sources for governments, but I’m also for deciding how best to spend my own earnings.
Anyway, you can see that if you were an Alex Jones Libertarian how you might be very concerned about an international emissions trading scheme. The unfortunate part of it all is that if you were an Alex Jones Libertarian, you won’t be out there advocating for a carbon tax instead of cap and trade, because you’re likely not one to believe that climate change is happening in the first place. And that really makes me angry, because all things being equal, the Alex Jones Libertarians would be natural allies for moving forward a sensible carbon pricing scheme.
To Sum Up
I’m sure I’ll revisit some of what I’ve written here in a more specific format. Suffice it to say, though, that we can expect to hear a lot more about National Security in the coming years, and a lot of it is likely to have to do with climate change. We need to be very careful where these sorts of discussions end up going, and we should be very suspect at joining with those who want to take action on climate change through means which lead to the erosion of human rights and liberties. Yes, the future may be a very bleak one when it comes to human strife and suffering, and if the world for which the military planners are war-gaming for comes into being, we all stand to lose a lot. But let’s not also throw away our human rights in the name of national security.
Let us all also be vigilant with regards to those who would use the climate crisis to further their own agendas, be they governments or the military-industrial-banking complex. The threats to our civil liberties are very real, both in Canada and the United States. We simply can not allow the struggle against climate change to imperil democracy. If you don’t believe that climate change and democracy are inexorably linked, it’s time that you give it a second thought.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
More Contempt for Parliament: Conservatives Stall for Time on Guergis
I’ve been taking some time off lately, to prepare for Earth Day, which comes early to Sudbury (on Saturday, April 17th, at Market Square! Hope to see you there). So, for those of you wondering what’s become of me in the past few weeks, now you know.
It’s not as if there hasn’t been a lot to blog about. Today, though, I’m going to focus on subject material that I really didn’t have much of an interest in, figuring that the blogosphere has already been quite atwitter over it all already. Yes, I’m talking about ex-Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer and MP Helena Guergis, who was up until last Friday the Minister of State for the Status of Women. I’m not going to re-cap this whole situation for you. Instead, I wanted to focus on events which have taken place since Friday, when the Prime Minister "referred" certain allegations pertaining to Guergis over to the RCMP and Ethics Commissioner. As you know, Guergis has been kicked out of the Conservative caucus, and is now sitting as an Independent in the nether-reaches of the House (actually, I understand that she’s still on a beach somewhere in the tropics).
Since the brief statement late last Friday afternoon, there has been little information regarding what prompted Harper to accept Guergis’ resignation to ask for investigations. Given that the request went to the Ethics Commissioner, Mary Dawson, there had been speculation that the allegations pertained to an ethical situation which Guergis might have found herself involved in, which may have had legal implications, given the RCMP’s involvement. Given that there have been recent suggestions in the media that her husband, Rahim Jaffer, had been telling potential business clients that the had special access to the government for funding, there has been some suggestion that maybe the allegations Harper received on Friday had to do with influence peddling.
Thing is, though, here we are four days later, and no one really knows why there’s a cloud hanging over Guergis’ head. Since then, opposition parties have been looking for answers during question period, only to find none. The only new information which seems to have come to light so far is that the allegations were made by a third party, who is not an MP or someone who works for the government, which doesn’t rule out all that many people.
Earlier today, Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson announced that she would not be investigating Guergis, because there hasn’t been anything brought to her attention which would warrant an investigation. Plus, Dawson indicated that she can’t investigate anyway while the RCMP is investigating. The RCMP haven’t hinted at anything at this point, but one must think that since the matter was referred to the RCMP by the Prime Minister, they’re likely looking into it. Usually, though, the RCMP keeps the specifics of investigations under wraps while the investigation is on-going.
So, in the House we have Conservatives refusing to answer questions about what, exactly, Helena Guergis might have or not have done which warranted her removal from cabinet. Questions aren’t being answered because the matter is under investigation. The investigators aren’t talking, because they’re investigating, at the behest of the Conservative Prime Minister; one of the investigators has already dropped the matter because there wasn’t anything there to be investigated.
And we Canadians are growing more and more despondent with a government which refuses to provide answers for its actions. That’s what has me really ticked about this whole matter. That and the fact that parliament’s precious time is being wasted on what really should have been something cleared up by the Prime Minister or his spokesperson in the early goings fo question period yesterday afternoon. Instead, the Cons are mum, because the matter is under investigation.
Look, I’m no fan of Helena Guergis, but whatever is going on sounds like it may be serious, given the Prime Minister’s actions. As a Canadian, I have a right to know why a member of government has essentially been forced to resign from her position. I want to know why there is a cloud hanging over the head of a sitting MP. But, as long as the Conservatives presume that they are unable to discuss the matter while the RCMP are investigating, I’m not likely going to find out.
This all stinks. Yet again, the Conservative government is trying to get away with providing Canadians with no explanation regarding its actions. And it’s not just us Canadians out here in the blogosphere who are being denied answers, it’s Parliament itself, which the Conservatives have an obvious contempt for. What’s been going on with regards to withholding information related to the Afghan detainee issue is disgusting in the extreme, and now they’re at it again with Helena Guergis.
I suspect that some of the answers might come out eventually, but unless the RCMP actually lay some charges, we’re not likely ever going to get the full story here. Given that the Ethics Commissioner has already backed off, I have my doubts that the RCMP will be laying any charges. Which would then lead to the following questions: if the accusations on which Guergis was forced to resign aren’t enough for a legal or ethical investigation, why did the Prime Minister refer the matter to the RCMP and Ethics Commissioner? Was he simply trying to stall for time in answering questions swirling around Guergis and her husband Jaffer? If so, boy, that’s a pretty low partisan game being played with parliament and the Canadian people.
It’s not as if there hasn’t been a lot to blog about. Today, though, I’m going to focus on subject material that I really didn’t have much of an interest in, figuring that the blogosphere has already been quite atwitter over it all already. Yes, I’m talking about ex-Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer and MP Helena Guergis, who was up until last Friday the Minister of State for the Status of Women. I’m not going to re-cap this whole situation for you. Instead, I wanted to focus on events which have taken place since Friday, when the Prime Minister "referred" certain allegations pertaining to Guergis over to the RCMP and Ethics Commissioner. As you know, Guergis has been kicked out of the Conservative caucus, and is now sitting as an Independent in the nether-reaches of the House (actually, I understand that she’s still on a beach somewhere in the tropics).
Since the brief statement late last Friday afternoon, there has been little information regarding what prompted Harper to accept Guergis’ resignation to ask for investigations. Given that the request went to the Ethics Commissioner, Mary Dawson, there had been speculation that the allegations pertained to an ethical situation which Guergis might have found herself involved in, which may have had legal implications, given the RCMP’s involvement. Given that there have been recent suggestions in the media that her husband, Rahim Jaffer, had been telling potential business clients that the had special access to the government for funding, there has been some suggestion that maybe the allegations Harper received on Friday had to do with influence peddling.
Thing is, though, here we are four days later, and no one really knows why there’s a cloud hanging over Guergis’ head. Since then, opposition parties have been looking for answers during question period, only to find none. The only new information which seems to have come to light so far is that the allegations were made by a third party, who is not an MP or someone who works for the government, which doesn’t rule out all that many people.
Earlier today, Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson announced that she would not be investigating Guergis, because there hasn’t been anything brought to her attention which would warrant an investigation. Plus, Dawson indicated that she can’t investigate anyway while the RCMP is investigating. The RCMP haven’t hinted at anything at this point, but one must think that since the matter was referred to the RCMP by the Prime Minister, they’re likely looking into it. Usually, though, the RCMP keeps the specifics of investigations under wraps while the investigation is on-going.
So, in the House we have Conservatives refusing to answer questions about what, exactly, Helena Guergis might have or not have done which warranted her removal from cabinet. Questions aren’t being answered because the matter is under investigation. The investigators aren’t talking, because they’re investigating, at the behest of the Conservative Prime Minister; one of the investigators has already dropped the matter because there wasn’t anything there to be investigated.
And we Canadians are growing more and more despondent with a government which refuses to provide answers for its actions. That’s what has me really ticked about this whole matter. That and the fact that parliament’s precious time is being wasted on what really should have been something cleared up by the Prime Minister or his spokesperson in the early goings fo question period yesterday afternoon. Instead, the Cons are mum, because the matter is under investigation.
Look, I’m no fan of Helena Guergis, but whatever is going on sounds like it may be serious, given the Prime Minister’s actions. As a Canadian, I have a right to know why a member of government has essentially been forced to resign from her position. I want to know why there is a cloud hanging over the head of a sitting MP. But, as long as the Conservatives presume that they are unable to discuss the matter while the RCMP are investigating, I’m not likely going to find out.
This all stinks. Yet again, the Conservative government is trying to get away with providing Canadians with no explanation regarding its actions. And it’s not just us Canadians out here in the blogosphere who are being denied answers, it’s Parliament itself, which the Conservatives have an obvious contempt for. What’s been going on with regards to withholding information related to the Afghan detainee issue is disgusting in the extreme, and now they’re at it again with Helena Guergis.
I suspect that some of the answers might come out eventually, but unless the RCMP actually lay some charges, we’re not likely ever going to get the full story here. Given that the Ethics Commissioner has already backed off, I have my doubts that the RCMP will be laying any charges. Which would then lead to the following questions: if the accusations on which Guergis was forced to resign aren’t enough for a legal or ethical investigation, why did the Prime Minister refer the matter to the RCMP and Ethics Commissioner? Was he simply trying to stall for time in answering questions swirling around Guergis and her husband Jaffer? If so, boy, that’s a pretty low partisan game being played with parliament and the Canadian people.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Political Parties in our "Democratic" Electoral System: PEI Greens Stand Up for What's Right
I’ve always had a special interest in emergent political parties. For years, I watched from the sidelines as both the Federal Green Party (GPC) and the Ontario Provincial Green Party (GPO), grew their support. Democracy is also an important issue for me, and I have often lamented that our democratic system has become beholden, to a great extent, to political parties. Elizabeth May, the GPC’s leader, likes to remind Canadians that political parties aren’t mentioned in our Constitution, and she takes exception to Prime Ministers who behave as if Members of Parliament are working for him.
Our current reality is, though, that if you’re running as an Independent, best of luck to you, buddy. Independents rarely have the ability to break into provincial or federal parliaments. Those that do often do so because they were removed or removed themselves from an existing political party while sitting in parliament (Bill Casey and Chuck Cadman come to mind). The successful Independent must have a very high profile amongst the local electorate. Usually, such individuals will already have been wooed by one or two or three political parties anyway.
Political parties can bring resources to bear to assist with winning elections. They have a greater organizational structure than most Independents can bring together, and since parties are constantly fundraising, in theory there will be a revenue stream available between elections to assist with raising one’s local profile. Parties are also subsidized by governments in various ways. It’s different in every province, but Federally Jean Chretien left two things as his legacy: a maximum cap on tax-deductable donations (made by persons only; not corporations or unions; tax-deductable only if you pay income tax, though); and, a per-vote subsidy payable to political parties.
The per-vote subsidy has taken a lot of abuse throughout Canada lately, particularly back at the time of the so-called "Coalition Crisis", as it was Stephen Harper’s desire to remove the per-vote subsidy which some claim drove the NDP, Liberals and Bloc into each other’s arms. Some see the per-vote subsidy as publicly funding political parties. Well, it is that. But a much larger source of public funds for political parties is clearly the tax-deductable personal donation, where an individual who donates, say, $400, will receive $300 of that donation back from the government at tax time. Personal donations can be made up to $1,100 (I believe), and the rebate, while it gets lower in terms of a percentage the higher you go, is still pretty darn healthy. Certainly, your money goes further when given to a political party rather than to a registered charity or a church, because taxpayer’s money actually does most of the giving.
Here in Sudbury, in the last election, the Conservative Party fielded an excellent candidate who had the other candidates here shaking in their boots. With the monetary juggernaut of the Conservative Party behind this educated, intellectual, articulate (in both languages), local Conservatives had high hopes for success. This guy had also been out knocking on doors for months leading up to the election. We Greens in particular were somewhat in awe of this Conservative candidate, because he had probably the greenest personal credentials of any of the candidates. In fact, I know that he inspired some in our Party to look at ways of leaving a lighter ecological footprint in our community. What we couldn’t figure out was why this guy was running as a Stephen Harper Conservative.
Well, all of our fears proved to be collectively unfounded, for on Day 1 of the campaign, this candidate went on CBC Radio and said that he disagreed with the Minister for FedNor’s decision to not fund the Centre for Mining Excellence in Sudbury. The Minister at the time was former Conservative Leadership candidate-now Minister for International Trade, Tony Clement, he of "Sudbury = Valley of Death" fame. Anyway, long story short here, this excellent candidate was muzzled by his Party, and participated only in one local debate (the one hosted by the Chamber of Commerce), and he and his campaign were pretty much eclipsed by the Liberal-NDP mudslinging on the ground. Yes, there remained up a good number of Conservative signs, but on Election Day he finished 10% points back of the winner, and in third place with 25% of the popular vote.
Later, when Pundit’s Guide published the financial metrics for the Sudbury riding from the last election, I was surprised to see that the Conservative Party had spent $85,730 on their campaign in this riding, which was the most of any Party. The winning NDP dumped $71,329 into their campaign here, while the Liberals spent just over $50,000 to contest the results. In contrast, the Green Party spent just a little over $5,000. On a per-vote level, that means that we Greens spent only 7-cents for every vote we received here in Sudbury, while the Conservatives were at $1.15, the NDP at 96-cents and the Liberals at 68-cents. All in all, I think we Greens did pretty well to receive 7.6% of the vote on a small budget.
The point I’m trying to make here is: money talks. Now, I’ve never asked the former Conservative candidate just what it was about Stephen Harper’s party which attracted him, given that to me, at least, he didn’t seem particularly ideologically predisposed to agree with much of what the Conservatives seem to stand for. This guy, though, would have been better off as an Independent, or better yet, a Green candidate. But the fact is, there is no way that an Independent or Green campaign could have spent half of what he did as a Conservative to help get him elected. Maybe he was hoping that the monetary machine of the Cons would help him get elected, and then he could begin changing Conservative minds from a position of authority within his own Party. I don’t know, I’m just speculating. But clearly, if he wanted to be an MP, he had a much better chance of getting himself elected as a Conservative, rather than as an Independent or even a Green.
Our current system is clearly set up to favour the larger, existing parties over Independents and other parties. We Greens know just how hard it is to break into the system. I’m sure that we lose out on a lot of credible candidates, who instead choose to run for other parties. Would recently-elected Provincial Liberal Glen Murray fall into that category? I’m sure that there are others, because, frankly, our Party just doesn’t have the profile and resources to be a viable vehicle for the political aspirations of many who otherwise would embrace our policies and positions.
Sometimes, small parties can come out of nowhere and capture the attention of the public. We saw that recently with the rise of the ADQ in Quebec, and lately with the surging Wildrose Alliance in Alberta, which is now out-polling the existing Progressive Conservative provincial government under Ed Stelmach. Usually, when situations like this occur, it means that a small party, usually a new one, is able to capitalize on two things: a certain zeitgeist, or feel for the times, where a Party’s one or two defining issues is more in tune with the public than what the other Party’s have on offer; and, probably more importantly, money money money. Small parties aren’t going to go anywhere without money, and that’s the reality.
So, our system is set up to favour political parties over Independents, and larger existing political parties over smaller ones, and those which appeal to the wealthy with their policies over those who appeal to the poor. That’s our current political reality, and to me, it’s a crying shame, because it does a disservice to what we believed "democracy" to be. Our system, with its lack of flexibility and with its financial favouritism of the rich over the poor, isn’t about the rule of the people for the people, which is what we thought democracy was supposed to be all about. Instead, our system perpetuates the notion of the vested interests of the rich ruling over everything else. Our system is broken in fundamental ways, yet why would we trust those currently in power to fix it, given that they are the primary beneficiaries?
In this kind of environment, is it any wonder that small political parties with fewer financial resources have a very hard time being heard, despite whether they have a few good ideas or not? Since you pretty much have to belong to a political party nowadays to have any hope of getting elected to office, it can be difficult sometimes to find a "home" in one of the bigger parties given their ideology and/or baggage. Sometimes, this leads like-minded individuals to form a Party of their own, with the hopes of capturing the interest of other like-minded individuals to join them. Of course, it helps a lot if those other like-minded individuals have some good financial resources to assist with getting the message out. Anyway, this is all part of the way that democracy appears to play itself out in Canada.
In Prince Edward Island, though, new political parties apparently face a hurdle unlike anywhere else in Canada. Before an election, a new political party must pony up a $1,000 "registration fee", just to be recognized as a Party. Once recognized, of course, they won’t have to pay again, so existing Parties aren’t affected by this scheme. For a small and new political party, $1,000 can represent a significant financial outlay, and really disadvantages a Party at election time. Clearly, PEI has made the already stilted game of Canadian political democracy that much more egregious with this unnecessary hurdle which only further impedes democratic discourse.
Apparently, back in 2007, the Green Party of PEI paid this fee and went on about their business. Now, though, the Green Party of PEI, under the Leadership of Sharon Labchuk, has gone on record in protest of this undemocratic move by the entrenched parties in her province. Here’s the kicker: Labchuk and the Greens aren’t protesting the fact that they paid this fee back in 2007, they are protesting the fact that a new political party, the Island Party, is now being forced to pay the fee!
That’s what standing up for democracy is all about. Labchuk and PEI Greens see that an injustice is occurring, and they are no longer content to sit by without saying so. As a political party, frankly the Greens have nothing to gain here, and much to lose. They’re giving publicity to a start-up political party which one day might experience success and create issues for the Green Party. No, what’s happening with the PEI Greens is much more altruistic, and certainly demonstrative of Green values in action. Regardless of political gain, Labchuk and the PEI Greens are doing what’s right. They are putting their own values ahead of partisan politics. And that’s something that we don’t see much of in this day and age, given the structure of our political system.
To me, that’s what democracy is all about: doing what’s right. Kudos to the PEI Greens for recognizing that we, as Canadians, benefit from a plurality of voices to be heard from when we go looking for leadership and good government in this country.
Our current reality is, though, that if you’re running as an Independent, best of luck to you, buddy. Independents rarely have the ability to break into provincial or federal parliaments. Those that do often do so because they were removed or removed themselves from an existing political party while sitting in parliament (Bill Casey and Chuck Cadman come to mind). The successful Independent must have a very high profile amongst the local electorate. Usually, such individuals will already have been wooed by one or two or three political parties anyway.
Political parties can bring resources to bear to assist with winning elections. They have a greater organizational structure than most Independents can bring together, and since parties are constantly fundraising, in theory there will be a revenue stream available between elections to assist with raising one’s local profile. Parties are also subsidized by governments in various ways. It’s different in every province, but Federally Jean Chretien left two things as his legacy: a maximum cap on tax-deductable donations (made by persons only; not corporations or unions; tax-deductable only if you pay income tax, though); and, a per-vote subsidy payable to political parties.
The per-vote subsidy has taken a lot of abuse throughout Canada lately, particularly back at the time of the so-called "Coalition Crisis", as it was Stephen Harper’s desire to remove the per-vote subsidy which some claim drove the NDP, Liberals and Bloc into each other’s arms. Some see the per-vote subsidy as publicly funding political parties. Well, it is that. But a much larger source of public funds for political parties is clearly the tax-deductable personal donation, where an individual who donates, say, $400, will receive $300 of that donation back from the government at tax time. Personal donations can be made up to $1,100 (I believe), and the rebate, while it gets lower in terms of a percentage the higher you go, is still pretty darn healthy. Certainly, your money goes further when given to a political party rather than to a registered charity or a church, because taxpayer’s money actually does most of the giving.
Here in Sudbury, in the last election, the Conservative Party fielded an excellent candidate who had the other candidates here shaking in their boots. With the monetary juggernaut of the Conservative Party behind this educated, intellectual, articulate (in both languages), local Conservatives had high hopes for success. This guy had also been out knocking on doors for months leading up to the election. We Greens in particular were somewhat in awe of this Conservative candidate, because he had probably the greenest personal credentials of any of the candidates. In fact, I know that he inspired some in our Party to look at ways of leaving a lighter ecological footprint in our community. What we couldn’t figure out was why this guy was running as a Stephen Harper Conservative.
Well, all of our fears proved to be collectively unfounded, for on Day 1 of the campaign, this candidate went on CBC Radio and said that he disagreed with the Minister for FedNor’s decision to not fund the Centre for Mining Excellence in Sudbury. The Minister at the time was former Conservative Leadership candidate-now Minister for International Trade, Tony Clement, he of "Sudbury = Valley of Death" fame. Anyway, long story short here, this excellent candidate was muzzled by his Party, and participated only in one local debate (the one hosted by the Chamber of Commerce), and he and his campaign were pretty much eclipsed by the Liberal-NDP mudslinging on the ground. Yes, there remained up a good number of Conservative signs, but on Election Day he finished 10% points back of the winner, and in third place with 25% of the popular vote.
Later, when Pundit’s Guide published the financial metrics for the Sudbury riding from the last election, I was surprised to see that the Conservative Party had spent $85,730 on their campaign in this riding, which was the most of any Party. The winning NDP dumped $71,329 into their campaign here, while the Liberals spent just over $50,000 to contest the results. In contrast, the Green Party spent just a little over $5,000. On a per-vote level, that means that we Greens spent only 7-cents for every vote we received here in Sudbury, while the Conservatives were at $1.15, the NDP at 96-cents and the Liberals at 68-cents. All in all, I think we Greens did pretty well to receive 7.6% of the vote on a small budget.
The point I’m trying to make here is: money talks. Now, I’ve never asked the former Conservative candidate just what it was about Stephen Harper’s party which attracted him, given that to me, at least, he didn’t seem particularly ideologically predisposed to agree with much of what the Conservatives seem to stand for. This guy, though, would have been better off as an Independent, or better yet, a Green candidate. But the fact is, there is no way that an Independent or Green campaign could have spent half of what he did as a Conservative to help get him elected. Maybe he was hoping that the monetary machine of the Cons would help him get elected, and then he could begin changing Conservative minds from a position of authority within his own Party. I don’t know, I’m just speculating. But clearly, if he wanted to be an MP, he had a much better chance of getting himself elected as a Conservative, rather than as an Independent or even a Green.
Our current system is clearly set up to favour the larger, existing parties over Independents and other parties. We Greens know just how hard it is to break into the system. I’m sure that we lose out on a lot of credible candidates, who instead choose to run for other parties. Would recently-elected Provincial Liberal Glen Murray fall into that category? I’m sure that there are others, because, frankly, our Party just doesn’t have the profile and resources to be a viable vehicle for the political aspirations of many who otherwise would embrace our policies and positions.
Sometimes, small parties can come out of nowhere and capture the attention of the public. We saw that recently with the rise of the ADQ in Quebec, and lately with the surging Wildrose Alliance in Alberta, which is now out-polling the existing Progressive Conservative provincial government under Ed Stelmach. Usually, when situations like this occur, it means that a small party, usually a new one, is able to capitalize on two things: a certain zeitgeist, or feel for the times, where a Party’s one or two defining issues is more in tune with the public than what the other Party’s have on offer; and, probably more importantly, money money money. Small parties aren’t going to go anywhere without money, and that’s the reality.
So, our system is set up to favour political parties over Independents, and larger existing political parties over smaller ones, and those which appeal to the wealthy with their policies over those who appeal to the poor. That’s our current political reality, and to me, it’s a crying shame, because it does a disservice to what we believed "democracy" to be. Our system, with its lack of flexibility and with its financial favouritism of the rich over the poor, isn’t about the rule of the people for the people, which is what we thought democracy was supposed to be all about. Instead, our system perpetuates the notion of the vested interests of the rich ruling over everything else. Our system is broken in fundamental ways, yet why would we trust those currently in power to fix it, given that they are the primary beneficiaries?
In this kind of environment, is it any wonder that small political parties with fewer financial resources have a very hard time being heard, despite whether they have a few good ideas or not? Since you pretty much have to belong to a political party nowadays to have any hope of getting elected to office, it can be difficult sometimes to find a "home" in one of the bigger parties given their ideology and/or baggage. Sometimes, this leads like-minded individuals to form a Party of their own, with the hopes of capturing the interest of other like-minded individuals to join them. Of course, it helps a lot if those other like-minded individuals have some good financial resources to assist with getting the message out. Anyway, this is all part of the way that democracy appears to play itself out in Canada.
In Prince Edward Island, though, new political parties apparently face a hurdle unlike anywhere else in Canada. Before an election, a new political party must pony up a $1,000 "registration fee", just to be recognized as a Party. Once recognized, of course, they won’t have to pay again, so existing Parties aren’t affected by this scheme. For a small and new political party, $1,000 can represent a significant financial outlay, and really disadvantages a Party at election time. Clearly, PEI has made the already stilted game of Canadian political democracy that much more egregious with this unnecessary hurdle which only further impedes democratic discourse.
Apparently, back in 2007, the Green Party of PEI paid this fee and went on about their business. Now, though, the Green Party of PEI, under the Leadership of Sharon Labchuk, has gone on record in protest of this undemocratic move by the entrenched parties in her province. Here’s the kicker: Labchuk and the Greens aren’t protesting the fact that they paid this fee back in 2007, they are protesting the fact that a new political party, the Island Party, is now being forced to pay the fee!
That’s what standing up for democracy is all about. Labchuk and PEI Greens see that an injustice is occurring, and they are no longer content to sit by without saying so. As a political party, frankly the Greens have nothing to gain here, and much to lose. They’re giving publicity to a start-up political party which one day might experience success and create issues for the Green Party. No, what’s happening with the PEI Greens is much more altruistic, and certainly demonstrative of Green values in action. Regardless of political gain, Labchuk and the PEI Greens are doing what’s right. They are putting their own values ahead of partisan politics. And that’s something that we don’t see much of in this day and age, given the structure of our political system.
To me, that’s what democracy is all about: doing what’s right. Kudos to the PEI Greens for recognizing that we, as Canadians, benefit from a plurality of voices to be heard from when we go looking for leadership and good government in this country.
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