I’ve had the opportunity to consider New Democratic Party leadership contender Thomas Mulcair’s article, “Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Country” published online in Policy Options Magazine. It’s an excellent article by Mulcair, who was Quebec’s Environment Minister prior to resigning from the provincial Liberal Party and running federally for the NDP in the Montreal riding of Outremount. It’s clear that Mulcair understands the need of putting sustainability at the head of decision-making processes. And Mulcair is right to point out that under the current Conservative government, Canada has taken significant steps backwards in its responsibilities to be stewards of the environment.
I’m impressed that Mulcair refers to that area of northern Alberta where bitumen extraction occurs as the “tar sands”, rather than the industry-rebranded “oil sands”, a term which seems to have caught on in the mainstream media. As a result, the use of the term “tar sands” almost invariably radicalizes the term user, despite the historical nature of the term (and frankly, despite being scientifically more correct). Good for Mulcair to call a duck a dirty duck, and to potentially endure the negative political consequences for doing so, especially since Mulcair has gone to great lengths to present himself to Canada as a moderate. Or at least a moderate within the context of the New Democratic Party.
Cynics might suggest that Mulcair is simply trying to demonstrate that he also has within him some radical street cred when it comes to the tar sands. Of course, those same critics may be disappointed that Mulcair hasn’t called for resource extraction in the tar sands to be closed down, in an effort to mitigate the consequences of the climate crisis. Even most those who hold the view that we would be better off to shut down the tar sands recognize that it would be politically suicidal to call for an end to bitumen extraction, and they might want to look at Mulcair’s stated approach of sustainable tar sands development as a good starting point in a conversation to curb extraction.
Actually, Mulcair says nothing of the sort. Let’s be clear here: Mulcair continues to argue that the tar sands will play an important role in Canada’s economy, and development there should proceed, albeit in a much more sustainable fashion, and without taxpayer subsidies for multi-national industries. This approach could be considered a “kinder, gentler” form of development. It’s also a smarter one, and I personally agree with Thomas Mulcair that we need to internalize the complete range of costs when we consider tar sands development.
Sustainable Development
Of course, I’m a Green, and none of this is really surprising (except perhaps to non-Greens, who believe that the Green Party wants to shut down the tar sands and indeed any polluting industry). And as a Green, I welcome Thomas Mulcair’s call for a significantly different approach to tar sands development. I suspect that the majority of those currently contending to become the Leader of the NDP are also onside regarding sustainable development. Jack Layton certainly talked about the tar sands in this manner, too, although perhaps not as poignantly.
The fact is, I think that a majority of Canadians are uncomfortable with the pace of tar sands development, and the breaks our government is giving to multinational industries. Canadians are becoming aware that the Harper Conservatives have declared war on the environment by rewriting environmental laws to better suit multinational industry needs, and tarring environmentalists as foreign subversives. The Conservative’s campaign to brand anyone concerned about environmental health as being “un-Canadian” is, in my opinion, sure to backfire. Equating the expression of environmental concerns with economic warfare being waged against the so-called interests of Canada is certainly creating a lot of unease across the country.
Mulcair’s vision for sustainable tar sands development is far from radical, however, and those considering lending him their vote to become the NDP’s next leader based on Mulcair’s green street-cred should take a closer look. Indeed, if most Canadians are uncomfortable with the runaway pace of tar sands development, and would like to see a greater emphasis on social and environmental priorities (not to mention looking after Canada’s long term economic interests through responsible development, rather than getting as much of the resource out of the ground as quickly and cheaply as possible, which seems to be the Conservative’s preferred “economic” strategy), is Mulcair a leading thinker on this issue, or just the latest follower? Again, leader, follower, whatever, at least Mulcair’s onboard, and that’s important. But it’s not the only thing which is important.
Radical or Run-of-the-Mill?
Mulcair’s article seems to be missing some critical policy pieces regarding how he and the NDP might change the development outcomes of the tar sands. Instead of a fulsome discussion, Mulcair falls back onto NDP-member approved policies: the elimination of federal subsidies for multinational oil companies (also known as “corporate welfare”, although Mulcair doesn’t use that term); ending public investment in research into unproven carbon capture and storage technology (which will only lead to further resource extraction, given that the new technology to store carbon dioxide is also intended to use the stored product to extract every last ounce of bitumen); and, of course, the NDP’s carbon-pricing baby, the Cap & Trade emissions trading scheme. All three have been on the NDP’s policy books for years, and the first two are even good ideas.
Beyond these, Mulcair offers very little when it comes to anything akin to a strategy to better manage resource extraction in the tar sands in a sustainable way. In other words, he’s long on good intentions, but very short on follow-through. Which, in my books, doesn’t say much, aside from what I’ve already said: thanks for coming out, glad you can bat for our team. To continue with the baseball analogy, it’s good that Mulcair might be a skilled right-fielder, but I wouldn’t want him acting as the First Base Coach or the Manager. Yet he aspires to a leadership position.
So, really, Mulcair hasn’t said anything much new here at all, other than to publicly call a dirty duck a dirty duck, and maybe rankle the feathers of those who want to keep branding him a Liberal in an orange sweater.
There is nothing bold about Mulcair’s tar sands policy. There’s no mention of where the resource which he wants to see sustainably developed might go. Even Alberta’s ultra-right-wing Wildrose Party has sensibly suggested that maybe it’s time to look to oil exportation to Eastern Canada, rather than the U.S. or China, given that we here in the East continue to rely on foreign oil exports for our own needs (and are subject to price fluctuations as a result). That kind of policy discussion would probably go over well in Quebec, which I understand is a province which the NDP wants to be seen as a champion.
Why not talk up the need for establishing a national strategic reserve, given that Canada is the only G-8 nation without one? Or better yet, why not couch an argument in favour of sustainable development as part of a much larger discussion about the need for a national energy strategy, one which favours low-carbon renewables and conservation? Really, those are the sorts of no-brainer policy options I would have expected to see from Mulcair in his Policy Options piece. But they’re not there.
Cap & Trade: The Wrong Way to Price Carbon
However, there is a lot to be concerned about with one of the NDP-approved policy proposals which Mulcair wants to continue to push: the Cap & Trade emissions trading scheme. In the Policy Options Magazine article, Mulcair says that a Cap & Trade program will better than a series of regulations (which has been the Conservatives approach to “managing” carbon emissions). In that, Mulcair is absolutely correct; Cap & Trade would certainly be better for industry and for Canada than what the regulatory hurdles the Conservatives are throwing up for businesses. But Mulcair fails to mention that a third generally-acknowledged approach to emissions management exists, and that it’s the only one which has actually been proven to reduce emissions: a revenue neutral carbon tax.
The NDP’s Cap & Trade program, if ever implemented, would be very problematic for many Canadians, including much of the NDP’s traditional core-supporters: working families. What Cap & Trade will do is essentially increase the price of many essential goods and services. Proving that Mulcair can pitch the NDP’s talking points as well as any, Mulcair refers to wanting to make the “polluter pay”, but totally fails to recognize that if big corporations are forced to pay for emissions, they’re going to pass their costs onto consumers in the form of higher prices. This will not only put the squeeze on consumers, it’s also going to put the squeeze on the jobs of those who rely on more carbon-rich inputs for their livelihoods.
Think about this: your food is brought to market on a truck which will have higher fuel costs. The price of food will rise. The independent truck driver’s profit margin will shrink as a result of higher fuel costs. And if you take the bus to the market, you’re likely going to be paying a higher fare for the same reasons.
Now, Cap & Trade supporters will argue that a carbon tax will accomplish the exact same outcomes, and if we were talking about the simple application of a consumption tax, than I would agree with them. However, that’s not what we’re talking about at all. The Green Party has for a long time now advocated for the imposition of a revenue-neutral carbon tax. The Liberals under Stephane Dion proposed a similar policy. The Liberal government of Gordon Campbell actually implemented a revenue-neutral carbon tax in British Columbia, where it remains in place today.
Revenue Neutral Carbon Pricing vs. Emissions Trading
Pricing carbon may lead to higher costs for many consumer goods. However, pricing carbon through a tax has several advantages over emissions trading. First, a tax is far more transparent, and will offer more distinct choices for consumers. Consumers who want to purchase carbon-rich goods and services will pay a premium, while those who want to purchase low-carbon goods and services will save their money.
Second, a carbon tax is predictable, and will allow businesses and industry to better plan for their own fiscal needs. The Cap & Trade scheme requires the establishment of an emissions trading exchange, similar to a stock market, run by middlemen who stand to profit from each transaction. And like a stock market, emissions trading markets will lead to fluctuating prices – sometimes wildly so. If you’re a big industrial player, you may be able to absorb price fluctuations. But if you’re a small business of the sort the NDP pretends to like to champion, you’re likely going to be less able to deal with fluctuating offset prices.
Third, a revenue-neutral carbon tax will actually put money back into the hands of hard-working families, allowing them greater control over their own spending choices. The Green Party has long championed reductions to income tax as the primary means for people to hold onto more of their own money. No other federal political party, except the Dion Liberals in 2008, ever proposed significant cuts to income tax, despite the fact that most taxpayers have expressed an interest in paying less taxes. A revenue-neutral carbon tax in conjunction with income tax reductions would lead to people having more money in their wallets and clearer choices about how they can spend it.
However, cutting income tax alone won’t put more money into everyone’s wallets, given that there is a significant percentage of Canada’s populace who do not pay income tax. To ensure that the economically less well off have the income supports needed, the Green Party has proposed the implementation of a Gauranteed Annual Income, a policy position first brought forward in Canada by Progressive Conservative Hugh Segal. Now, while that’s the Green’s policy (and one which I agree with), there would certainly be other ways to achieve similar results (such as providing those living in poverty with other forms of income supports).
Finally, one of the best advantages a revenue-neutral carbon tax has over Cap & Trade is that a revenue-neutral carbon tax will lead to actual reductions in emissions. Where Cap & Trade schemes have been implemented in Europe, it’s been unclear that they’ve actually led to a reduction in emissions. This may be because the Cap was set too high, but for whatever reason, it’s clear that carbon offset purchases may not actually lead to the desired environmental outcome.
In contrast, a carbon tax is a consumption tax. Whenever consumption taxes are imposed, there have been direct results to consumption: higher prices lead to less demand. Consumption taxes on cigarettes, for example, have led to a reduction in smoking. Consumer buying habits really can be shaped by income policy. And, new low-carbon goods and services may start to appear which are less expensive for consumers than higher-priced carbon rich products, as more room in the market is created. That’s what capitalism is all about after all: competition. It’s just that the kind of capitalism we’ve been practicing has favoured subsidies to businesses and industries which have not internalized all input costs, such as the cost of carbon emissions. The introduction of low carbon goods and services into the marketplace has been historically curtailed, due to the public assumption of pollution costs which make low carbon alternatives less competitive.
All In This Together
For me, it’s clear that if Thomas Mulcair was really concerned about wanting to make the “polluter pay”, he really doesn’t get it. Mulcair and the NDP really need to look into a mirror and acknowledge the fact that he and the NDP have seen the “Polluter” and they are Us. As long as we continue to make carbon-rich lifestyle choices, we are just as responsible as any one person or corporate entity for increasing global carbon emissions. We’re all a part of the problem, and we all need to be a part of the solution.
While the notion of taking personal responsibility for the climate crisis is something which people may be reluctant to do, the only other option will be to embrace lousy public policy, which is exactly what Mulcair and the NDP continue to endorse with their Cap & Trade proposal. Rather than recognize that we’re all in this together, the NDP wants to continue to practice its version of “left” vs. “right” political warfare, which admittedly has proven successful in garnering votes. But it fails abysmally when it comes to implementation and accomplishing desired outcomes. In other words, the NDP continues to talk a good game, but they lack on follow through.
It’s time to move away from the “left” vs. “right” dialectic which the NDP clings to. Ironically, it’s Thomas Mulcair who seems to be the NDP’s champion for reform in this leadership race (well, there’s also Nathan Cullen). Yet, Mulcair’s reforms will be to make the NDP look more like the Liberal Party, in an attempt to appeal to centrist voters. Clearly, there won’t be a shift away from the left/right dialectic under Mulcair, only potentially a shift from the NDP’s relative position on the left side of the political spectrum. Mulcair wants to nudge his party further to the right in order to get votes. I would suggest that instead a better approach would be to abandon this outdated left/right way of looking at the world in order to better get the jobs which need doing done.
For a leadership contender who claims to want to be a champion of sustainable development, a better lens for decision-making is one which doesn’t look at right vs. left, but rather which assesses impacts based on right vs. wrong. And I guess that’s one of the reasons that I joined the Green Party.
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
The Price of Dirty Oil: Canada, the EU, the WTO and National Sovereignty
So, today was supposed to be the big day. I’ve had it circled on my calendar for some time now, so imagine my surprise when it all turned into a non-event. Of course I’m talking about today being the day when the European Union was to decide on whether or not Canada’s tar sands oil should be listed as “dirty” under the EU’s “Fuel Quality Directive” and subject to a higher carbon offset charges at the time of importation. But instead of making a decision, it looks like EU decision makers deferred, and now an ultimate decision appears to be in the hands of some kind of committee, to be made at some point in the future, maybe.
Had a positive decision been made today, the EU’s “Fuel Quality Directive” would have listed bitumen-derived oil from Canada’s tar sands as a product requiring the payment of a higher carbon offset for importation than would oil derived from conventional sources, due to the amount of pollution created through processing. The government of Canada, of course, was hoping that a negative decision would have been made, and after intensive lobbying efforts by our government and its oil industry partners, directed at EU decision makers, the end result is….more waiting.
Dirty Oil
That the production of tar sands oil is, on the whole, dirtier than conventional oil, has long been an established fact. This week, a report published in Nature Climate Change, written by renowned Canadian climate scientist Andrew Weaver, assessed the relative levels of warming which the world can expect should all economically viable deposits of bitumen in the Alberta tar sands be developed for use. Weaver’s results have been interpreted by some national media sources as the green light for tar sands development, given that Weaver’s findings show that relative to some other fossil fuel energy sources, anticipated warming from the tar sands is less than what we would expect from other fossil fuel sources (specifically, coal and shale gas).
The Toronto Star, on Wednesday February 22nd, published a great article from Weaver himself about the study; if you’re interested in finding out more about the study in Weaver’s own words, read “The oilsands are a symptom of the bigger problem of our dependence on fossil fuels”.
However, Weaver’s findings do not dispute the central fact of the matter at hand, as least as far as the European Union is concerned: oil derived from the tar sands is typically dirtier than oil derived from other conventional sources. As a result, Europe continues to consider whether anybody importing tar sands oil into Europe will be required to pay a higher offset charge for the privilege of importing dirty oil.
What this means isn’t exactly clear, on the one hand, given that hardly anybody in Europe has been importing oil derived from Alberta bitumen. On the other hand, a European decision to essentially tax Canada’s dirty oil at a higher rate than conventional oil must be very troubling for Alberta oil producers and the Conservative government they’ve bought to act in their interests.
Canada, the EU and the World Trade Organization (WTO)
As a result, over the past year or so, the Conservative government of Canada has been engaged in an intensive lobbying effort in partnership with multi-national oil corporations in an attempt to influence today’s vote. Ultimately, the lobbying initiative appears to have reaped some level of payout, as a few nations which were intensively lobbied (the U.K. and France) decided to stay away from the vote (see today’s Globe & Mail, “EU blocks passage of Canada’s ‘tar sands’ ranking”, February 23/12). So while today’s decision wasn’t the outright victory sought by Canada’s Conservative government and its oil industry partners, the lobbying effort at least has stalled the process for the time being. Of course, Canada has also threatened the EU with a World Trade Organization challenge over unfair business practices if it doesn’t ultimately get its way.
Many believe that Canada has a strong case to make at the WTO, and that the European Union’s Fuel Quality Directive is, in fact, discriminatory, because it treats a single product, oil, differently depending on where it’s manufactured. Generally speaking, this is a big no-no in the realm of international trade, and I happen to agree with many of the experts who have been watching this issue play itself out: Canada will likely be successful at the WTO in arguing for its interests, if it comes to that. Based on current international trade rules, Europe’s Fuel Quality Directive does appear to be a discriminatory trade practice.
Lawrence Herman, an international trade consultant with a respected Canadian legal firm, shared his opinion on a WTO challenge in yesterday’s Globe & Mail (“The ground war with Europe over Alberta’s Oil”, Globe & Mail, February 22 2012). Herman refers to the FDQ as being a “border tax…to compensate for carbon emitted in…production”. Herman goes on to explain the concept of “differential measures” for “like” products which compete for the same market, and concludes that in those circumstances where two products which compete for the same market, such as bitumen-derived oil and conventional oil, are so similar, it would be discriminatory to punish one in preference to the other.
Let me be clear about this: while I believe that a decision which rules discrimination will likely be the outcome at the WTO, I do not agree that it should be the outcome. Such an outcome would be, in my opinion, immoral, and an affront to the sovereignty of nations, and frankly to humanity. But sometimes, as they say, the law is an ass.
In Whose Interests?
Getting back to Herman’s opinion…think about this for a moment: If the production processes of one product leads to greater pollution outputs, it would be illegal in the opinion of the Government of Canada and in the opinion of many trade experts like Herman for that product to be penalized at the time of importation into another jurisdiction if the importation of a less-polluting product isn’t subject to the same penalty. If this is the case, what would be the incentive for polluting industries to clean up their processes? What does that say about proactive governments which are trying to encourage better business practices, and using the market as a tool for cleaner energy choices?
Clearly, what such a decision would be saying is that the environment doesn’t matter, as least as far as international trade goes, and that national states such as the European Union which want to use market forces as leverage for greener consumer choices are out of luck. And humanity is just going to have to put up with pollution generated by corporations in the pursuit of profits.
And that, to me, is absurd. And I know that I’m not the only one who views it this way. If a company is producing a product which entails the creation of more pollution, that product should be taxed at a higher rate than a similar product which doesn’t require the emission of as much pollution. That’s why Europe has been considering listing Canada’s bitumen-derived oil as “dirtier” than oil derived from conventional sources. Nations should have the ability to discriminate when its in the public’s interests to do so. And clearly, with regards to climate changing greenhouse gas emissions, the public has a considerable stake in the energy decisions made by their elected representatives.
Human vs. Corporate Rights
You can probably see where I’m going with this. Clearly, if our international trading structure doesn’t permit a nation to impose a tariff on a product whose production is more polluting than that of a similar product, what does that say about national sovereignty, or the importance of the health of people and the natural environment? We know that there’s a lot which is going wrong in this world already, but when a nation, or in this case the European Union, decides that it’s going to take a small step in an attempt to right a wrong, and finds that its ability to do so is thwarted by international trade rules which favour corporations over people, well, I ask you: is that right?
Last I looked, corporations weren’t impacted by pollution. Their children don’t suffer from respiratory diseases in the same way that human children do. Their livelihoods, for the most part, aren’t impacted by higher food prices resulting from shortages brought on by climate change. Yet we, you and I, through our elected governments, have decided to create international institutions like the World Trade Organization which will favour corporations over people and progressive national governments. That, to me, just illustrates that it’s time that we, meaning you and I, get our act together and begin to elect a government which is going to look out for our own interests.
Canada Chooses Corporate Interests Over People
In Canada’s case, it’s clear that the Conservative government has chosen to champion multinational corporations over people in its pursuit of thwarting the European Union’s imposition of the Fuel Quality Directive. We Canadians will have a chance in a few years to tell the Conservative Party what we think of their decisions to favour corporations over people. Let’s not forget the taxpayers dollars which were spent by Canada’s Conservative government in an effort to influence today’s vote, or how Canada’s Conservatives tried to hide their partnerships with Big Oil (see: “Feds hid names of big oil companies at lobbying retreat”, Mide De Souza, PostMedia News, February 13/12)
I hope that Canada doesn’t go through with its WTO challenge, but it probably will. I hope that, despite what experts like Lawrence Herman say, the WTO decides that it’s all right for a nation to impose a tariff on a product which requires more pollution than a similar product, but I don’t think it will. I do, however, know that it’s time we, the people, began reigning in corporate power, as we’ll be the ones to pass on this world to our – living and breathing – children. We are, you and I, ultimately responsible for the world which our children inherit. That the power structure that we and our parents created appears monolithic is no reason to throw our arms up into the air in frustration, claiming that we can’t do anything about it. People can, and do, affect change. We’ve seen it happen throughout the world in 2011, and it will continue to happen over the course of the global long emergency in which we are now in the midst of.
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
Had a positive decision been made today, the EU’s “Fuel Quality Directive” would have listed bitumen-derived oil from Canada’s tar sands as a product requiring the payment of a higher carbon offset for importation than would oil derived from conventional sources, due to the amount of pollution created through processing. The government of Canada, of course, was hoping that a negative decision would have been made, and after intensive lobbying efforts by our government and its oil industry partners, directed at EU decision makers, the end result is….more waiting.
Dirty Oil
That the production of tar sands oil is, on the whole, dirtier than conventional oil, has long been an established fact. This week, a report published in Nature Climate Change, written by renowned Canadian climate scientist Andrew Weaver, assessed the relative levels of warming which the world can expect should all economically viable deposits of bitumen in the Alberta tar sands be developed for use. Weaver’s results have been interpreted by some national media sources as the green light for tar sands development, given that Weaver’s findings show that relative to some other fossil fuel energy sources, anticipated warming from the tar sands is less than what we would expect from other fossil fuel sources (specifically, coal and shale gas).
The Toronto Star, on Wednesday February 22nd, published a great article from Weaver himself about the study; if you’re interested in finding out more about the study in Weaver’s own words, read “The oilsands are a symptom of the bigger problem of our dependence on fossil fuels”.
However, Weaver’s findings do not dispute the central fact of the matter at hand, as least as far as the European Union is concerned: oil derived from the tar sands is typically dirtier than oil derived from other conventional sources. As a result, Europe continues to consider whether anybody importing tar sands oil into Europe will be required to pay a higher offset charge for the privilege of importing dirty oil.
What this means isn’t exactly clear, on the one hand, given that hardly anybody in Europe has been importing oil derived from Alberta bitumen. On the other hand, a European decision to essentially tax Canada’s dirty oil at a higher rate than conventional oil must be very troubling for Alberta oil producers and the Conservative government they’ve bought to act in their interests.
Canada, the EU and the World Trade Organization (WTO)
As a result, over the past year or so, the Conservative government of Canada has been engaged in an intensive lobbying effort in partnership with multi-national oil corporations in an attempt to influence today’s vote. Ultimately, the lobbying initiative appears to have reaped some level of payout, as a few nations which were intensively lobbied (the U.K. and France) decided to stay away from the vote (see today’s Globe & Mail, “EU blocks passage of Canada’s ‘tar sands’ ranking”, February 23/12). So while today’s decision wasn’t the outright victory sought by Canada’s Conservative government and its oil industry partners, the lobbying effort at least has stalled the process for the time being. Of course, Canada has also threatened the EU with a World Trade Organization challenge over unfair business practices if it doesn’t ultimately get its way.
Many believe that Canada has a strong case to make at the WTO, and that the European Union’s Fuel Quality Directive is, in fact, discriminatory, because it treats a single product, oil, differently depending on where it’s manufactured. Generally speaking, this is a big no-no in the realm of international trade, and I happen to agree with many of the experts who have been watching this issue play itself out: Canada will likely be successful at the WTO in arguing for its interests, if it comes to that. Based on current international trade rules, Europe’s Fuel Quality Directive does appear to be a discriminatory trade practice.
Lawrence Herman, an international trade consultant with a respected Canadian legal firm, shared his opinion on a WTO challenge in yesterday’s Globe & Mail (“The ground war with Europe over Alberta’s Oil”, Globe & Mail, February 22 2012). Herman refers to the FDQ as being a “border tax…to compensate for carbon emitted in…production”. Herman goes on to explain the concept of “differential measures” for “like” products which compete for the same market, and concludes that in those circumstances where two products which compete for the same market, such as bitumen-derived oil and conventional oil, are so similar, it would be discriminatory to punish one in preference to the other.
Let me be clear about this: while I believe that a decision which rules discrimination will likely be the outcome at the WTO, I do not agree that it should be the outcome. Such an outcome would be, in my opinion, immoral, and an affront to the sovereignty of nations, and frankly to humanity. But sometimes, as they say, the law is an ass.
In Whose Interests?
Getting back to Herman’s opinion…think about this for a moment: If the production processes of one product leads to greater pollution outputs, it would be illegal in the opinion of the Government of Canada and in the opinion of many trade experts like Herman for that product to be penalized at the time of importation into another jurisdiction if the importation of a less-polluting product isn’t subject to the same penalty. If this is the case, what would be the incentive for polluting industries to clean up their processes? What does that say about proactive governments which are trying to encourage better business practices, and using the market as a tool for cleaner energy choices?
Clearly, what such a decision would be saying is that the environment doesn’t matter, as least as far as international trade goes, and that national states such as the European Union which want to use market forces as leverage for greener consumer choices are out of luck. And humanity is just going to have to put up with pollution generated by corporations in the pursuit of profits.
And that, to me, is absurd. And I know that I’m not the only one who views it this way. If a company is producing a product which entails the creation of more pollution, that product should be taxed at a higher rate than a similar product which doesn’t require the emission of as much pollution. That’s why Europe has been considering listing Canada’s bitumen-derived oil as “dirtier” than oil derived from conventional sources. Nations should have the ability to discriminate when its in the public’s interests to do so. And clearly, with regards to climate changing greenhouse gas emissions, the public has a considerable stake in the energy decisions made by their elected representatives.
Human vs. Corporate Rights
You can probably see where I’m going with this. Clearly, if our international trading structure doesn’t permit a nation to impose a tariff on a product whose production is more polluting than that of a similar product, what does that say about national sovereignty, or the importance of the health of people and the natural environment? We know that there’s a lot which is going wrong in this world already, but when a nation, or in this case the European Union, decides that it’s going to take a small step in an attempt to right a wrong, and finds that its ability to do so is thwarted by international trade rules which favour corporations over people, well, I ask you: is that right?
Last I looked, corporations weren’t impacted by pollution. Their children don’t suffer from respiratory diseases in the same way that human children do. Their livelihoods, for the most part, aren’t impacted by higher food prices resulting from shortages brought on by climate change. Yet we, you and I, through our elected governments, have decided to create international institutions like the World Trade Organization which will favour corporations over people and progressive national governments. That, to me, just illustrates that it’s time that we, meaning you and I, get our act together and begin to elect a government which is going to look out for our own interests.
Canada Chooses Corporate Interests Over People
In Canada’s case, it’s clear that the Conservative government has chosen to champion multinational corporations over people in its pursuit of thwarting the European Union’s imposition of the Fuel Quality Directive. We Canadians will have a chance in a few years to tell the Conservative Party what we think of their decisions to favour corporations over people. Let’s not forget the taxpayers dollars which were spent by Canada’s Conservative government in an effort to influence today’s vote, or how Canada’s Conservatives tried to hide their partnerships with Big Oil (see: “Feds hid names of big oil companies at lobbying retreat”, Mide De Souza, PostMedia News, February 13/12)
I hope that Canada doesn’t go through with its WTO challenge, but it probably will. I hope that, despite what experts like Lawrence Herman say, the WTO decides that it’s all right for a nation to impose a tariff on a product which requires more pollution than a similar product, but I don’t think it will. I do, however, know that it’s time we, the people, began reigning in corporate power, as we’ll be the ones to pass on this world to our – living and breathing – children. We are, you and I, ultimately responsible for the world which our children inherit. That the power structure that we and our parents created appears monolithic is no reason to throw our arms up into the air in frustration, claiming that we can’t do anything about it. People can, and do, affect change. We’ve seen it happen throughout the world in 2011, and it will continue to happen over the course of the global long emergency in which we are now in the midst of.
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Will Greater Sudbury Be Forced to Hike Taxes to Pay for Legal Challenges Made by Taxpayers Association?
The Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association (GSTA) is at it again, practicing the politics of fear and division within our City. At first, the GSTA’s smear campaign against our locally-elected officials was, for me, an academic interest; something interesting to watch unfold, from an intellectual perspective. However, with the GSTA’s most recent news conference, the actions of this group of neo-liberals in our midst is going to have a direct impact on me, a taxpayer of this City, in a place where it will hurt the most – my wallet.
Yes, it’s extremely ironic that a group which claims to be on a mission to look out for taxpayers financial interests has set its sights on – get this! – potentially contributing to raising the taxes of all municipal residents! But if reports published in the Sudbury Star (online, Monday February 20th, “City councillors face slush fund showdown”, and in print, Tuesday, February 21st, “Slush fund showdown”) are to be believed, it seems that the Taxpayers Association is threatening to take our municipal Councillors to court if the Association doesn’t get its own way.
Who, pray tell, does the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association think is going to be picking up the legal costs for a court challenge? Why, I think that it will end up being me, and all of the other taxpayers in our City, that’s who!
The "Healthy Community Initiative"
Since before its inception as an incorporated entity, members of the GSTA have been speaking out against something called the “Healthy Community Initiative” (HCI), which they (and others) label a “slush fund”. Essentially, each local councillor is allocated $50,000 for leisure spending in their wards each year (although apparently any unspent funds can be used by a Councillor in the following year of their 4 year mandate). This past Monday, the GSTA held a press conference to announce their intention to file lawsuits against Council if the Healthy Community Initiative isn’t reformed to the GSTA’s satisfaction.
Look, the Healthy Community Initiative in its present form is completely indefensible, in my opinion. On that, the GSTA and I agree. That a lot of good ultimately comes out of ward-specific spending on leisure activities is undeniable, but the fact is that all of this spending – now as much as $600,000 a year, is happening in an unaccountable vacuum, at the direction of only the ward Councillor. There is no public oversight, until after the fact, and then only through the media. There is no accountability regarding how funds are spent.
The Healthy Community Initiative is also a boon for incumbent municipal Councillors come election time. Essentially, each Councillor has access to a pool of money, now totalling $200,000 over 4 years, on which they can draw on to promote projects in their ward. At election time, Councillors often refer back to HCI spending that they’ve made within their wards as reasons for re-election, and as reminders to voters that they’ve done some good locally. Of course, the public is rarely advised whether other good projects might have been turned down in preference to other good projects. And since there is no requirement for public oversight, there’s no knowledge being shared as to which proponents might have benefited from HCI spending, and which proponents didn’t.
Accountability, Oversight and a Healthy Democratic Environment
As a resident of the City of Greater Sudbury, I’m happy that the City has expressed an interest in investing in leisure activities at the ward level, to the tune of $600,000 a year. As a taxpayer, however, I’m dismayed by the lack of oversight of this spending. And as a member of the Green Party of Canada, and CEO of the local federal electoral district association, I’m frankly appalled by the abuse of democracy which is occurring at the local level of my municipal government.
Not that I have any particular interest in municipal government in my role as CEO of the Sudbury Federal Green Party Association, as we are focussed only on the federal politics. But as a capital-G partisan Green, I, like thousands of Canadians, share a set of values, which my Party has articulated in its Constitution. But you don’t have to be a partisan Green or a member of my Party to subscribe to these values, as many ordinary Canadians share some or all of these values. I just happen to belong to a political party which has codified these shared values, and which uses these values as a basis for all decision-making. When applied to the Healthy Community Initiative, it’s clear to me that such a program involving government spending isn’t in keeping with those values.
Specifically, Greens believe in breaking down the inequalities of wealth and power that inhibit participation in democracy. We believe that all elected representatives should be committed to the principles of transparency, truthfulness and accountability in government. A spending program which lacks oversight and accountability, with a budget in excess of a half million dollars in any given year, administered by an elected official at their discretion, and seemingly to their electoral advantage, well, that’s just not in keeping with those values. Those are the sorts of undemocratic initiatives which my Party is fighting against at the federal level (google: “Tony Clement” and “Gazebo” to find out more about recent unaccountable spending by the federal government).
There can be no defending how HCI spending is being implemented in this City. So I agree with the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association’s call for reform of the HCI.
Bully Tactics and the Politics of Fear & Division
What I don’t agree with is the GSTA’s threats to bring lawsuits against Council or individual Councillors if they don’t get their way. Look, I understand that with regards to the HCI, Monday’s press conference wasn’t the GSTA’s starting point on this issue. They’ve been making their opinion known about the HCI for some time now. The GSTA has, apparently, hired a lawyer to prepare a 10-page report on HCI spending, and now armed with the findings of the Report, the threats of legal action are flying around fast and furiously.
With this Report in their backpocket, why did the GSTA not first choose to bring the findings of the Report to Council’s attention through a delegation process? Or make the Report available to individual Councillors, as a courtesy, or even simply through a press conference which still could have elicited coverage in our local media? Instead of taking those proactive steps to provide further education to our elected officials, with the hopes that this time they might see the light on the HCI spending issue, what happened instead has escalated this issue into an entirely different political realm.
And if the GSTA was serious about reforming the HCI, they never would have taken the step to threaten law suits. Clearly, there’s another agenda at play here. What the threat of a law suit actually does is to put Council and individual Councillors against a wall. If they decide to reform HCI spending, they’ll be handing a public victory to an organization that has been critical of Council, many individual Councillors, and municipal staff. If Council doesn’t reform the HCI, they’ll continue to have to defend the indefensible, however since that’s the track which our current Council has been on anyway, it seems likely that it will continue to follow suit for the next few years now, rather than hand the GSTA a moral victory.
An opportunity for real reform was lost as a result of issuing the legal threat. In its short history, the GSTA has frequently relied on bully tactics to make its point, such as calling for the resignation of the municipal CAO over his perceived role in the transit ticket scandal, instead of waiting for all of the facts to be exposed. In the case of the HCI, the GSTA’s very real threat of legal action against the municipality can only be considered yet another adversarial bully tactic, intended to intimidate Councillors. Of course, by issuing the threat, the GSTA can’t lose on this issue – unless of course, they follow through on the legal proceedings and fall flat on their faces. Even a legal loss, however, could still likely be spun as a win of some sort for the GSTA.
Political Game-Playing at the Municipal Level
And that’s why it’s pretty clear to me that the GSTA is playing a political game in our City, while claiming to be the champion of taxpayers. The old saying goes, “you get more flies with honey than vinegar”. The GSTA had other options available to it, especially now, armed with a report from a legal expert. The GSTA could have used this opportunity to build bridges with Council, and regain some credibility lost in the community through their use of over-heated rhetoric and bully tactics. Instead of using their Report as an incentive for reform, the GSTA has chosen to wield it as a club.
Backed up against a wall, if Council doesn’t blink, it now seems certain that our taxes are going to have to pay defending lawsuits filed by the so-called Taxpayers Association! Just whose interests is the GSTA really looking out for?
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
Yes, it’s extremely ironic that a group which claims to be on a mission to look out for taxpayers financial interests has set its sights on – get this! – potentially contributing to raising the taxes of all municipal residents! But if reports published in the Sudbury Star (online, Monday February 20th, “City councillors face slush fund showdown”, and in print, Tuesday, February 21st, “Slush fund showdown”) are to be believed, it seems that the Taxpayers Association is threatening to take our municipal Councillors to court if the Association doesn’t get its own way.
Who, pray tell, does the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association think is going to be picking up the legal costs for a court challenge? Why, I think that it will end up being me, and all of the other taxpayers in our City, that’s who!
The "Healthy Community Initiative"
Since before its inception as an incorporated entity, members of the GSTA have been speaking out against something called the “Healthy Community Initiative” (HCI), which they (and others) label a “slush fund”. Essentially, each local councillor is allocated $50,000 for leisure spending in their wards each year (although apparently any unspent funds can be used by a Councillor in the following year of their 4 year mandate). This past Monday, the GSTA held a press conference to announce their intention to file lawsuits against Council if the Healthy Community Initiative isn’t reformed to the GSTA’s satisfaction.
Look, the Healthy Community Initiative in its present form is completely indefensible, in my opinion. On that, the GSTA and I agree. That a lot of good ultimately comes out of ward-specific spending on leisure activities is undeniable, but the fact is that all of this spending – now as much as $600,000 a year, is happening in an unaccountable vacuum, at the direction of only the ward Councillor. There is no public oversight, until after the fact, and then only through the media. There is no accountability regarding how funds are spent.
The Healthy Community Initiative is also a boon for incumbent municipal Councillors come election time. Essentially, each Councillor has access to a pool of money, now totalling $200,000 over 4 years, on which they can draw on to promote projects in their ward. At election time, Councillors often refer back to HCI spending that they’ve made within their wards as reasons for re-election, and as reminders to voters that they’ve done some good locally. Of course, the public is rarely advised whether other good projects might have been turned down in preference to other good projects. And since there is no requirement for public oversight, there’s no knowledge being shared as to which proponents might have benefited from HCI spending, and which proponents didn’t.
Accountability, Oversight and a Healthy Democratic Environment
As a resident of the City of Greater Sudbury, I’m happy that the City has expressed an interest in investing in leisure activities at the ward level, to the tune of $600,000 a year. As a taxpayer, however, I’m dismayed by the lack of oversight of this spending. And as a member of the Green Party of Canada, and CEO of the local federal electoral district association, I’m frankly appalled by the abuse of democracy which is occurring at the local level of my municipal government.
Not that I have any particular interest in municipal government in my role as CEO of the Sudbury Federal Green Party Association, as we are focussed only on the federal politics. But as a capital-G partisan Green, I, like thousands of Canadians, share a set of values, which my Party has articulated in its Constitution. But you don’t have to be a partisan Green or a member of my Party to subscribe to these values, as many ordinary Canadians share some or all of these values. I just happen to belong to a political party which has codified these shared values, and which uses these values as a basis for all decision-making. When applied to the Healthy Community Initiative, it’s clear to me that such a program involving government spending isn’t in keeping with those values.
Specifically, Greens believe in breaking down the inequalities of wealth and power that inhibit participation in democracy. We believe that all elected representatives should be committed to the principles of transparency, truthfulness and accountability in government. A spending program which lacks oversight and accountability, with a budget in excess of a half million dollars in any given year, administered by an elected official at their discretion, and seemingly to their electoral advantage, well, that’s just not in keeping with those values. Those are the sorts of undemocratic initiatives which my Party is fighting against at the federal level (google: “Tony Clement” and “Gazebo” to find out more about recent unaccountable spending by the federal government).
There can be no defending how HCI spending is being implemented in this City. So I agree with the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association’s call for reform of the HCI.
Bully Tactics and the Politics of Fear & Division
What I don’t agree with is the GSTA’s threats to bring lawsuits against Council or individual Councillors if they don’t get their way. Look, I understand that with regards to the HCI, Monday’s press conference wasn’t the GSTA’s starting point on this issue. They’ve been making their opinion known about the HCI for some time now. The GSTA has, apparently, hired a lawyer to prepare a 10-page report on HCI spending, and now armed with the findings of the Report, the threats of legal action are flying around fast and furiously.
With this Report in their backpocket, why did the GSTA not first choose to bring the findings of the Report to Council’s attention through a delegation process? Or make the Report available to individual Councillors, as a courtesy, or even simply through a press conference which still could have elicited coverage in our local media? Instead of taking those proactive steps to provide further education to our elected officials, with the hopes that this time they might see the light on the HCI spending issue, what happened instead has escalated this issue into an entirely different political realm.
And if the GSTA was serious about reforming the HCI, they never would have taken the step to threaten law suits. Clearly, there’s another agenda at play here. What the threat of a law suit actually does is to put Council and individual Councillors against a wall. If they decide to reform HCI spending, they’ll be handing a public victory to an organization that has been critical of Council, many individual Councillors, and municipal staff. If Council doesn’t reform the HCI, they’ll continue to have to defend the indefensible, however since that’s the track which our current Council has been on anyway, it seems likely that it will continue to follow suit for the next few years now, rather than hand the GSTA a moral victory.
An opportunity for real reform was lost as a result of issuing the legal threat. In its short history, the GSTA has frequently relied on bully tactics to make its point, such as calling for the resignation of the municipal CAO over his perceived role in the transit ticket scandal, instead of waiting for all of the facts to be exposed. In the case of the HCI, the GSTA’s very real threat of legal action against the municipality can only be considered yet another adversarial bully tactic, intended to intimidate Councillors. Of course, by issuing the threat, the GSTA can’t lose on this issue – unless of course, they follow through on the legal proceedings and fall flat on their faces. Even a legal loss, however, could still likely be spun as a win of some sort for the GSTA.
Political Game-Playing at the Municipal Level
And that’s why it’s pretty clear to me that the GSTA is playing a political game in our City, while claiming to be the champion of taxpayers. The old saying goes, “you get more flies with honey than vinegar”. The GSTA had other options available to it, especially now, armed with a report from a legal expert. The GSTA could have used this opportunity to build bridges with Council, and regain some credibility lost in the community through their use of over-heated rhetoric and bully tactics. Instead of using their Report as an incentive for reform, the GSTA has chosen to wield it as a club.
Backed up against a wall, if Council doesn’t blink, it now seems certain that our taxes are going to have to pay defending lawsuits filed by the so-called Taxpayers Association! Just whose interests is the GSTA really looking out for?
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
Monday, February 6, 2012
Why Restricting Rural Residential Development in Greater Sudbury Makes Sense
The following was originally posted in a somewhat different format in response to a comment made on the Sudbury Star’s website (post #2), itself in response to a letter to the editor from my friend Richard Paquette, published in the Monday, February 6 2012 edition of the Sudbury Star (“Changes would cause more urban sprawl”). I didn’t know that Richard was intending on writing his letter, but as a resident of Azilda, I can understand why he would be concerned at promoting even more sprawl in rural parts of the City of Greater Sudbury.
I spoke about the need to severely restrict additional rural residential development in Greater Sudbury at a recent meeting of Planning Committee, at which the 5-year review of the City’s Official Plan was being discussed. Earlier that evening, I had been delighted to hear that the City had identified rural residential development as one of the issues which was going to be looked at as part of the review. This acknowledgement of the importance of the issue motivated me to speak at the meeting, about an issue which I believe to be the flip-side of the smart growth coin.
Little did I understand at the time that the primary reason that the City had chosen to review rural residential development policies was for the purpose of allowing more as-of-right development by loosening policies further, and directing growth to our rural areas instead of to existing, already built-up parts of our City (like the Azilda community) which are fully serviced and which have an abundance of capacity. Given that the City itself acknowledges that there are over 500 vacant and developable rural residential lots already in existence, it just boggles my mind that the City would be looking at facilitating the creation of more expensive rural residential lots, to be subsidized by our limited taxpayer dollars!
However, Richard Pacquette, in his letter to the editor of the Sudbury Star, suggests that perhaps there is something else at play here: politics. In my reply to dhuglas (one of the more socially-conscious posters on the Sudbury Star site, I might add, and oft-time ally in seemingly never-ending battles with on-line Conservative trolls), I state that there is no good reason for allowing more rural residential development. But there are a lot of very bad reasons.
I have blogged about this issue before, in the context of cottage lot development (“Exurban Development in Greater Sudbury: Fiscally Irresponsible, Environmentally Unsustainable”). A lot of what I wrote then continues to be germane to the conversation which we’re just starting to have in Greater Sudbury around rural residential development.
Rural Residential Development: A Net Cost to Taxpayers
With regards to the cost/benefits of rural residential development, on the surface it may seem that a greater number of freehold properties should produce higher tax revenues for a municipality, especially if those properties are assessed at a residential rate rather than an agricultural one. Indeed, splitting lots does lead to increased revenues for municipalities. This argument is often used by speculators and other rural land owners as a justification for subdividing rural properties.
But the facts of the matter strongly suggest otherwise. Indeed, rural residential development is the very most expensive form of residential development in municipalities. The increased property tax revenues generated by additional rural residences never pay for themselves in the long run, and what we end up with is a form of development (primarily for wealthier land owners who may have multiple residences, or larger homes in rural settings) which is subsidized by other municipal taxpayers.
That Greater Sudbury already has a significant amount of this uneconomical form of development may be one of the reasons that our property tax circumstance always appears to be on the increase. Although many rural homeowners complain that taxes can become a burden (especially those with older homes on waterfronts, which have disproportionately been affected with higher assessment rates due to rising property values), the fact is that higher property taxes financially impact all homeowners throughout the City. And since urban taxpayers are, in essence, subsidizing rural homeowners, it is important to understand why rural residential development should be limited in order to improve the economic health of a majority of residents.
Smart Growth
A denser form of development, which isn’t desirable for everyone, is nonetheless a more efficient form of development in just about every way. The delivery of public services costs far less in urban situations than in suburban areas of the City, and far, far less than in exurban areas. While some exurban areas may not receive the same levels of servicing as others (especially public sewer and water), the fact is that road maintenance alone often compensates for increased costs.
Exurban development opportunities also detract from a community’s ability to grow more densely in urban areas. Since any given municipality is only going to attract a certain number of new households with a defined period of time, directing those new households to exurban areas, where servicing prices are high, means that there will be fewer people living in urban parts of a community where servicing costs are much lower. It also detracts from community redevelopment opportunities where a better mix of residential and commercial activities can take place side-by-side, often with greater densities.
Food Security
Creating rural residential lots in agricultural areas also has an incredibly negative impact on new and existing agricultural operations. In Greater Sudbury, we’ve already sterilized a significant area of what might otherwise be excellent agricultural lands due to poor lot creation policies. Right now, our primary agricultural areas aren’t under as significant a threat as they once were, due to protective land use policies, but secondary agricultural areas continue to be at risk. At a time when the idea of food security is fast becoming a major concern for residents of communities (especially those which find themselves hundreds of kilometres along a supply chain dependent on just a few transportation arteries, such as Greater Sudbury does), it only makes sense that we do what we can to protect our agricultural lands and make it easier, not more difficult, for our farmers to do their jobs. That’s another reason why directing residential development to already-established areas makes sense.
Cost-Effective Use of Existing Infrastructure
We have a number of core areas in the City of Greater Sudbury which would benefit from increased development. Often, infrastructure which can accomodate additional development is already in place in these core areas, and additional development will increase infrastructure efficiencies.
Rural residential development, when viewed as an opportunity lost, as well as a form of development with higher costs which are subsidized by taxpayers, the impacts which this form of development has on a community can be quite substantial. This isn’t just my opinion, by the way. Study after study has shown that the real costs of rural residential development create a long-term burden to taxpayers.
The Need to Place Limits on Rural Residential Development
Once created, it takes a significant effort to go back and reconsolidate residential lots. A better approach would be for a municipality to severely limit this form of development, or establish higher rates of taxation so that rural residential landowners pay their fair share. Both of these measures are often politically unpalatable for rural residential landowners and speculators, but that’s the sort of solution we need to be looking at in these times of fiscal restraint. The justification that increased taxation from new lots leads to a better economic circumstance for a city just isn’t supported by the empiric evidence.
In Greater Sudbury, with an abundance of vacant rural residential lots already in existence, there really is no need to create more lots in our rural areas. Since the costs are too high (both in terms of real costs and opportunity costs), and the built-form created is detrimental to other rural land users, it only makes sense that we prohibit opportunities for the creation of any further rural residential lots in our City. Simply put, there is no need for more lots, and no justifiable economic argument which can be made to support the creation of more lots.
With all levels of government looking to save costs, it's time that we acknowledge that we can no longer continue to subsidize inefficient and unsustainable rural residential development. We need to plan for the future in which are going to find ourselves in. It's time for the City to include policies in its land use plan which will prohibit the creation of new residential lots in rural areas, and preserve our rural areas for appropriate rural land uses, while protecting taxpayers from unnecessary tax increases.
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
I spoke about the need to severely restrict additional rural residential development in Greater Sudbury at a recent meeting of Planning Committee, at which the 5-year review of the City’s Official Plan was being discussed. Earlier that evening, I had been delighted to hear that the City had identified rural residential development as one of the issues which was going to be looked at as part of the review. This acknowledgement of the importance of the issue motivated me to speak at the meeting, about an issue which I believe to be the flip-side of the smart growth coin.
Little did I understand at the time that the primary reason that the City had chosen to review rural residential development policies was for the purpose of allowing more as-of-right development by loosening policies further, and directing growth to our rural areas instead of to existing, already built-up parts of our City (like the Azilda community) which are fully serviced and which have an abundance of capacity. Given that the City itself acknowledges that there are over 500 vacant and developable rural residential lots already in existence, it just boggles my mind that the City would be looking at facilitating the creation of more expensive rural residential lots, to be subsidized by our limited taxpayer dollars!
However, Richard Pacquette, in his letter to the editor of the Sudbury Star, suggests that perhaps there is something else at play here: politics. In my reply to dhuglas (one of the more socially-conscious posters on the Sudbury Star site, I might add, and oft-time ally in seemingly never-ending battles with on-line Conservative trolls), I state that there is no good reason for allowing more rural residential development. But there are a lot of very bad reasons.
I have blogged about this issue before, in the context of cottage lot development (“Exurban Development in Greater Sudbury: Fiscally Irresponsible, Environmentally Unsustainable”). A lot of what I wrote then continues to be germane to the conversation which we’re just starting to have in Greater Sudbury around rural residential development.
Rural Residential Development: A Net Cost to Taxpayers
With regards to the cost/benefits of rural residential development, on the surface it may seem that a greater number of freehold properties should produce higher tax revenues for a municipality, especially if those properties are assessed at a residential rate rather than an agricultural one. Indeed, splitting lots does lead to increased revenues for municipalities. This argument is often used by speculators and other rural land owners as a justification for subdividing rural properties.
But the facts of the matter strongly suggest otherwise. Indeed, rural residential development is the very most expensive form of residential development in municipalities. The increased property tax revenues generated by additional rural residences never pay for themselves in the long run, and what we end up with is a form of development (primarily for wealthier land owners who may have multiple residences, or larger homes in rural settings) which is subsidized by other municipal taxpayers.
That Greater Sudbury already has a significant amount of this uneconomical form of development may be one of the reasons that our property tax circumstance always appears to be on the increase. Although many rural homeowners complain that taxes can become a burden (especially those with older homes on waterfronts, which have disproportionately been affected with higher assessment rates due to rising property values), the fact is that higher property taxes financially impact all homeowners throughout the City. And since urban taxpayers are, in essence, subsidizing rural homeowners, it is important to understand why rural residential development should be limited in order to improve the economic health of a majority of residents.
Smart Growth
A denser form of development, which isn’t desirable for everyone, is nonetheless a more efficient form of development in just about every way. The delivery of public services costs far less in urban situations than in suburban areas of the City, and far, far less than in exurban areas. While some exurban areas may not receive the same levels of servicing as others (especially public sewer and water), the fact is that road maintenance alone often compensates for increased costs.
Exurban development opportunities also detract from a community’s ability to grow more densely in urban areas. Since any given municipality is only going to attract a certain number of new households with a defined period of time, directing those new households to exurban areas, where servicing prices are high, means that there will be fewer people living in urban parts of a community where servicing costs are much lower. It also detracts from community redevelopment opportunities where a better mix of residential and commercial activities can take place side-by-side, often with greater densities.
Food Security
Creating rural residential lots in agricultural areas also has an incredibly negative impact on new and existing agricultural operations. In Greater Sudbury, we’ve already sterilized a significant area of what might otherwise be excellent agricultural lands due to poor lot creation policies. Right now, our primary agricultural areas aren’t under as significant a threat as they once were, due to protective land use policies, but secondary agricultural areas continue to be at risk. At a time when the idea of food security is fast becoming a major concern for residents of communities (especially those which find themselves hundreds of kilometres along a supply chain dependent on just a few transportation arteries, such as Greater Sudbury does), it only makes sense that we do what we can to protect our agricultural lands and make it easier, not more difficult, for our farmers to do their jobs. That’s another reason why directing residential development to already-established areas makes sense.
Cost-Effective Use of Existing Infrastructure
We have a number of core areas in the City of Greater Sudbury which would benefit from increased development. Often, infrastructure which can accomodate additional development is already in place in these core areas, and additional development will increase infrastructure efficiencies.
Rural residential development, when viewed as an opportunity lost, as well as a form of development with higher costs which are subsidized by taxpayers, the impacts which this form of development has on a community can be quite substantial. This isn’t just my opinion, by the way. Study after study has shown that the real costs of rural residential development create a long-term burden to taxpayers.
The Need to Place Limits on Rural Residential Development
Once created, it takes a significant effort to go back and reconsolidate residential lots. A better approach would be for a municipality to severely limit this form of development, or establish higher rates of taxation so that rural residential landowners pay their fair share. Both of these measures are often politically unpalatable for rural residential landowners and speculators, but that’s the sort of solution we need to be looking at in these times of fiscal restraint. The justification that increased taxation from new lots leads to a better economic circumstance for a city just isn’t supported by the empiric evidence.
In Greater Sudbury, with an abundance of vacant rural residential lots already in existence, there really is no need to create more lots in our rural areas. Since the costs are too high (both in terms of real costs and opportunity costs), and the built-form created is detrimental to other rural land users, it only makes sense that we prohibit opportunities for the creation of any further rural residential lots in our City. Simply put, there is no need for more lots, and no justifiable economic argument which can be made to support the creation of more lots.
With all levels of government looking to save costs, it's time that we acknowledge that we can no longer continue to subsidize inefficient and unsustainable rural residential development. We need to plan for the future in which are going to find ourselves in. It's time for the City to include policies in its land use plan which will prohibit the creation of new residential lots in rural areas, and preserve our rural areas for appropriate rural land uses, while protecting taxpayers from unnecessary tax increases.
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
The Importance of a Public Conversation About Greater Sudbury's Proposed Anti-Idling By-law
I've been following with considerable interest the local print media's reaction to the proposed by-law in the City of Greater Sudbury which would limit unnecessary vehicular idling to one minute. This by-law has been in the making now for over a year and a half. Earlier in January, the proposed by-law came forward for review and recommendation by the City's Operations Committee, where it was adopted unanimously, and forwarded to Council for approval.
In the interim, several stories regarding the proposed by-law appeared in the media, many of which did not fully report on the by-laws many exceptions, which outline circumstances where idling may be permitted due to necessity or because of legal issues. These stories generated a significant number of online comments, as well as follow-up letters to the editor of print media.
Ultimately, Greater Sudbury's municipal Council unanimously refused to endorse the proposed by-law, sending it back to its Operations Committee (never mind that 5 of our Councillors on the Operations Committee had just voted to endorse the by-law at committee level). Our Councillors claimed that they had heard from the public, and that changes to the by-law were needed.
In response to a story about Council's actions, on January 27, 2012, I composed and submitted the following letter to the editor of the Northern Life, a bi-weekly print newspaper. At this time, the letter remains unpublished by the Northern Life. However, upon further review, since the anti-idling by-law was recommended by Operations Committee, the Northern Life has chosen to print two very interesting letters from a Mr. Richard Pulsifer.
The first, "City penny wise and pound foolish" (published online, January 19, 2012), appears to be nothing more than a diatribe against Ward 11 Councillor Terry Kett, who is one of the 5 Councillors on the City's Operations Committee. Mr. Pulsifer's next "letter" (in quotations, because that's a pretty generous term for a two-sentence opinion) was published in both the Northern Life and the Sudbury Star earlier today (February 6, 2012). This link is to the Northern Life's website, where the "letter" was published under the headline, "Idling by-law should apply to politicking".
Now, whether you think a by-law which limits unnecessary idling is a good idea or not, a letter which amounts to nothing more than a personal attack on a member of our Council, and another letter which does nothing but add further hot air to a well-worn climate change cliche does little, even less than nothing, to further public discourse. Indeed, today's letter from Mr. Pulsifer, published by both major print news sources in Greater Sudbury, really belittles the sort of public conversation which the residents of our community should be having on a by-law which proposes to place limits on unnecessary idling.
This is not to suggest that the Sudbury Star or the Northern Life appear to be giving only one side to this story. On the contrary, both the Sudbury Star and the Northern Life have published letters in support of the proposed by-law (just not mine - but don't worry, my fragile ego isn't particularly bruised). My point today has more to do with how, through the publication of letters which belittle public discourse, such as Mr. Pulsifer's does, the print media can end up playing a negative role in the public discourse around a particular issue.
Given the importance of the conversations which should be taking place in our communities regarding issues which have real impacts on real people, it would be better, I think, for our print media to take these issues seriously. Letters such as Mr. Pulsifer's do little to assist with moving public discussions forward, and indeed, they more often act as impediments for people to speak out, lest their own ideas and opinions become the topics of public derision.
The debate about the idling by-law will continue to play itself out in Greater Sudbury over the next few weeks (and maybe longer, although I hope not). What our decision-makers need is informed opinion, not personal attacks on their integrity.
Here is the text of my unpublished letter to the Editor of the Northern Life:
-----
Re: Council sends back idling by-law (January 26, 2012)
I was dismayed to see the proposed by-law to limit unnecessary idling in Greater Sudbury returned to the City’s Operations Committee by Council last week for further review. This by-law, recommended by the City’s Operations Committee for Council’s approval in early January, 2012, has been over a year and a half in the making. The by-law was to take effect on January 1, 2013, after an aggressive education campaign targetted for the latter half of 2012.
There is a clear and present need to limit the unnecessary idling of personal vehicles in our community. A report released by Statistics Canada in 2010 “Greenhouse gas emissions from private vehicles” indicated that Greater Sudbury is the second dirtiest city in all of Canada from a vehicle emissions perspective. The study found that personal vehicles in our city release a startling 2,844 kilograms of carbon dioxide for every resident. Greater Sudbury has quite a ways to go to match Canada's lowest per capita emitter, Montreal, where only 1,219 kilograms of CO2is released per person.
Along with environmental concerns, there are clear documented connections between vehicle exhaust emissions and negative effects on human health, particularly cardiovascular and respiratory effects. Children, pregnant women and elderly are groups that are especially at risk.
It’s well understood that we can not give up our dependence on personal vehicle use at this time, due to a lack of historic investment in other forms of transportation infrastructure. What we can do is to try to limit unnecessary emissions from our vehicles in order to improve Greater Sudbury’s air quality and reduce our climate-changing carbon emissions.
The by-law, modelled on a number of by-laws already in place in over 30 Ontario municipalities, would have allowed a number of sensible exemptions to the 1-minute idling restriction. Where these by-laws have been approved by municipal councils, there have been marked reductions in vehicle idling, due to an increased sense of public awareness.
It’s time for Greater Sudbury to get serious about air quality and climate change. Council needs to revisit this by-law immediately so as to meet the January 1, 2013 effective date recommended by the Operations Committee. We all need to acknowledge that we have a role to play in helping improve our community’s air quality. One way to accomplish that outcome is by sensibly limiting the unnecessary idling of our personal vehicles. Not only is limiting unnecessary idling good for our community’s health and the environment, it will save us money too.
Steve May
Sudbury
-----
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
In the interim, several stories regarding the proposed by-law appeared in the media, many of which did not fully report on the by-laws many exceptions, which outline circumstances where idling may be permitted due to necessity or because of legal issues. These stories generated a significant number of online comments, as well as follow-up letters to the editor of print media.
Ultimately, Greater Sudbury's municipal Council unanimously refused to endorse the proposed by-law, sending it back to its Operations Committee (never mind that 5 of our Councillors on the Operations Committee had just voted to endorse the by-law at committee level). Our Councillors claimed that they had heard from the public, and that changes to the by-law were needed.
In response to a story about Council's actions, on January 27, 2012, I composed and submitted the following letter to the editor of the Northern Life, a bi-weekly print newspaper. At this time, the letter remains unpublished by the Northern Life. However, upon further review, since the anti-idling by-law was recommended by Operations Committee, the Northern Life has chosen to print two very interesting letters from a Mr. Richard Pulsifer.
The first, "City penny wise and pound foolish" (published online, January 19, 2012), appears to be nothing more than a diatribe against Ward 11 Councillor Terry Kett, who is one of the 5 Councillors on the City's Operations Committee. Mr. Pulsifer's next "letter" (in quotations, because that's a pretty generous term for a two-sentence opinion) was published in both the Northern Life and the Sudbury Star earlier today (February 6, 2012). This link is to the Northern Life's website, where the "letter" was published under the headline, "Idling by-law should apply to politicking".
Now, whether you think a by-law which limits unnecessary idling is a good idea or not, a letter which amounts to nothing more than a personal attack on a member of our Council, and another letter which does nothing but add further hot air to a well-worn climate change cliche does little, even less than nothing, to further public discourse. Indeed, today's letter from Mr. Pulsifer, published by both major print news sources in Greater Sudbury, really belittles the sort of public conversation which the residents of our community should be having on a by-law which proposes to place limits on unnecessary idling.
This is not to suggest that the Sudbury Star or the Northern Life appear to be giving only one side to this story. On the contrary, both the Sudbury Star and the Northern Life have published letters in support of the proposed by-law (just not mine - but don't worry, my fragile ego isn't particularly bruised). My point today has more to do with how, through the publication of letters which belittle public discourse, such as Mr. Pulsifer's does, the print media can end up playing a negative role in the public discourse around a particular issue.
Given the importance of the conversations which should be taking place in our communities regarding issues which have real impacts on real people, it would be better, I think, for our print media to take these issues seriously. Letters such as Mr. Pulsifer's do little to assist with moving public discussions forward, and indeed, they more often act as impediments for people to speak out, lest their own ideas and opinions become the topics of public derision.
The debate about the idling by-law will continue to play itself out in Greater Sudbury over the next few weeks (and maybe longer, although I hope not). What our decision-makers need is informed opinion, not personal attacks on their integrity.
Here is the text of my unpublished letter to the Editor of the Northern Life:
-----
Re: Council sends back idling by-law (January 26, 2012)
I was dismayed to see the proposed by-law to limit unnecessary idling in Greater Sudbury returned to the City’s Operations Committee by Council last week for further review. This by-law, recommended by the City’s Operations Committee for Council’s approval in early January, 2012, has been over a year and a half in the making. The by-law was to take effect on January 1, 2013, after an aggressive education campaign targetted for the latter half of 2012.
There is a clear and present need to limit the unnecessary idling of personal vehicles in our community. A report released by Statistics Canada in 2010 “Greenhouse gas emissions from private vehicles” indicated that Greater Sudbury is the second dirtiest city in all of Canada from a vehicle emissions perspective. The study found that personal vehicles in our city release a startling 2,844 kilograms of carbon dioxide for every resident. Greater Sudbury has quite a ways to go to match Canada's lowest per capita emitter, Montreal, where only 1,219 kilograms of CO2is released per person.
Along with environmental concerns, there are clear documented connections between vehicle exhaust emissions and negative effects on human health, particularly cardiovascular and respiratory effects. Children, pregnant women and elderly are groups that are especially at risk.
It’s well understood that we can not give up our dependence on personal vehicle use at this time, due to a lack of historic investment in other forms of transportation infrastructure. What we can do is to try to limit unnecessary emissions from our vehicles in order to improve Greater Sudbury’s air quality and reduce our climate-changing carbon emissions.
The by-law, modelled on a number of by-laws already in place in over 30 Ontario municipalities, would have allowed a number of sensible exemptions to the 1-minute idling restriction. Where these by-laws have been approved by municipal councils, there have been marked reductions in vehicle idling, due to an increased sense of public awareness.
It’s time for Greater Sudbury to get serious about air quality and climate change. Council needs to revisit this by-law immediately so as to meet the January 1, 2013 effective date recommended by the Operations Committee. We all need to acknowledge that we have a role to play in helping improve our community’s air quality. One way to accomplish that outcome is by sensibly limiting the unnecessary idling of our personal vehicles. Not only is limiting unnecessary idling good for our community’s health and the environment, it will save us money too.
Steve May
Sudbury
-----
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Taxpayers Association Practices Politics of Division in Greater Sudbury
I’ve been observing with growing interest the emerging campaign to influence public opinion in Greater Sudbury. Mostly, this campaign is being waged through traditional and social media sources. While there has been a lot of focus on specific issues in our community, the goal of the campaign appears to be much broader in scope: to win over the hearts and minds of Sudburians to what can only be described as a right-wing neo-liberal cause in advance of the next municipal election in 2014.
This campaign is being waged by what appears to be a small group who are at the head of a new not-for-profit organization in our community, the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association (GSTA). The GSTA recently incorporated last fall, after a number of headline-grabbing pronouncements on issues which the GSTA executive deemed to be of importance to Sudburians.
Up until yesterday, the GSTA appeared content to rail against a number of individual municipal councillors (those that appear not to share their neo-liberals values) and against municipal staff. Yesterday, the GSTA broadened their attacks by dredging up a three-year old issue involving United Steel Workers Local 6500 related to tipping fees waived by our former municipal council after arsonists burned down the former Steelworker’s Hall in 2008. The story was covered in both the Northern Life (“Union should repay tipping fees: taxpayers’ association”, published online January 24 2012) and the CBC (“Pay back tipping fees, taxpayer group tells union”, published online January 24 2012).
USW Local 6500 and Tipping Fees
On the surface, the tipping fee issue appears to be a strange avenue for attack by the GSTA. However, as part of an orchestrated campaign to influence public opinion in our community, this latest salvo by the GSTA makes a lot of sense.
Council’s decision to waive tipping fees for USW Local 6500 back in 2008 raised some eyebrows in the community at the time, as it was estimated that Local 6500 would have been on the hook for approximately $100,000 to dispose of debris from the demolished Steelworker’s Hall. By voting to waive those fees, our municipal Council decided to forego this revenue. I recall reading comments from anonymous posters at the Sudbury Star’s UR Sudbury website that Local 6500 would not have been on the hook for these fees in any case, as it was assumed that the Steelworker’s insurance policy would have covered these costs. I don’t recall whether there was ever a definitive answer to the question about insurance coverage, which may be why this issue continues to have some resonance in the community (if anyone can point me in the direction of a definitive answer regarding Local 6500’s insurance coverage, I’ll gladly update this blogpost).
Later this week, USW Local 6500 will be officially opening their new home on Brady Street. The former Steelworkers Hall was considered to be a focal point in our community for decades, and its loss due to arson was tragic not just for current and former Steelworkers, but for our larger community. It is hoped that the new Hall can reoccupy some of that lost sense of place.
So it’s likely not a coincidence that the GSTA chose this week to publicly call for Local 6500 to repay waived tipping fees, in a cynical attempt to tarnish what otherwise might be a feel-good moment for the union. Keep in mind that the City of Greater Sudbury has never asked that this matter be revisited, and that this issue has been completely off of the public radar shortly after it was resolved through a vote of Council. In fairness, it did resurface during the 2010 municipal election, as those bent on unseating former Greater Sudbury Mayor John Rodriguez were eager to use this decision of Council in an attempt to paint the former Mayor as being in the pockets of the Union. But no motions have been brought forward at Council to request repayment of waived tipping fees.
It would appear, then, that this issue is coming out of nowhere and being advanced by the GSTA for its own purposes.
A good question to ask then is what purpose is served by dredging up this old issue?
A Polarizing Media Campaign
The GSTA, through an aggressive media campaign, which involves press releases and press conferences, has inserted itself into conversations about a number of local municipal issues. These issues have mainly been the sorts of things which one would expect a taxpayer’s association to express concerns about: municipal spending and accountability. However, the GSTA often pursues a very provocative tone in its discourse, one which appears to be designed to foment anger, rather than to inspire collaboration. Indeed, the GSTA has already become a force for polarization in our community. Yesterday’s attack on USW Local 6500 will only up the ante.
Greater Sudbury has not been a stranger to municipal controversies since the creation of the amalgamated City back in 2001. Since the GSTA’s own recent creation in the fall of 2011, it has called for the resignation of Greater Sudbury’s CAO Doug Nadorozny over his perceived role in what the GSTA refers to as the “fraud case” involving a former vendor of transit tickets. The GSTA has also been outspoken on something called “the Healthy Communities Initiative”, which they (and others) have compared to being an unaccountable slush fund available for the use of municipal Councillors for re-election purposes. The GSTA and its supporters have also been publicly critical of Councillor Terry Kett (Ward 11) over the municipal budget, and of Councillor Ron Dupuis (Ward 5) over the process of naming of Workers’ Memorial Park (which in part has been another issue involving USW Local 6500, given that USW head Leo Gerard’s name was the one to be attached to the Park).
What appears to be a partial list of press releases is available to the public on the GSTA’s website (although nothing has yet been posted about yesterday’s tipping fee announcement).
The GSTA lists its organizational objectives on its website.
-maximize the value of every tax dollar spent;
-keep tax increases at or below the rate of inflation;
-ensure the focus on City council is on core services;
-promote transparency in all aspects of Municipal Governance;
-promote the positive aspects of a smaller municipal government.
On the surface, there may not appear to be a lot which would be considered problematic with these objectives. Once you start digging a little deeper, it quickly becomes apparent that these objectives are largely in keeping with an ultra-right wing neo-liberal agenda.
The Neo-Liberal Agenda
I’ve been using the term “neo-liberal” a lot more often in my blog over the past several months, but perhaps its best to explain the idea a little more fulsomely here. Neo-liberalism is an economic theory which suggests that economic problems can best be solved by removing barriers which restrain businesses operating in the market (such as environmental regulations), and promoting the need for investment as the highest priority. You may be familiar with the term “trickle-down economics” (made popular in the 1980s by U.S. President Ronald Reagan), and I believe that’s a good starting point in understanding what neo-liberalism is about, which is the notion that everybody’s lives are improved as a result of rich investors creating growth.
To a point, and with a few significant caveats, I believe the theory generally works. The first significant caveat, however, is that the system can only work with the right type of local investment, that being places which employ workers who provide goods and services needed within communities. Unfortunately, with globalization, what neo-liberals have accomplished has been to outsource jobs from existing communities, in pursuit of maximizing profits. This has left once-stable communities twisting in the wind of the global economic cyclone, and has attributed to a hollowing out of North America’s manufacturing sector (something we here in Ontario are very familiar with).
The second caveat is that the entire economic system on which neo-liberalism depends requires growth. That hasn’t been much of a problem in the past, save for a few recessionary hiccups, but it’s certainly going to be a problem in the future with resource depletion. Constant economic growth is not sustainable on a planet of finite resources, and I believe that we are already running into some of these natural barriers to growth.
The third caveat has to do with how much of the investment success has really trickled downwards. Clearly, our economy has continued to expand, as evidenced by rising GDP. The average person appears to be better off today than an average person was several decades ago, at least in terms of personal income (when you add debt levels into the equation, though, it might come out as a wash). What is clear, however, is that while its arguable whether or not everyone has gained from a neo-liberal economic approach, what can not be denied is that a very small percentage of individuals have gained significantly more than the majority of us. These rich elites, branded the “1%” in 2011 by the Occupy Movement, have seen a seriously disproportionate amount of created wealth accrue to them. So while the average person might arguably be marginally better off today than 20 years ago, given the explosion of wealth which has been created in that time period, the distribution of that wealth has largely been consolidated in the hands of a very few.
However, even though I concede that some wealth may have trickled down to the 99%, the fact remains that neo-liberalism as an economic ideology poses a clear and present danger to the vast majority of society, including the middle class. Neo-liberals, in the form of an ultra-right wing political agenda encompassing political movements and established political parties, promote the interests of the rich at the expense of the rest of us. Neo-liberal political organizations practice a particularly repugnant form of politics, given their propensity to subvert our democratic institutions in the pursuit of their agenda.
The success of neo-liberals in politics, though, is apparent. In the United States, with the rise of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and the astroturf movement known as the Tea Party, neo-liberals have seized control of the Republican Party. Here in Canada, Preston Manning’s western-based protest party, the Reform Party, eventually annexed what remained of the Progressive Conservative Party. Although Republicans in the U.S. and PC’s in Canada have tended to historically occupy the right of the political spectrum, today’s “conservative” parties don’t bear much resemblance to the Republican Party of Richard Nixon (which gave the United States the Environmental Protection Agency) or even the PC Party of Brian Mulroney (who introduced regulations on industrial emitters to fight acid rain).
The impact of neo-liberals, however, has not been limited to just the Republicans in the U.S. and Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party in Canada. Indeed, massive deregulation of financial institutes occurred under Democratic President Bill Clinton in the United States, and Liberals Jean Chretien and his Minister of Finance Paul Martin downloaded significant federal responsibilities to the provinces at the direction of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). For more about the role which the IMF has played in promoting the neo-liberal agenda, I sincerely urge you to read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine”, which is a real eye opener (to put it mildly).
Here in Canada, neo-liberals are now firmly entrenched at the federal level, and with a false majority delivered to the Conservative Party through an archaic electoral system which distorts the will of voters, Stephen Harper has essentially free reign to apply the neo-liberal agenda with impunity for the next few years. And now, here in Greater Sudbury, the same forces appear to be at work.
Core Public Services
Organizations referring to themselves as “taxpayers associations” have been on the rise throughout Canada in the past few decades. What most of these organizations have in common is a desire for smaller governments and a return to what they believe to be “basic services”. The Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association is no exception. Of course, one of the first noticeable issues with this approach is the identification of what, exactly, in a municipal context, constitutes basic, or “core services”?
Taxpayers associations like to define core services as those services which benefit businesses and land owners in a municipality, with maybe a little lip service paid to the perceived interests of renters. Generally speaking, the propositions advanced by taxpayers associations actually impede the quality of life aspirations of a majority of City residents, especially those who are less well off from an economic standpoint. However, the middle class is often impacted too, although that’s not always as apparent initially, as the mantra of lower taxes has a certain appeal to all hard-working individuals. In the long run, howeer, where taxes are cut, so cuts to public services often follow, and often those cuts can directly impact quality of life experiences for middle class families. Indeed, neo-liberal successes at all levels of government have relied on co-opting the middle class to vote against its own interests.
The definition of “core services” tends to include such things as road maintenance, waste disposal, and policing. There is recognition of the need for some minimum level of bureaucracy. Essentially, though, neo-liberals believe that the market is best suited to handle the delivery of most other services which have in the 20th century accrued to the public realm. Of course, it’s clear that for some forms of service delivery, such as those related to homelessness, the market simply isn’t the right vehicle. For neo-liberals, that’s where the role of charity comes into play.
The Cost of Service Delivery
Now, that leaves a pretty broad list of services currently being delivered by our municipal government, on the table to be potentially handed to the private sector or axed all together. In Greater Sudbury, the sale of Pioneer Manor, a municipally-run home for the aged, has recently been brought up as a service which would be better removed from the public realm. In Toronto, public libraries, educational facilities (such as zoos), children’s programs, immigrant settlement services, bike lanes, and (of course) environmental initiatives have all been under attack by neo-liberal politicians.
One of the biggest targets of neo-liberals are the municipal public sector unions which often deliver our public services. Neo-liberals argue that unionized employees are impediments to cost-efficient service delivery. Just as private corporations have outsourced manufacturing jobs to the lowest bidder (usually one located on another continent) in order to maximize their profits (and at the expense of the economic health of their domestic employees, who overwhelmingly lost their jobs), neo-liberals would like to see public service delivery put into the hands of private enterprise.
This approach to outsourcing public services has been implemented in many parts of the world, and has certainly made inroads here in Canada (think about who picks up your curbside waste for example – in Greater Sudbury, it’s not a municipal employee). This outsourcing can save money, but it does come at a cost; sometimes, that cost is in the form of reduced service delivery capacity, or higher user fees where private corporations have decided to further maximize their profits in monopoly situations. Certainly the loss of good paying jobs and employment security for some residents is an inherent cost.
But those sorts of costs tend not to trouble neo-liberals, who are far more focussed on their narrow interpretation of the “bottom line” (and I say “narrow” because neo-liberals are infamous for failing to include externalities into their equations – things such as environmental costs and social costs, such as those related to healthcare. Indeed, the holy grail of neo-liberal economic indicators, Gross Domestic Product, actually puts a positive economic value on such things as oil spills, due to the jobs created to clean up the spill! Its no wonder than neo-liberal governments, such as George W. Bush’s in the U.S. and Stephen Harper’s here in Canada, tend to be the worst managers of the economy and run up the highest deficits).
Rather than looking for a healthy balance in terms of costs and service delivery, neo-liberals are motivated by increasing private sector profits. Rather than wanting to build better communities for the benefit of all citizens, neo-liberals want to dismember existing structures and redistribute wealth from the hands of the many (the public) and into the hands of the few (the private sector). The history of the past 30 years is rife with examples of these actions. Once a service or good exits the public realm, it’s almost impossible to return it. And that’s why neo-liberals are dangerous when they are handed the reigns of power.
The Small Government Manifesto
Here in Greater Sudbury, we are witnessing the opening moves of an orchestrated campaign by neo-liberal elements and their supporters to gain influence with decision-makers, and likely to replace existing decision-makers. Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford has only been able to achieve his successes due to the presence of his allies on municipal council. As a result, Torontonians will be experiencing cuts to services (such as transit), and a loss of public sector jobs. And its true that these cuts may lead to smaller tax increases for property owners, but at what overall cost to the community?
Look, I’m absolutely not an advocate of big government, as I believe that big government usually ends up being yet another kind of impediment to democracy. But I do believe that our governments have a strong role to play in creating the circumstances which lead to an enhanced quality of life for all residents, and not just those amongst us who may be paying the most in taxes. I believe that each government should find the best size and approach to meet its own specific circumstances. A slash and burn approach of the sort advocated by neo-liberals is the sort of one-size-fits-all solution that we can no longer afford to make.
Our tax dollars are scarce resources, and the elected officials whom we entrust to spend them should do so with careful consideration, and with the express interests of the community in its entirety at the heart of any decision. Decisions regarding revenue expenditures at the local level are only going to become more important as the world moves away from the clearly failing economic experiment known as globalization. The neo-liberal approach, which requires growth at all costs, is no longer sustainable. As a result, our collective future is going to become much more locally-focussed. And that’s why neo-liberal efforts which seek to slash and burn public services in the name of “small government” and a focus on “core services” represent a clear and present danger to communities such as Greater Sudbury.
Again, to be clear, I am not at all suggesting that a big government approach is the answer. What I am suggesting is that it is important that our local democratic institutions become as healthy and robust as necessary to suit local circumstances, with an eye towards responsible and accountable decision-making, for the benefit of the community. We are living in a time of increasingly scarce resources. As a result, we can no longer continue to afford to subsidize the special interests of the rich elites at the expense of the rest of us.
In Whose Interests?
While some of the concerns raised by the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Federation are important issues which deserve a public debate, many in this community have already begun to question in whose interests this association is speaking, given their apparent desire to foment change by issuing divisive press releases, rather than actually working with decision-makers, municipal staff and other community stakeholders to find a collaborative solution. It’s hard not to compare the tactics of the GSTA to those we see at work in the Republican Presidential nomination process, where it has become more important to engage in personal attacks than to discuss the issues. Certainly the GSTA appears to have an axe to grind with USW Local 6500, and are eager to point out what they perceive to be ties between the union and elected officials in our community, such as former Mayor John Rodriguez. In that context, the union-baiting press release regarding tipping fees certainly makes a lot more sense.
When I first heard about the formation of the GSTA, I was initially optimistic that this association would be acting in the interests of the community, and working towards creating real and sustainable change. But instead, what this organization appears to be is a group of largely unknown individuals with a very specific right-wing agenda, purporting to speak on behalf of not just its members, but indeed of all taxpayers in the City. And instead of engaging in a collaborative process to work towards real change, the GSTA seems to have chosen to engage in the politics of division.
I’m certain that USW Local 6500 is now aware of what’s going on in our community. It’s time that more of us question in whose interests the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association is speaking. Although I share a number of their concerns, I can tell you as a citizen of the City of Greater Sudbury who pays taxes, they are not speaking in my interest.
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
This campaign is being waged by what appears to be a small group who are at the head of a new not-for-profit organization in our community, the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association (GSTA). The GSTA recently incorporated last fall, after a number of headline-grabbing pronouncements on issues which the GSTA executive deemed to be of importance to Sudburians.
Up until yesterday, the GSTA appeared content to rail against a number of individual municipal councillors (those that appear not to share their neo-liberals values) and against municipal staff. Yesterday, the GSTA broadened their attacks by dredging up a three-year old issue involving United Steel Workers Local 6500 related to tipping fees waived by our former municipal council after arsonists burned down the former Steelworker’s Hall in 2008. The story was covered in both the Northern Life (“Union should repay tipping fees: taxpayers’ association”, published online January 24 2012) and the CBC (“Pay back tipping fees, taxpayer group tells union”, published online January 24 2012).
USW Local 6500 and Tipping Fees
On the surface, the tipping fee issue appears to be a strange avenue for attack by the GSTA. However, as part of an orchestrated campaign to influence public opinion in our community, this latest salvo by the GSTA makes a lot of sense.
Council’s decision to waive tipping fees for USW Local 6500 back in 2008 raised some eyebrows in the community at the time, as it was estimated that Local 6500 would have been on the hook for approximately $100,000 to dispose of debris from the demolished Steelworker’s Hall. By voting to waive those fees, our municipal Council decided to forego this revenue. I recall reading comments from anonymous posters at the Sudbury Star’s UR Sudbury website that Local 6500 would not have been on the hook for these fees in any case, as it was assumed that the Steelworker’s insurance policy would have covered these costs. I don’t recall whether there was ever a definitive answer to the question about insurance coverage, which may be why this issue continues to have some resonance in the community (if anyone can point me in the direction of a definitive answer regarding Local 6500’s insurance coverage, I’ll gladly update this blogpost).
Later this week, USW Local 6500 will be officially opening their new home on Brady Street. The former Steelworkers Hall was considered to be a focal point in our community for decades, and its loss due to arson was tragic not just for current and former Steelworkers, but for our larger community. It is hoped that the new Hall can reoccupy some of that lost sense of place.
So it’s likely not a coincidence that the GSTA chose this week to publicly call for Local 6500 to repay waived tipping fees, in a cynical attempt to tarnish what otherwise might be a feel-good moment for the union. Keep in mind that the City of Greater Sudbury has never asked that this matter be revisited, and that this issue has been completely off of the public radar shortly after it was resolved through a vote of Council. In fairness, it did resurface during the 2010 municipal election, as those bent on unseating former Greater Sudbury Mayor John Rodriguez were eager to use this decision of Council in an attempt to paint the former Mayor as being in the pockets of the Union. But no motions have been brought forward at Council to request repayment of waived tipping fees.
It would appear, then, that this issue is coming out of nowhere and being advanced by the GSTA for its own purposes.
A good question to ask then is what purpose is served by dredging up this old issue?
A Polarizing Media Campaign
The GSTA, through an aggressive media campaign, which involves press releases and press conferences, has inserted itself into conversations about a number of local municipal issues. These issues have mainly been the sorts of things which one would expect a taxpayer’s association to express concerns about: municipal spending and accountability. However, the GSTA often pursues a very provocative tone in its discourse, one which appears to be designed to foment anger, rather than to inspire collaboration. Indeed, the GSTA has already become a force for polarization in our community. Yesterday’s attack on USW Local 6500 will only up the ante.
Greater Sudbury has not been a stranger to municipal controversies since the creation of the amalgamated City back in 2001. Since the GSTA’s own recent creation in the fall of 2011, it has called for the resignation of Greater Sudbury’s CAO Doug Nadorozny over his perceived role in what the GSTA refers to as the “fraud case” involving a former vendor of transit tickets. The GSTA has also been outspoken on something called “the Healthy Communities Initiative”, which they (and others) have compared to being an unaccountable slush fund available for the use of municipal Councillors for re-election purposes. The GSTA and its supporters have also been publicly critical of Councillor Terry Kett (Ward 11) over the municipal budget, and of Councillor Ron Dupuis (Ward 5) over the process of naming of Workers’ Memorial Park (which in part has been another issue involving USW Local 6500, given that USW head Leo Gerard’s name was the one to be attached to the Park).
What appears to be a partial list of press releases is available to the public on the GSTA’s website (although nothing has yet been posted about yesterday’s tipping fee announcement).
The GSTA lists its organizational objectives on its website.
-maximize the value of every tax dollar spent;
-keep tax increases at or below the rate of inflation;
-ensure the focus on City council is on core services;
-promote transparency in all aspects of Municipal Governance;
-promote the positive aspects of a smaller municipal government.
On the surface, there may not appear to be a lot which would be considered problematic with these objectives. Once you start digging a little deeper, it quickly becomes apparent that these objectives are largely in keeping with an ultra-right wing neo-liberal agenda.
The Neo-Liberal Agenda
I’ve been using the term “neo-liberal” a lot more often in my blog over the past several months, but perhaps its best to explain the idea a little more fulsomely here. Neo-liberalism is an economic theory which suggests that economic problems can best be solved by removing barriers which restrain businesses operating in the market (such as environmental regulations), and promoting the need for investment as the highest priority. You may be familiar with the term “trickle-down economics” (made popular in the 1980s by U.S. President Ronald Reagan), and I believe that’s a good starting point in understanding what neo-liberalism is about, which is the notion that everybody’s lives are improved as a result of rich investors creating growth.
To a point, and with a few significant caveats, I believe the theory generally works. The first significant caveat, however, is that the system can only work with the right type of local investment, that being places which employ workers who provide goods and services needed within communities. Unfortunately, with globalization, what neo-liberals have accomplished has been to outsource jobs from existing communities, in pursuit of maximizing profits. This has left once-stable communities twisting in the wind of the global economic cyclone, and has attributed to a hollowing out of North America’s manufacturing sector (something we here in Ontario are very familiar with).
The second caveat is that the entire economic system on which neo-liberalism depends requires growth. That hasn’t been much of a problem in the past, save for a few recessionary hiccups, but it’s certainly going to be a problem in the future with resource depletion. Constant economic growth is not sustainable on a planet of finite resources, and I believe that we are already running into some of these natural barriers to growth.
The third caveat has to do with how much of the investment success has really trickled downwards. Clearly, our economy has continued to expand, as evidenced by rising GDP. The average person appears to be better off today than an average person was several decades ago, at least in terms of personal income (when you add debt levels into the equation, though, it might come out as a wash). What is clear, however, is that while its arguable whether or not everyone has gained from a neo-liberal economic approach, what can not be denied is that a very small percentage of individuals have gained significantly more than the majority of us. These rich elites, branded the “1%” in 2011 by the Occupy Movement, have seen a seriously disproportionate amount of created wealth accrue to them. So while the average person might arguably be marginally better off today than 20 years ago, given the explosion of wealth which has been created in that time period, the distribution of that wealth has largely been consolidated in the hands of a very few.
However, even though I concede that some wealth may have trickled down to the 99%, the fact remains that neo-liberalism as an economic ideology poses a clear and present danger to the vast majority of society, including the middle class. Neo-liberals, in the form of an ultra-right wing political agenda encompassing political movements and established political parties, promote the interests of the rich at the expense of the rest of us. Neo-liberal political organizations practice a particularly repugnant form of politics, given their propensity to subvert our democratic institutions in the pursuit of their agenda.
The success of neo-liberals in politics, though, is apparent. In the United States, with the rise of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and the astroturf movement known as the Tea Party, neo-liberals have seized control of the Republican Party. Here in Canada, Preston Manning’s western-based protest party, the Reform Party, eventually annexed what remained of the Progressive Conservative Party. Although Republicans in the U.S. and PC’s in Canada have tended to historically occupy the right of the political spectrum, today’s “conservative” parties don’t bear much resemblance to the Republican Party of Richard Nixon (which gave the United States the Environmental Protection Agency) or even the PC Party of Brian Mulroney (who introduced regulations on industrial emitters to fight acid rain).
The impact of neo-liberals, however, has not been limited to just the Republicans in the U.S. and Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party in Canada. Indeed, massive deregulation of financial institutes occurred under Democratic President Bill Clinton in the United States, and Liberals Jean Chretien and his Minister of Finance Paul Martin downloaded significant federal responsibilities to the provinces at the direction of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). For more about the role which the IMF has played in promoting the neo-liberal agenda, I sincerely urge you to read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine”, which is a real eye opener (to put it mildly).
Here in Canada, neo-liberals are now firmly entrenched at the federal level, and with a false majority delivered to the Conservative Party through an archaic electoral system which distorts the will of voters, Stephen Harper has essentially free reign to apply the neo-liberal agenda with impunity for the next few years. And now, here in Greater Sudbury, the same forces appear to be at work.
Core Public Services
Organizations referring to themselves as “taxpayers associations” have been on the rise throughout Canada in the past few decades. What most of these organizations have in common is a desire for smaller governments and a return to what they believe to be “basic services”. The Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association is no exception. Of course, one of the first noticeable issues with this approach is the identification of what, exactly, in a municipal context, constitutes basic, or “core services”?
Taxpayers associations like to define core services as those services which benefit businesses and land owners in a municipality, with maybe a little lip service paid to the perceived interests of renters. Generally speaking, the propositions advanced by taxpayers associations actually impede the quality of life aspirations of a majority of City residents, especially those who are less well off from an economic standpoint. However, the middle class is often impacted too, although that’s not always as apparent initially, as the mantra of lower taxes has a certain appeal to all hard-working individuals. In the long run, howeer, where taxes are cut, so cuts to public services often follow, and often those cuts can directly impact quality of life experiences for middle class families. Indeed, neo-liberal successes at all levels of government have relied on co-opting the middle class to vote against its own interests.
The definition of “core services” tends to include such things as road maintenance, waste disposal, and policing. There is recognition of the need for some minimum level of bureaucracy. Essentially, though, neo-liberals believe that the market is best suited to handle the delivery of most other services which have in the 20th century accrued to the public realm. Of course, it’s clear that for some forms of service delivery, such as those related to homelessness, the market simply isn’t the right vehicle. For neo-liberals, that’s where the role of charity comes into play.
The Cost of Service Delivery
Now, that leaves a pretty broad list of services currently being delivered by our municipal government, on the table to be potentially handed to the private sector or axed all together. In Greater Sudbury, the sale of Pioneer Manor, a municipally-run home for the aged, has recently been brought up as a service which would be better removed from the public realm. In Toronto, public libraries, educational facilities (such as zoos), children’s programs, immigrant settlement services, bike lanes, and (of course) environmental initiatives have all been under attack by neo-liberal politicians.
One of the biggest targets of neo-liberals are the municipal public sector unions which often deliver our public services. Neo-liberals argue that unionized employees are impediments to cost-efficient service delivery. Just as private corporations have outsourced manufacturing jobs to the lowest bidder (usually one located on another continent) in order to maximize their profits (and at the expense of the economic health of their domestic employees, who overwhelmingly lost their jobs), neo-liberals would like to see public service delivery put into the hands of private enterprise.
This approach to outsourcing public services has been implemented in many parts of the world, and has certainly made inroads here in Canada (think about who picks up your curbside waste for example – in Greater Sudbury, it’s not a municipal employee). This outsourcing can save money, but it does come at a cost; sometimes, that cost is in the form of reduced service delivery capacity, or higher user fees where private corporations have decided to further maximize their profits in monopoly situations. Certainly the loss of good paying jobs and employment security for some residents is an inherent cost.
But those sorts of costs tend not to trouble neo-liberals, who are far more focussed on their narrow interpretation of the “bottom line” (and I say “narrow” because neo-liberals are infamous for failing to include externalities into their equations – things such as environmental costs and social costs, such as those related to healthcare. Indeed, the holy grail of neo-liberal economic indicators, Gross Domestic Product, actually puts a positive economic value on such things as oil spills, due to the jobs created to clean up the spill! Its no wonder than neo-liberal governments, such as George W. Bush’s in the U.S. and Stephen Harper’s here in Canada, tend to be the worst managers of the economy and run up the highest deficits).
Rather than looking for a healthy balance in terms of costs and service delivery, neo-liberals are motivated by increasing private sector profits. Rather than wanting to build better communities for the benefit of all citizens, neo-liberals want to dismember existing structures and redistribute wealth from the hands of the many (the public) and into the hands of the few (the private sector). The history of the past 30 years is rife with examples of these actions. Once a service or good exits the public realm, it’s almost impossible to return it. And that’s why neo-liberals are dangerous when they are handed the reigns of power.
The Small Government Manifesto
Here in Greater Sudbury, we are witnessing the opening moves of an orchestrated campaign by neo-liberal elements and their supporters to gain influence with decision-makers, and likely to replace existing decision-makers. Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford has only been able to achieve his successes due to the presence of his allies on municipal council. As a result, Torontonians will be experiencing cuts to services (such as transit), and a loss of public sector jobs. And its true that these cuts may lead to smaller tax increases for property owners, but at what overall cost to the community?
Look, I’m absolutely not an advocate of big government, as I believe that big government usually ends up being yet another kind of impediment to democracy. But I do believe that our governments have a strong role to play in creating the circumstances which lead to an enhanced quality of life for all residents, and not just those amongst us who may be paying the most in taxes. I believe that each government should find the best size and approach to meet its own specific circumstances. A slash and burn approach of the sort advocated by neo-liberals is the sort of one-size-fits-all solution that we can no longer afford to make.
Our tax dollars are scarce resources, and the elected officials whom we entrust to spend them should do so with careful consideration, and with the express interests of the community in its entirety at the heart of any decision. Decisions regarding revenue expenditures at the local level are only going to become more important as the world moves away from the clearly failing economic experiment known as globalization. The neo-liberal approach, which requires growth at all costs, is no longer sustainable. As a result, our collective future is going to become much more locally-focussed. And that’s why neo-liberal efforts which seek to slash and burn public services in the name of “small government” and a focus on “core services” represent a clear and present danger to communities such as Greater Sudbury.
Again, to be clear, I am not at all suggesting that a big government approach is the answer. What I am suggesting is that it is important that our local democratic institutions become as healthy and robust as necessary to suit local circumstances, with an eye towards responsible and accountable decision-making, for the benefit of the community. We are living in a time of increasingly scarce resources. As a result, we can no longer continue to afford to subsidize the special interests of the rich elites at the expense of the rest of us.
In Whose Interests?
While some of the concerns raised by the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Federation are important issues which deserve a public debate, many in this community have already begun to question in whose interests this association is speaking, given their apparent desire to foment change by issuing divisive press releases, rather than actually working with decision-makers, municipal staff and other community stakeholders to find a collaborative solution. It’s hard not to compare the tactics of the GSTA to those we see at work in the Republican Presidential nomination process, where it has become more important to engage in personal attacks than to discuss the issues. Certainly the GSTA appears to have an axe to grind with USW Local 6500, and are eager to point out what they perceive to be ties between the union and elected officials in our community, such as former Mayor John Rodriguez. In that context, the union-baiting press release regarding tipping fees certainly makes a lot more sense.
When I first heard about the formation of the GSTA, I was initially optimistic that this association would be acting in the interests of the community, and working towards creating real and sustainable change. But instead, what this organization appears to be is a group of largely unknown individuals with a very specific right-wing agenda, purporting to speak on behalf of not just its members, but indeed of all taxpayers in the City. And instead of engaging in a collaborative process to work towards real change, the GSTA seems to have chosen to engage in the politics of division.
I’m certain that USW Local 6500 is now aware of what’s going on in our community. It’s time that more of us question in whose interests the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association is speaking. Although I share a number of their concerns, I can tell you as a citizen of the City of Greater Sudbury who pays taxes, they are not speaking in my interest.
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
Monday, January 9, 2012
It’s Official: The Harper Regime has Declared War on the Environment
Earlier today, Federal Natural Resources Ministers Joe Oliver released an open letter to Canadians through the Globe & Mail (“An open letter from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver”, January 9, 2012) regarding the proposed Enbridge Northern Gate Pipeline. In his letter, Oliver directly equates those involved in environmental causes as being “radicals”. Needless to say, Oliver’s letter in the G&M, and comments made by Stephen Harper on Friday of last week about environmentalists funded by “foreign money” hijacking the Canadian Environmental Assessment process for the Northern Gate Pipeline have created a bit of a media firestorm.
Up until recently, the primary controversies around the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) processes have had to do with the anticipated timing for wrapping up the review. With over 4,000 public delegates expected to speak on the proposed pipeline, which will see tar sands bitumen flow from Edmonton, Alberta, to Kitimat, British Columbia, those involved with the Environmental Assessment (EA) have indicated that the process likely won’t come to a conclusion until late 2013. This late date for a decision hasn’t sat well with Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, which had previously hinted its concerns to EA administrators.
However, with these lastest remarks about “foreign interference” and by equating Canadians who are concerned about our environment with “radicals”, it seems that the phony war which the Conservatives have been fighting against the environment has finally become official, with these comments intended to separate Canadians into two camps: one which is in favour of runaway development and exploitation of the tar sands, trade and job creation; and other which is occupied by ideologically-motivated radicals and extremists on the take from foreign governments bent on destroying Canada’s oil industry and impoverishing Canadians.
The Politicization of the Environment
Let’s take a closer look at what’s been going on with Northern Gateway. First of all, the CEAA process is not a political process. While the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is an Act of parliament, it sets out a process which is followed by an appointed hearing body, free of political interference. I was originally concerned about the potential for political interference with the Northern Gate EA process when I first heard Harper and other cabinet Ministers complain about timing. Normally, these processes take as long as they need to in order to facilitate true public discussion and the review of technical documents. While timelines are built into the process, they are often flexible enough to accommodate the specific complexities of any matter under review.
The fact is, Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline will cross through a number of jurisdictions, including two provinces, federal lands, and lands claimed by a number of First Nations. It will traverse forests and rivers where vibrant wildlife and fisheries exist. And, when bitumen arrives at Kitimat, it will be loaded onto ocean-going tankers, bound for Asia or elsewhere. These tankers must traverse the narrow confines of B.C.’s rugged coast, long known as a graveyard for ships, due to its shallow waters and frequent bad weather (including fog).
Simply put, the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal is about as complicated as a proposal subject to the CEAA can get, both from a jurisdictional and an implementation point of view. And that’s not even mentioning the significant contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions which processing some of the world’s dirtiest oil will add to the atmosphere. In large part, it’s those emissions which have captured the attention of the rest of the world, and which has led to Harper declaration of war.
All About Climate Change
Canada has become an environmental laggard under successive Liberal and Conservative governments which have continually put the interests of the oil industries ahead of Canadians, and quite frankly, ahead of the rest of the world. Although Canada ratified the Kyoto Treaty with a promise to reduce our emissions, our federal government balked at playing a leading role as facilitator to take up the Kyoto challenge. Instead, the federal government left it up to the Provinces to tackle reducing emissions, with my home province of Ontario carrying out the bulk of that work by promising to close coal-fired generating plants.
Of course, Ontario’s contribution to reducing emissions has likely been more significant that the provincial government would like to admit. Indeed, due to an oil-inspired rising Canadian dollar, hundreds of thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs have left the province. Matt Price in the Huffington Post refers to upwards of 600,000 jobs being lost, mostly in Ontario, as manufacturing companies have found that their exports simply can no longer compete in a global market with a sky-high Canadian dollar (“Canadian Jobs Lost to the Tar Sands”, The Huffington Post, January 5 2012).
And make no mistake, the rising Canadian dollar has had everything to do with increasing the capacity for oil production in Alberta, which has been a national priority of both Liberal and Conservative governments. Canada has done more than simply not acting to rein-in greenhouse gas emissions: we have made increasing our emissions a national policy to be celebrated. And now, under the Harper regime, Canada has upped the ante even further.
Before Christmas, to Canada’s international shame, Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent announced that Canada would be withdrawing from the Kyoto Accord. This announcement came hot on the heels of the United Nations conference on climate change, held in Durban, where it appears that Canadian government delegates negotiated for a new Kyoto commitment period in bad faith, negotiating while knowing that the government was getting ready to withdraw from the treaty. This kind of overt sabotage at Durban wasn’t a new role for Canada, however.
Indeed, since Stephen Harper came to power in 2006, Canadian negotiators have been fiercely travelling throughout the world trying to sabotage international and bi-national agreements on climate change, including the recent challenge to the European Union’s initiative to tax petroleum produced from dirty oil at a higher rate than petroleum produced from conventional sources, due to the higher carbon emissions associated with dirty oil.
After U.S. President Barack Obama made the decision to stall the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (the approval of which Prime Minister Stephen Harper had notoriously suggested would be a “no brainer” for Obama), the Harper regime has been very keen to move forward with the Chinese-backed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. You see, without pipelines to move bitumen out of Alberta for processing, there will be no need to ramp up further production in the tar sands. The creation of pipelines is essential for the oil industry to expand its production before stricter environmental standards can be imposed on it by a new government which might adopt a “go slow” approach. This is why there has been such a rush on to move forward with pipeline construction.
Whose Interests are Being Served?
Look, tar sands bitumen isn’t going anywhere. It’s only because the oil elites want to make as much profit as they can in the shortest amount of time possible that there is now a push on for pipeline construction. The oil industry sees that the writing has been on the wall for some time now, as the international community is destined to get its act together and finally get serious about climate change. The tar sands, of course, when in full production, will be a significant global contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In the future, developing tar sands bitumen will be less profitable, due to carbon taxes or the need for industry to purchase carbon offsets. We’re not there yet, but we will be there in another decade. Just as industries which used polluting sulphur dioxide could see that they needed to clean up their acts when a new regulatory system was being proposed in the 1980s, the oil industry today understands that changes are afoot. That they are fighting those changes tooth and nail, rather than working with governments to improve the health and well-being of citizens indicates to me, anyway, what their priorities really are.
However, it’s one thing to say that the interests of the oil industries have been to put their own profits ahead of human well-being. But what of the Canadian government? Shouldn’t our government be looking out for the health and welfare of Canadians and our social, economic and natural environments in which we inhabit? Well, I always thought that was the role of our government, but clearly the Harper regime in Ottawa is putting the interests of oil industry profits ahead of the social, economic and environmental well-beings of Canadians. And they are doing it in such a way that they are actually eroding our democratic rights in the process.
And here’s where the latest front appears to be opening up. Based on Minister Joe Oliver’s open letter, we may end up with changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act which deliberately shuts out opportunities for participation in the EA process by Canadians who may share a different set of priorities than does our government. Clearly, the Harper regime has stated in the past few days that international trade and opening up the tar sands to multi-national oil companies for runaway development is more of a priority than protecting and thoughtfully managing Canada’s non-renewable resources, the exploitation of which will lead to the creation of more greenhouse gases and a bigger contribution on the part of Canada to global climate change.
For those who think that we would be putting jobs at risk by not allowing runaway development of Alberta’s tar sands, I invite you to further explore the anticipated impacts of a global rise in temperature of just 2 degrees Celsius. Take a look at how such a rise in temperature will impact jobs and the economy. When the Harper regime talks about “jobs” what they really mean are oil industry profits, because if they were really interested in jobs, they would be doing a lot more to preserve existing jobs and laying the groundwork for a low-carbon economy.
The Declaration of War
EthicalOil.org, which seems to be supply the Harper regime with its speaking points about Northern Gateway, has already suggested that anybody associated with an environmental organization which has received funding from “foreign” sources should not be allowed to publicly participate in the Environmental Assessment process. Remember that list of 4,000 speakers? It’s that list which is being targeted by Harper for being too long and therefore delaying a decision. And many of the speakers on that list are, in fact, from local environmental organizations, some of which may have received funding from non-Canadians.
The fact that non-Canadian organizations have been assisting Canadian environmental organizations with funding has turned into a circus for the neo-liberal oil interests over the past few months. They have claimed that “foreign interests” are dominating the Canadian environmental agenda, and have outright questioned the patriotism of Canadians who may be concerned about climate change and curbing rampant tar sands expansion. In 2011, Canadian grandmothers and university students, some of whom are from my home town of Sudbury, Ontario, were blasted by EthicalOil mouthpiece and Sun Media columnist Ezra Levant as being anti-Canadian “extremists” for their participation in a fence-scaling exercise in civil disobedience. Levant’s own criticisms were then parroted by a number of cabinet ministers (see my earlier blog: “Who are the Real Extremists?“, October 4, 2011).
EthicalOil.org is engaging in hypocrisy of an extreme sort through their calls to ban Canadian environmentalists from the Environmental Assessment process simply because an organization to which they belong may have received a financial contribution from a non-Canadian. Many environmentalists are volunteers and receive no compensation for the work in which they engage in. Those that do receive compensation tend to champion the values and the interests of their organization, just as anybody speaking on behalf of any organization might. And that’s the point which makes EthicalOil’s position so incredibly hypocritical.
The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal will directly benefit multi-national oil companies through higher profits. Billions of dollars will be made by opening up the tar sands to runaway exploitation. These dollars will end up in the pockets of some of the richest foreign corporate executives in the world. Yet EthicalOil.org isn’t leading the charge to shut those multinational corporations out of the EA process. Why is that?
In their black-and-white world, EthicalOil likes to distinguish between job creators on the one hand and job killers on the other. Multinational corporations are the job creating heros in their narrative, and environmentalists out to kill Canadian jobs are the villains. Increasingly, it appears that this narrative is being adopted by our government, especially with the recent and disturbing statements about environmentalists being job-killing radicals. What has yet to be determined is whether our government will change the Environmental Assessment process to shut out legitimate points of view being heard.
Exploding the Myths
The fact is, we live in a global society, and what happens here in Canada will have an impact on the rest of the world, especially as it relates to anthropogenic climate change. That Canada has wilfully committed to a course of action whereby we are determined to be the biggest per capita polluter in the world is reason enough for others to be concerned about the actions of industries operating here, particularly related to the exploitation of non-renewable resources. And the actions of our government to facilitate pollution should not be immune from international scrutiny simply because the oil industry is viewed as a “job creator”. As a result, we can expect to hear more about environmental tariffs being imposed on Canadian export goods as a result of our emissions intensive policies. And that’s further bad news for Ontario’s manufacturing sector, even though Ontario is actively striving to reduce energy derived from non-renewable resources.
Again, we here in Ontario know firsthand that the tar sands are not the ballyhooed job creator that EthicalOil and the Harper regime would have us believe. We’ve seen manufacturing jobs leave the province due to a high dollar, driven up by oil industry revenues. With the price of oil expected to continue to climb over the next decade, we can expect that uncontrolled tar sands development will only drive the value of the dollar up further, leading to an unsustainable situation in Eastern Canada with regards to job loss. There’s a very good reason why the Conservative Party of Canada’s real base of power is in the Alberta heartland. That Conservatives in other parts of Canada fail to see the damage which Harper’s out-of-control oil policy is inflicting on regional economies is maddeningly frustrating to me.
Some Good News (for a change)
There may be some good news coming out of these new attacks on the environment and the patriotism of Canadians who might simply be concerned about the pace of development of our non-renewable resources. If there is any good news at all, it’s that I expect this latest gambit will backfire on the Conservatives over the next few years. By committing to this kind of hyper-partisan rhetoric, there is no longer a way for the Harper regime to back down from their position. They’ve drawn the lines in the sand now between themselves and the oil elites on the one side, and Canadians who may be concerned about the environment on the other. Make no mistake: along with officially declaring war on the environment, the Harper regime has also declared war on moderate Canadians. Ultimately, this approach will backfire as it continues to become increasingly clear to Canadians that environmental issues (and particularly climate change) can no longer be ignored by Ottawa.
That the Harper regime might have completely destroyed long-established environmental legislation and assessment processes in the interim will be something which future, responsible governments will have to address when Harper is finally deposed. The destruction to our economy and our environment which the Harper regime’s short-sighted and greedy war will cause will not be so easily undone.
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
Up until recently, the primary controversies around the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) processes have had to do with the anticipated timing for wrapping up the review. With over 4,000 public delegates expected to speak on the proposed pipeline, which will see tar sands bitumen flow from Edmonton, Alberta, to Kitimat, British Columbia, those involved with the Environmental Assessment (EA) have indicated that the process likely won’t come to a conclusion until late 2013. This late date for a decision hasn’t sat well with Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, which had previously hinted its concerns to EA administrators.
However, with these lastest remarks about “foreign interference” and by equating Canadians who are concerned about our environment with “radicals”, it seems that the phony war which the Conservatives have been fighting against the environment has finally become official, with these comments intended to separate Canadians into two camps: one which is in favour of runaway development and exploitation of the tar sands, trade and job creation; and other which is occupied by ideologically-motivated radicals and extremists on the take from foreign governments bent on destroying Canada’s oil industry and impoverishing Canadians.
The Politicization of the Environment
Let’s take a closer look at what’s been going on with Northern Gateway. First of all, the CEAA process is not a political process. While the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is an Act of parliament, it sets out a process which is followed by an appointed hearing body, free of political interference. I was originally concerned about the potential for political interference with the Northern Gate EA process when I first heard Harper and other cabinet Ministers complain about timing. Normally, these processes take as long as they need to in order to facilitate true public discussion and the review of technical documents. While timelines are built into the process, they are often flexible enough to accommodate the specific complexities of any matter under review.
The fact is, Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline will cross through a number of jurisdictions, including two provinces, federal lands, and lands claimed by a number of First Nations. It will traverse forests and rivers where vibrant wildlife and fisheries exist. And, when bitumen arrives at Kitimat, it will be loaded onto ocean-going tankers, bound for Asia or elsewhere. These tankers must traverse the narrow confines of B.C.’s rugged coast, long known as a graveyard for ships, due to its shallow waters and frequent bad weather (including fog).
Simply put, the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal is about as complicated as a proposal subject to the CEAA can get, both from a jurisdictional and an implementation point of view. And that’s not even mentioning the significant contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions which processing some of the world’s dirtiest oil will add to the atmosphere. In large part, it’s those emissions which have captured the attention of the rest of the world, and which has led to Harper declaration of war.
All About Climate Change
Canada has become an environmental laggard under successive Liberal and Conservative governments which have continually put the interests of the oil industries ahead of Canadians, and quite frankly, ahead of the rest of the world. Although Canada ratified the Kyoto Treaty with a promise to reduce our emissions, our federal government balked at playing a leading role as facilitator to take up the Kyoto challenge. Instead, the federal government left it up to the Provinces to tackle reducing emissions, with my home province of Ontario carrying out the bulk of that work by promising to close coal-fired generating plants.
Of course, Ontario’s contribution to reducing emissions has likely been more significant that the provincial government would like to admit. Indeed, due to an oil-inspired rising Canadian dollar, hundreds of thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs have left the province. Matt Price in the Huffington Post refers to upwards of 600,000 jobs being lost, mostly in Ontario, as manufacturing companies have found that their exports simply can no longer compete in a global market with a sky-high Canadian dollar (“Canadian Jobs Lost to the Tar Sands”, The Huffington Post, January 5 2012).
And make no mistake, the rising Canadian dollar has had everything to do with increasing the capacity for oil production in Alberta, which has been a national priority of both Liberal and Conservative governments. Canada has done more than simply not acting to rein-in greenhouse gas emissions: we have made increasing our emissions a national policy to be celebrated. And now, under the Harper regime, Canada has upped the ante even further.
Before Christmas, to Canada’s international shame, Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent announced that Canada would be withdrawing from the Kyoto Accord. This announcement came hot on the heels of the United Nations conference on climate change, held in Durban, where it appears that Canadian government delegates negotiated for a new Kyoto commitment period in bad faith, negotiating while knowing that the government was getting ready to withdraw from the treaty. This kind of overt sabotage at Durban wasn’t a new role for Canada, however.
Indeed, since Stephen Harper came to power in 2006, Canadian negotiators have been fiercely travelling throughout the world trying to sabotage international and bi-national agreements on climate change, including the recent challenge to the European Union’s initiative to tax petroleum produced from dirty oil at a higher rate than petroleum produced from conventional sources, due to the higher carbon emissions associated with dirty oil.
After U.S. President Barack Obama made the decision to stall the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (the approval of which Prime Minister Stephen Harper had notoriously suggested would be a “no brainer” for Obama), the Harper regime has been very keen to move forward with the Chinese-backed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. You see, without pipelines to move bitumen out of Alberta for processing, there will be no need to ramp up further production in the tar sands. The creation of pipelines is essential for the oil industry to expand its production before stricter environmental standards can be imposed on it by a new government which might adopt a “go slow” approach. This is why there has been such a rush on to move forward with pipeline construction.
Whose Interests are Being Served?
Look, tar sands bitumen isn’t going anywhere. It’s only because the oil elites want to make as much profit as they can in the shortest amount of time possible that there is now a push on for pipeline construction. The oil industry sees that the writing has been on the wall for some time now, as the international community is destined to get its act together and finally get serious about climate change. The tar sands, of course, when in full production, will be a significant global contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In the future, developing tar sands bitumen will be less profitable, due to carbon taxes or the need for industry to purchase carbon offsets. We’re not there yet, but we will be there in another decade. Just as industries which used polluting sulphur dioxide could see that they needed to clean up their acts when a new regulatory system was being proposed in the 1980s, the oil industry today understands that changes are afoot. That they are fighting those changes tooth and nail, rather than working with governments to improve the health and well-being of citizens indicates to me, anyway, what their priorities really are.
However, it’s one thing to say that the interests of the oil industries have been to put their own profits ahead of human well-being. But what of the Canadian government? Shouldn’t our government be looking out for the health and welfare of Canadians and our social, economic and natural environments in which we inhabit? Well, I always thought that was the role of our government, but clearly the Harper regime in Ottawa is putting the interests of oil industry profits ahead of the social, economic and environmental well-beings of Canadians. And they are doing it in such a way that they are actually eroding our democratic rights in the process.
And here’s where the latest front appears to be opening up. Based on Minister Joe Oliver’s open letter, we may end up with changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act which deliberately shuts out opportunities for participation in the EA process by Canadians who may share a different set of priorities than does our government. Clearly, the Harper regime has stated in the past few days that international trade and opening up the tar sands to multi-national oil companies for runaway development is more of a priority than protecting and thoughtfully managing Canada’s non-renewable resources, the exploitation of which will lead to the creation of more greenhouse gases and a bigger contribution on the part of Canada to global climate change.
For those who think that we would be putting jobs at risk by not allowing runaway development of Alberta’s tar sands, I invite you to further explore the anticipated impacts of a global rise in temperature of just 2 degrees Celsius. Take a look at how such a rise in temperature will impact jobs and the economy. When the Harper regime talks about “jobs” what they really mean are oil industry profits, because if they were really interested in jobs, they would be doing a lot more to preserve existing jobs and laying the groundwork for a low-carbon economy.
The Declaration of War
EthicalOil.org, which seems to be supply the Harper regime with its speaking points about Northern Gateway, has already suggested that anybody associated with an environmental organization which has received funding from “foreign” sources should not be allowed to publicly participate in the Environmental Assessment process. Remember that list of 4,000 speakers? It’s that list which is being targeted by Harper for being too long and therefore delaying a decision. And many of the speakers on that list are, in fact, from local environmental organizations, some of which may have received funding from non-Canadians.
The fact that non-Canadian organizations have been assisting Canadian environmental organizations with funding has turned into a circus for the neo-liberal oil interests over the past few months. They have claimed that “foreign interests” are dominating the Canadian environmental agenda, and have outright questioned the patriotism of Canadians who may be concerned about climate change and curbing rampant tar sands expansion. In 2011, Canadian grandmothers and university students, some of whom are from my home town of Sudbury, Ontario, were blasted by EthicalOil mouthpiece and Sun Media columnist Ezra Levant as being anti-Canadian “extremists” for their participation in a fence-scaling exercise in civil disobedience. Levant’s own criticisms were then parroted by a number of cabinet ministers (see my earlier blog: “Who are the Real Extremists?“, October 4, 2011).
EthicalOil.org is engaging in hypocrisy of an extreme sort through their calls to ban Canadian environmentalists from the Environmental Assessment process simply because an organization to which they belong may have received a financial contribution from a non-Canadian. Many environmentalists are volunteers and receive no compensation for the work in which they engage in. Those that do receive compensation tend to champion the values and the interests of their organization, just as anybody speaking on behalf of any organization might. And that’s the point which makes EthicalOil’s position so incredibly hypocritical.
The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal will directly benefit multi-national oil companies through higher profits. Billions of dollars will be made by opening up the tar sands to runaway exploitation. These dollars will end up in the pockets of some of the richest foreign corporate executives in the world. Yet EthicalOil.org isn’t leading the charge to shut those multinational corporations out of the EA process. Why is that?
In their black-and-white world, EthicalOil likes to distinguish between job creators on the one hand and job killers on the other. Multinational corporations are the job creating heros in their narrative, and environmentalists out to kill Canadian jobs are the villains. Increasingly, it appears that this narrative is being adopted by our government, especially with the recent and disturbing statements about environmentalists being job-killing radicals. What has yet to be determined is whether our government will change the Environmental Assessment process to shut out legitimate points of view being heard.
Exploding the Myths
The fact is, we live in a global society, and what happens here in Canada will have an impact on the rest of the world, especially as it relates to anthropogenic climate change. That Canada has wilfully committed to a course of action whereby we are determined to be the biggest per capita polluter in the world is reason enough for others to be concerned about the actions of industries operating here, particularly related to the exploitation of non-renewable resources. And the actions of our government to facilitate pollution should not be immune from international scrutiny simply because the oil industry is viewed as a “job creator”. As a result, we can expect to hear more about environmental tariffs being imposed on Canadian export goods as a result of our emissions intensive policies. And that’s further bad news for Ontario’s manufacturing sector, even though Ontario is actively striving to reduce energy derived from non-renewable resources.
Again, we here in Ontario know firsthand that the tar sands are not the ballyhooed job creator that EthicalOil and the Harper regime would have us believe. We’ve seen manufacturing jobs leave the province due to a high dollar, driven up by oil industry revenues. With the price of oil expected to continue to climb over the next decade, we can expect that uncontrolled tar sands development will only drive the value of the dollar up further, leading to an unsustainable situation in Eastern Canada with regards to job loss. There’s a very good reason why the Conservative Party of Canada’s real base of power is in the Alberta heartland. That Conservatives in other parts of Canada fail to see the damage which Harper’s out-of-control oil policy is inflicting on regional economies is maddeningly frustrating to me.
Some Good News (for a change)
There may be some good news coming out of these new attacks on the environment and the patriotism of Canadians who might simply be concerned about the pace of development of our non-renewable resources. If there is any good news at all, it’s that I expect this latest gambit will backfire on the Conservatives over the next few years. By committing to this kind of hyper-partisan rhetoric, there is no longer a way for the Harper regime to back down from their position. They’ve drawn the lines in the sand now between themselves and the oil elites on the one side, and Canadians who may be concerned about the environment on the other. Make no mistake: along with officially declaring war on the environment, the Harper regime has also declared war on moderate Canadians. Ultimately, this approach will backfire as it continues to become increasingly clear to Canadians that environmental issues (and particularly climate change) can no longer be ignored by Ottawa.
That the Harper regime might have completely destroyed long-established environmental legislation and assessment processes in the interim will be something which future, responsible governments will have to address when Harper is finally deposed. The destruction to our economy and our environment which the Harper regime’s short-sighted and greedy war will cause will not be so easily undone.
(opinions expressed in this blog are my own, and should not be interpreted as being consistent with the views of the Green Party of Canada)
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