Canadian Studies

Free Speech Yet Again

2011-12-13T23:34:00.004-04:00

Is this protected by free speech?

'Reprehensible' calls about Cotler beyond Speaker's power - Politics - CBC News:

The story is simple: members of the Conservative party called people in one of the few remaining Liberal held ridings and told them that their MP (the respected Irwin Cotler) was stepping down. Exactly why someone would do this is not at all clear. The Conservatives in question did not deny the fact that they made the calls but argued that they were testing the ground to see where voters might fall if Cotler were not running and that their actions are protected by free speech. Are they?

The short answer is "it depends." I hate to sound like a broken record but an honest mistake is an honest mistake. If the Conservatives in question believed a sitting MP were stepping down and they were trying to assess their level of support, then calling people -- in effect campaigning before the election -- does not strike me as a problem. I do have problems with the "permanent campaign" approach to politics but if the above were the situation ... well ... there is nothing wrong with what they did.

In addition, one could argue "no harm, no foul." This is not a hard and fast legal rule but it comes pretty close under Canadian law. If there is no injury that results from an action, then there is no particular reason to be overly concerned. We (rightly) use the police and courts in incidences where there is harm. If I rob someone's home, as an example, then there is harm and hence a foul. I've deprived someone of their property. Likewise, in my line of work, plagiarism constitutes a foul: it is an effort to pretend gain an unfair advantage (among other things) over other students. In this case, one could argue along the following lines: "yes, I called people in Cotler's riding and told them he was retiring and this was inaccurate but he will someday retire and in the interim, how have I harmed him? He does not lose his job. His reputation is not damaged because my inaccuracy is easily corrected [and, it is difficult to measure reputation anyway]." This might smack of being unethical -- I would contend it is and it would raise questions in my mind about the ethics of a political party that would use this kind of argument -- but it is likely not illegal, even if it is not free speech per se.

But, if someone knowingly lies, that is another story and free speech -- as I have said before -- does not protect intentional deceit. You can easily see why. Imagine a person who wants to sell his car. This car has serious problems that make it dangerous. I come by and ask about the car and the owner says "it is in perfect condition." Now, I, as the buyer, do have some responsibility to check things out but, imagine that the car explodes as I test drive it. Here we have clear foul and deceit. Free speech will not protect that. Likewise if I slander someone, that is not protected. In other words, free speech is not the right to lie publicly about someone. Never has been; never will be.

I concede that this line is fractured in the political realm. Some of the attack adverts we saw in the last federal election were pretty close to outright lies. That is: they were not matters of disagreement on policy whereby one thought that grave problems would follow from campaign promise X or Y, but very close to lies. It is one thing, for instance, for a Conservative to believe that an NDP person might make a bad leader, which they might say publicly. This is what we would expect and it is an interpretation. It is another thing to knowingly say something that is not true, say to run an advert that says "Stephen Harper is a Devil worshipper." The one - questioning the leadership abilities of one's opponent -- is OK; the other is a knowing lie designed to deceive.

Interestingly Defence Minister Peter MacKay is using precisely this argument in threatening to sue people over criticism of his helicopter flight. He is arguing that the criticism amounts to slander and that he will avail himself of any legal means in his authority to obtain redress. I might disagree with MacKay but he is within his legal rights. (There is a complication relating to free speech in Parliament but we can leave that off so as not to unduly complicated what I am saying.)

Moreover, this is a pretty clear line. Free speech is not -- and never has been -- endangered by making slander actionable. In other words, the slippery slope argument -- if we stop people from lying free speech on other matters is in danger -- does not hold because we have a way to adjudicate the distinction between the two: their veracity and the believe of the person speaking.

This does not seem to be a case of slander, but it does seem -- based on their excuse -- that the Conservatives in question intended to lie. That lie is not protected by a Charter right anymore than a dishonest advertisement or slander is protected. On the narrow issue, then, the conclusion seems to me pretty clear: this is not a case of the right to free speech. And, we coud go further: it should not be. If it were accepted as free speech it would create untold damage because, say, consumers could no longer trust advertisers. There are, in other words, spin off negative effects to business of which we should be aware.

Even if this is not protected by Charter rights, then, is there anything that should be done about it. Cotler wanted the Speaker to intervene andI don't think that can be done, and this is what he concluded. I also think that this is not a serious issue, yet. The simple fact that it was brought to light will likely discourage others from doing this and I cannot see how it harmed Cotler. Thus, even while lying is not a protected right ... it might not be an actionable in this case.

The Bloc’s new leader puts a positive spin on some grim numbers - The Globe and Mail

2011-12-11T21:28:00.001-04:00

And, since I'm reading the Globe, I might as well note this story:

The Bloc’s new leader puts a positive spin on some grim numbers - The Globe and Mail:

Let me say, first I don't feel bad for the new leader of the Bloc (Daniel Paillé). He has his work cut out for him but I suspect that the Bloc has some life left in it yet. And, he does have a committed core group of followers.

What I might says is that Paillé is a left over from the Parizeau PQ regime, a hard core separatist who uses a Parizeau type discourse. His election is not surprising. After all ... who else was the BQ going to elect? They really only have their hard core left. Historically, parties reduced to their hard core will often go with a proven product, someone whose public statements and politics are predictable. Politically, this is makes sense: a party looking to rebuild does not want to loose canon but someone who can stick to point and garner time to re-energize activists. This is true whether one is a supporter of independence for Quebec or not. The federal Liberals did the same thing in picking Bob Rae to lead the charge while they figure out what to do.

What interests me is the language he continues to mobilize about "insults" to Quebec values. Does this language of insulting Quebec "play" any more? Does it appeal to the disaffected voter in Three Rivers? Or, the under-employed university grad in Quebec City? He believes it and so does the hard core, but does anyone else?

A requiem for European Union in need of intervention - The Globe and Mail

2011-12-11T21:19:00.001-04:00

See, I was right! OK, that is not quite modest is it. But, for those of you who still might think that isolation is inherently a bad thing ... the Euro Zone is on its 15th crisis summit in the last two years, at least according to this Globe story:

A requiem for European Union in need of intervention - The Globe and Mail

To be clear, I am not arguing that one should always avoid integration. I'm arguing that integration (or, regional trading and currency blocs) are not inherently, in and of themselves, good things. To me, perpetual crisis is not a positive.

What can Canada Learn? Europe moves ahead with fiscal union, U.K. isolated - The Globe and Mail

2011-12-09T10:23:00.001-04:00

This story (EU Debt) is ... well ... OK, it is not interesting at all in the panic filled atmosphere of European debt crisis, but it is important and it is important for more then one reason:

1. Note the way those who have qualms about a tighter trans-national centralized fiscal regime are portrayed. I am not fan of the British PM and, yeah, he looks rather clumsy on TV, but come on? Clumsy? Is that what what reporting on a major international debt crisis has been reduced to?

2. Note that those who have concerns are portrayed as isolated and without any discussion of the potential merits of isolation. My bet is that right now, a fair number of Brits are happy they are isolated from the Euro. In other words, isolation is neither good nor bad. Its the context. Simply describing someone as isolated sounds bad but Britain has benefitted from its isolation (Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Ireland, by contrast ... those non-isolated countries) have been hurt. What is more, we heard a lot about British isolation when it failed to sign onto the Euro. Yet, it turned out that that was the right decision. A little historical perspective, then, is not only missing but seems to have been edited out in an effort to portray caution and prudence as bad.

3. Note: "fog": not only is isolation bad but somehow it is addle-minded (foggy). This is just silly and one would have expected something better from "Canada's national newspaper" You get the point: the merits of the issue -- fiscal integration -- are avoided and replaced by name calling.

4. Canadians should pay attention to this because we have heard all this before. At the beginning of the 21st century, we heard that our banks were isolated. Red tape needed to be removed, mergers allowed, etc., etc., and now ... those people who supported that idea will at least concede that they were wrong. The isolated Canadian banking system helped protect Canada from the international economic crisis (or, its worst effects) and we should bear this in mind before we jump too quickly on international integration or fault the Brits for their failure to lovingly embrace a EU that is, frankly, a fiscal disaster.

But, we heard even more about this in the first decade of the 21st century. We heard Canada could not be isolated militarily from the US and so had to participate in the war in Iraq. We heard Canada could not be isolated from the US and so had to sign onto a revamped stars-warsesque missile shield (excuse my cattiness: how did those things go by the way?) What about that much urged (in some quarters) plan for a common Amero in response to the Euro?

The lesson Canadians need to learn is that major policy decisions should be made with due care. Caution -- even if it creates isolation -- is not a bad thing and on a number of issues (for Canada) has actually served the country well, maintaining its sovereignty while avoiding a war now widely acknowledged as useless. It helped Canada maintain a more buoyant economy then the EU while avoiding the country being weighed down by a defence technology that the US government now concedes does not work.

So ... let's not call people names. Let's assess issues. Idealistic?

Eee pad slider

2011-12-05T23:40:00.000-04:00

This has nothing to do with Canada or Canadian Studies. I thought I'd pause to boast and report. I used a bit of extra money (sounds stupid but it is an accurate description) I had to by and Eee pad slider. It is a iPad with a keyboard attached that slides out. It is not apple and so not an iPad. It run Android and I have to admit it is a pretty cool machine. You can see a pic and get a description here: slider.

I am a long time apple user. I feel almost funny saying that and an apple fan. But, I have to admit the slider is a good tablet. I have a version 1 iPad so I can't comment on the iPad 2 works, but Android is more responsive in terms of opening applications. The web browser is chrome and it loads faster then safari. The e-mail set up is quick (the client is not aesthetically that great, however). And there are a tonne of free games that my daughter has already downloaded. It is also pretty darned intuitive and its version of the dock is better places then the iPads and so it is easier to use. The keyboard is not full sized but it is better then the keyboards available for the iPad. In short, I am fairly impressed.

Conservatism: A New Historic Bloc

2011-12-02T23:04:00.002-04:00

Conservatism: A New Historic Bloc?

A couple of entries ago, I tried to argue that we needed to treat the victory of the Conservative Party seriously. I recognize that a lot of people do. For a fair number of Canadians, the Conservatives are a threat to their vision of the country. They seem to want to cow tow to the US with a "please sir, may I have another" approach. Key Conservatives have made some pretty questionable statements that leads one to believe they don't have much use for equality (whether on the basis of gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity), and are skeptical that there is any need to do anything about environmental change. Add to this an odd fascination with the military that amounts to inventing history (as opposed to studying it or understanding it) and, for a lot of people, you have good reason to be concerned about the bunch in power in Ottawa right now.

What I am trying to do in these blogs (this one and a previous entry) is not to recite these concerns but to treat conservatism seriously on another ground. There strike me as a couple of ways to look at Canada's now five year old Conservative federal government: as a much of malcontents who slipped into office by bamboozling Canadians and political context (the internal war in the Liberal party, for example, and ineffective opposition leadership). Or, as representative of something else: a new "historic bloc." An historic bloc is a particular alliance of social and economic forces that is relatively stable over a longer period of time. It can be a governing bloc (as I argued were the Liberals federally for some time in the 20th century) or an opposition bloc (as Ian McKay argues in his works on the history of socialism). In a previous blob on this subject, I tried to suggest the outlines of those particular alliances as they applied to both 20th century Liberals and 21st century Conservatives.

Another key to an historic bloc is that it is not interested simply in holding onto power. This is one of the things I would argue differentiates Conservatives at the federal level in Canada from at least some provincial Progressive Conservative parties. The PCs in New Brunswick, where I live, want to remain in government but they are not very ideological. Indeed, what separates their actual policies (as opposed to their discourse) from Liberals is often not at all clear. Political parties are looking to maintain power for a variety of reasons. The forces in an historic bloc are looking to maintain power to use it: their goal is not simply to stay in government so they can direct policy but refashion the country. The Liberals under Pierre Trudeau are a case in point.

How does an historic bloc refashion the country? The Liberals did so in a number of ways. First, we need to recognize that they cannot do it by force of will. Refashioning a country requires leadership but it is not a so-called "great leader" pushing the rest of us forward in history. Instead, historic bloc's refashion society through politics and education. In democratic societies (that is, societies that have some level of popular representation of which governing parties must take some account), the state cannot simply impose its will on society. Hence: politics and education. The ruling party will attempt to lead society in a different direction through suasion, leadership, good old fashion politicking ("our opponents are idiots who will destroy civilization as we know it"), and educational programmes that teach people the merits of particular political perspectives. The implementation of a new system of values associated with a new historic bloc is not easy. It involves compromises and negotiations. To be sure, the state will use a coercive apparatus. The Harper government simply declared Canada's commitments to Kyoto at an end; they simply cut funding for groups of people whom they considered "troublemakers" (artists and French-speaking Canadians living outside Quebec). The blunt force of the state "here are the changes, we will not discuss them" is used. Most of the time, however, and for a variety of reasons, an historic bloc needs to "take what it can."

What this means is that historic blocs are constructive thing: they look to build as opposed to simply impose or tear down. The Conservatives, in other words, were never looking simply to "get rid of the welfare state" (indeed, they had and have big plans for it) or turn back the clock on gay rights. Instead, they are looking to build a new order. The question, then, is what might that order entail. And, our first conclusion is this: it will be established by fiat only at the margins, where the historic bloc thinks it can "get away" with the blunt use of the state. Our second conclusion is that it will involve an educational and political process that looks to push Canadians toward a different value structure. And, our third conclusion is that a Conservative historic bloc will negotiate. It will do so from a position of power but it will negotiate because it has to. It will have to compromise and accept things that it does not like. For instance, core supporters of Conservatism will need to put some water with their wine and accept the equality of gay people. That is an advance of the previous historic bloc that cannot be undone. They have to accept women in the paid workforce; they have to accept some role for the welfare state in society (it is pretty clear for instance, that key Conservative constituents don't like socialized medicine). In short, they will not be able to get everything they want. To accomplish some things … they will have to give on others. To challenge equality, for example, in some sort of head-on fashion means losing an election, something the Conservatives will not do.

The development of a new historic bloc is, then, complicated business. If the Conservatives can stabilize it, however, there is a payoff: long-term political success. This will not remove the need for politics (for electioneering and whatnot) but it will keep the Tories in a position of power. What is at stake then when I suggested we treat Conservatism seriously is something more then arts funding or equality. What is at stake is a new historic bloc. Both those who oppose and those who support c/Conservatism should bear this in mind.

Lululemon Nihilism

2011-11-19T09:14:00.000-04:00

Lululemon nihilism

So … I understand that Lululemon (the Canadian retailer whose clothes feature prominently in my daughter's wardrobe) is urging its employees and customers to read Ayn Rand. A blog entry on their company web pages suggests that they are looking to inspire people to "greatness" because otherwise they will be trapped by "mediocrity."

I only mention this because because I've heard a lot of these terms of late, let's say in the last year. I've heard a lot of people talking about the "will to win," "the struggle of meeting a challenge," the need to "leave it all on the field," etc., etc.

There is something amazingly odd about this discourse. Let me be clear about my own view: it is utter crap. It is the kind of stuff bad basketball coaches say to their team in the locker room before the game (good coaches, btw, review strategy because they don't trust in slogans to win games). Yet, because we hear it about us and because a prominent retailer is offering it to us as something we should know (and making it recommended reading for their employees), let's take a second or two to think about it.

My first concern is question: why is nihilism (the philosophy Rand supported and defined) coming back into vogue among Canadians? Is it? I mentioned a few years ago the Canadian conservatives adopted an odd form of nihilism that actually ran counter to conservatism. I'd suggest that the Lululemon set is not very conservative. What appeals to them in nihilism? I suspect that part of the appeal is that there is not a great deal of familiarity with Rand's doctrines or with nihilism. Rand's work is not about being good at what you. It is not about being a better teacher or clothing seller or basketball coach. Yet, I suspect that its appear is that some people are thinking it that way. What we have, then, in the rising appeal of nihilism (if we actually have that) is not something that is very nihilistic. Its more in the way of Ayn Rand does self-help.

To be frank, Nihilism is, for me, a deeply disturbing ideology. Its anti-humanistic, and views most of humanity as a pretty bad lot: mediocre, petty, etc., deserving only to be dominated by the "great individual." Ideologically, it has more in common with fascism then anything else. Those people who are nihilists like to think of themselves as better then everyone else. They would argue that my view -- spelt out in this blog -- are actually a sign of my own mediocrity, indicative of my plebeian second-class status. You can, of course, see the basic problem with Nihilism straight off: it is a logical contradiction. One either (a) accepts the nihilistic premise that they are better then you and so the only thing one can do is recognize their superiority or (b) demonstrate one's self to be mediocre by not recognizing the nihilists superiority.

Earlier I criticized nihilistic conservatism for … well … its silliness. This brand of nihilism (let's call it "Lululemon nihilism") is pretty banal. The first thing we can learn about it, then, or that we should probably learn about it is that it is not really nihilism. Lululemon nihilism bears a closer relationship to self-help manuals then to Ayn Rand precisely because it retains humanistic dimensions. It is odd, to be sure, and any nihilism is potentially problematic (because it predicated on the odd form of logic explained above), but this stuff strikes me as pretty inoffensive.

The second thing that we might learn is that this form of nihilism is pretty closely tied to consumerism. If there ever was a cultural form that was connected to mediocrity, it must be consumerism. Consumerism is about buying happiness but in an age of mass production the happiness one buys is the same as everyone else's, hence, consumerism itself cannot provide a way to differentiate the "superior" from the "mediocre": it treats everyone the same and must do this. What have, I will suggest, is not so much nihilism being smuggled into popular culture via an Ayn Randesque colonization of trendy brand names but the reverse: consumer capitalism is colonizing nihilism, turning it into yet another good to be bought and sold: "feeling a bit down? Your [fill in product or occupation or avocation X here] not up to snuff? By an [fill in brand name Y here] and you will rise above mediocrity."

Nihilism, of course, has nothing to do with consumerism. Key nihilist thinkers tended to ignore it for the reasons I noted above (it forces commonality on culture). What is going on here is that the folks selling consumer products think they have found a better marketing strategy. Their product is about superiority.

If we put these things together, we have an odd cultural situation going on. One that I don't necessarily want to touch and which I personally find rather disturbing, Lululemon is one example. The odd discourse I hear among my students (which apes "greatness") is another. I suspect there is something else going on. These people (my students) appropriate this language because they feel banal in their own lives. Yet, this nihilism (if I am right) is not very threatening. It is another form of consumerism; not a political movement.

A Conservative Canada

2011-11-16T10:52:00.000-04:00

A Conservative Canada

For those of us in Canadian Studies, the electoral success of the Harper Conservatives raises important issues. The long period of Liberal domination of Canada gave us, in fact, a luxury. We were able to see and judge and unfolding national project and to teach and research that project. Moreover, because the Liberals were so successful, we could devote sustained attention to it year after year. Canada, in other words, steered a course, perhaps since before WW II and stuck, more or less, to that course. The details changed and there were, to be sure, policy shifts. The country changed (demographically, in terms of gender relations, for example) but none of these changes either fundamentally challenged or were incompatible with the Liberal vision for Canada. The success of Harper is the first real challenge to this post WW II vision (which elsewhere I have called “civic nationalism” following Michael Ignatieff). What does this challenge look like? Will it retool Canada? Will it bring in (as Harper has suggested he wants to do) a new national vision? How different will that national vision be from what preceded it. These are complex questions that cannot be addressed in a blog. Let’s take a few key issues, then, to address and see if the discussion can be extended over time (that is, in other blog entries) or through discussion/comments if you want to send them in.

First, let’s begin with the Liberal vision for Canada. A great deal has been said about this so we can just hit the highlights. This vision for Canada was never a majority vision. Instead, it represented a particular “historic bloc”: a particular alliance of social classes, groups and forces, led by a set of “organic intellectuals,” as it were, who provided the philosophical arguments driving institutional, legal, and constitutional reform. The intellectuals are well known: Pierre Trudeau would, of course, have been the most prominent. The ideas that formed the basis of the Liberal reform project are also well know. They constitute the “common sense” of Canada today for a great many Canadians: the social welfare state (particularly socialized medicine), regional economic development strategies, human rights codes and the Charter, opposition to ethnic nationalism in Quebec, formal equality under the law, equality of opportunity, multiculturalism, the Official Languages Act, the decriminalization of homosexuality and abortion, the creation of new icons of Canadian-ness (the Maple Leaf flag, for instance). To a greater or lesser extent, all these reforms were intended to rebuild Canada: to push Canada away from its British (or, dualist) heritage and construct a new type of nation that was organized around the ideal of the “just society.”

The political/economic alliance that supported these reforms is less well considered. This might be because more time is needed for historical analysis, but the Liberal ideal of Canada drew together largely middle-class federalist Quebecers, new Canadians, and middle-class English-speaking Canadians in Ontario, some parts of Western Canada, and the Maritimes. The alliance included sections of big business (particularly but not exclusively finance capital) along with advocates for gender equity. These people’s allegiance to the Liberal vision of Canada was not “false consciousness;” they recognized themselves in this vision and subscribed to a Canada committed to these ideals. Some of them are powerful ideals. For instance, equality of opportunity and the decriminalization of abortion spoke to those people who believed in equality and that the state should not be in the business of regulating women’s bodies.

A key point to note, however, is that this alliance did not include all Canadians. Sections of capital involved in resource extraction, the supporters of Quebec independence, and many small-town and rural Canadians could not identify with this vision and were, in fact, hostile to it. Those who held different visions of Canada gravitated to other political parties. The Conservatives, for example, spent a great deal of time wondering about bilingualism and multiculturalism, questioned the meaning and implications of equality, and defended older symbols of Canadian-ness. They spent most of the time after the 1960s trying to find an alternative conception of Canada that could be as encompassing as the Liberal vision but which provided an alternative to it. The PQ clearly had a different conception of the country, while supporters of the NDP argued initially for something called industrial democracy and suggested that the Liberal commitment to capitalism (however modified) compromised their fundamental commitment to justice. The nature of the Canadian political system (the first past the post system), ensure that the Liberals could translate what was in fact plurality support into a majority in the Commons.

The people who constitute the Harper Conservatives (by and large) are people who never reconciled themselves to the Liberal vision of Canada. They represented, at least initially, a different alliance of class and social forces united to a large extent only by their opposition to Liberalism. And, make not mistake, Harper and his supporters as well as the intellectuals of contemporary Conservatism see/saw Liberalism as the enemy. Who made up this coalition? A diverse lot. It includes conservative soft-nationalists in Quebec, primary resource capital, the remnants of the rural and small-town petty bourgeoisie, disaffected sections of the English-speaking working class, and the western Canadian middle class. More recently, the Conservatives have taken steps to draw in more conservative sections of immigrant communities and the suburban middle class in Ontario (with some measure of success). Like the Liberals before them, the Conservatives have benefited from a fragmented political spectrum and the FPP electoral system, translating a plurality into a Commons majority. In addition, the Conservatives have also represent a westward shift in Canadian political, intellectual, and economic power. The key intellectuals of Conservatism, for example, are based in Western Canadian universities.

What does this tell us? Well, at this point, one might say not very much. But, I’d suggest couple of things are important to note. The first thing to note is that the rise of a Conservative Canada represents not simply an electoral triumph (shrewd politicking) or the changing views of Canadians but a new “historic bloc”: a new political-economic alliance, as it were, that differs from that which sustained the Liberals is in power. Notable in this regard is the Conservatives lack of support among middle-class Quebecers, the tentative halting support they have among middle class English Canadians outside of western Canada, and concern voiced by those in the arts community as well as the advocates of equality. We need to understand a Conservative Canada, then, through the same analytic lens used to understand a Liberal Canada. We need to look at the balance of class forces, the vision it represents, and that we have entered into a different historic era, not because of an election but because of the shifting balance of class and social power in Canada. Moreover, those who do not recognize themselves in the Conservative vision of Canada need to understand that this is likely not a lacunae. They really are on the “outs.”

The other thing to recognize is that the Conservatives are interested in reforming Canada. After all … if they were not, why would they bother to run for office? The question is what form will this reform take. Will it amount to a fundamental change in Canada? Who will benefit from this change and who will not. These are questions that we need to address. In future blogs, I’ll make a first effort in this regard.

Anti-gay proselytizer takes aim at Canada’s hate laws in landmark case - The Globe and Mail

2011-10-12T07:51:00.000-03:00

Oddly, this is a court case that snuck past me:

Anti-gay proselytizer takes aim at Canada’s hate laws in landmark case - The Globe and Mail:

Over the years I have tried to make a number of points. It might bear in mind that we repeat them because this decision could "go either way" and because free speech and freedom of religion are poorly understood, at least as these rights apply to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

First, the right to free speech is not and never has been the right to say whatever one pleases. Those people who defend this chap's campaign against gays should recognize this. One cannot, for instance, use free speech in a way that endanger's another's life ("fire" in a crowded building) or promotes a criminal activity (say, to organize a band robbery). There is not and never has been in either Canada or any other country to my knowledge and unrestricted right to free speech. When asked to create a hierarchy of values, Canadians and other peoples have always said that a person's safety trumps the right to free speech. If we have to choose (we don't want to and we recognize that 99% of the time we don't have to), we have to pick life of speech. One person's right to talk cannot come before another person's right to live.

Second, free speech does not absolve one of responsibility. There are a lot of people who say that people should take responsibility for their actions. I'm one of those people, but they then exempt speech. Speech is an action. If you take an action that causes harm to someone else, you are criminally responsible. To be sure, responsibility is mediated. If your speech causes someone to harm someone else, that person doing the harm is also responsible and must take responsibility for their actions. But, speech is not and should not be a category of actions outside of others. In fact, I find the whole "there should be no repercussions to speech" argument juvenile in this regard. How so?

Well, because the whole effort to hide hatred behind free speech is an effort to avoid taking responsibility, of saying "no harm should come to me because of what I did; I should not have to take responsibility for my actions." This is the kind of thing our kids say when we catch them breaking a household rule: "Its not my fault." My view is this: if you (that is, someone out there) doesn't want to take responsibility for your actions ... that's fine because that is your choice. Your course of action is clear: don't do anything; that way you won't have to take responsibility for it. But, don't try turn the constitutional protection of free speech into a shield that allows you to hide from your own actions.

Third, freedom of religion is not threatened by anti-hate legislation. In fact, religious institutions (I'll say churches just because they are the largest religious bodies in Canada) should be in the forefront of opposition to this guy. This guy's message -- a message of hate -- is not a Christian message. Freedom of religions can and has been threatened in Canada's past. But, this is not a threat. This is about an effort to further marginalize an already marginalized social group smuggled in under the guise of religion. The two are separate things and majority religions groups often have a hard time with this very basic point: the fact that you cannot force society to do what you want them to do (on the basis of your religious views) does not mean that you are threatened. It means others have choices. So, I fully recognize that a lot of Christians have problems with gay people, but the fact that you cannot turn back the clock and force people who are not members of your congregation to adopt anti-gay views is not a threat to your church, your ability to worship, your ability to hold Sunday school, or to gather for corporate prayer or fellowship.

We heard all of this with regard to gay marriage, didn't we? It was a threat to freedom of religion. What churches were closed because of it? What Sunday schools stopped? What prayer service eliminated? What Bibles burned?

What we have here, then, is an fundamental misunderstand and another juvenile one. Children think like this: I have been harmed because I didn't get my way. Imagine a child demanding to watch a certain television that their parent thinks is not good for them (I suspect we have all been through this). The child -- using their own language -- argues that their basic rights have been harmed and that they have suffered a horrible injustice. Have they? They have not been prevented from watching TV or from reading or playing with friends or going on facebook, etc. We need to separate out these rights: the right to freedom of religion is not the right to impose your religious views on society.

Finally, a quick point that I made above: the churches should never support this guy. I hope they aren't. I have not looked it up but to support hatred is to support something that is not Christian.

Taxes

2011-09-29T23:12:00.002-03:00

What good are taxes? The general view is this: not much. There are more nuanced and sophisticated views, to be sure. The problem with the general view is that it feeds into an anti-tax politics that really does little to provide education into the character and nature of taxes. Because those people -- perhaps like me -- who feel taxes can serve a useful function have been silent in Canada's on-going consideration of taxes, only one side really gets any "air time." The result is that the more sophisticated and nuanced anti-tax perspective links up with the general anti-tax feelings of ordinary folks to create a huge bias against taxes, making it impossible to have a concerted discussion of this issue. I know not many people read this blog and so I'm not about to change the character of public discourse by myself. But, I thought I'd give it a go any way. What good are taxes?

To answer this question, we need to bear in mind several points that I have made over the years in this blog. One point I've tried to make (perhaps ineffectively) is to demonstrate that tax cuts do not necessarily help the economy. I'll not go at this issue again since it is a point I have already made, except to say this. The argument we often here "economists say tax cuts will help the economy" is wrong. I have a number of friends who are economists and they do not say this. They say that the issue of cutting taxes needs to be studied and one cannot assume in advance that a tax cut will either help or hurt the economy. It is a matter to study; not about which to make assumptions.

The second point we need to make to address this question is that we need to try to approach it in a non-ideological way. This point follows from what I said in my previous paragraph. Tax cuts are often associated with right wing politics and with good reason. Conservatives often talk about tax cuts (their historical record is, of course, mixed, but currently tax cuts are associated primarily with the right wing. It gets easy, then, to see a discussion of tax cuts as a left v right debate. I think that we need to put this debate on hold and consider what taxes can and cannot do if we are to have a serious discussion of tax rates.

The third point is that we need to think about what the problems with taxes might be. Several years ago we ran a conference on regional development here at Mount A. As part of this conference, there was a discussion of tax rates and the results of that discussion surprised me. I found that capitalists were not arguing for tax cuts. They liked them (particularly corporate tax cuts) but did not see them as necessary to economic development. Capitalist thinkers (often associated with universities and think tanks) argued for tax cuts but business people did not. Instead, what business people asked for was consistency. In effect, they said this: stop changing the tax system every year. Stop messing around with this deduction and that deduction. Instead, keep things the same for a number of years. We are confident, they said, in our ability to do our job. But, if tax rates, etc., change every year, this adds new expenses to what we do. We'd like tax cuts but what we really want is consistency year after year in the way taxes are done. If we could have that, we can lay our plans and do our jobs. This suggests that the real problem with taxes is not their rate but government tinkering. I'd be willing to accept this point.

With these three points made, we also need to consider what taxes do. Taxes are a way of collecting revenue for public spending. I have found it interesting over the years that the same people who argue against taxes will also be quick to argue that the government should do X or Y. It could be anything: fix up the local ball park, buy a new fire engine for the local volunteer fire department, fix the pot holes in the streets, etc. Yet, all these things cost money. In other words, we (citizens) make demands on our governments (federal, provincial, municipal) and then ask our governments to fulfill these demands at the same time we say "but we don't want to give you any money to complete these tasks." Some things can be put off for a year or should be the subject of longer range phased in planning. I have no problems with that view. I own a home and that is precisely the type of calculation I do with regard to repairs (how much money do I have and what are my priorities? What can I do part of this year part of next year?). This is fair enough. But, it still does not miss the point that governments need revenue because of demands from citizens and these demands are not coming from "special interests." They are coming from ordinary people. Nor are they coming from "welfare bums." They involve things like education, road repair, health care, national defense, environmental protection, policing, amateur sports, libraries, etc. In other words, things that ordinary people use and like and about which there is no debate of their merits (except on the fringes of public life).

Taxes can also be efficient. This is one of those need to study things because it is counter intuitive. The more sophisticated anti-tax perspective is predicated on the idea that the state (collective action) is inherently inefficient compared to individual private market undertaking. Yet, as I said, this is an issue to be studied not assumed. In some instances that state may indeed be less efficient. In other instances -- health care springs to mind -- it tends not to be. Canadians get a relatively good quality health care for their tax dollars. We don't have perfect system people don't like waiting for health care. I don't, at least. But, compared to other actually existing health care systems, Canada's is not bad. Indeed, most of the countries that have better health care systems then Canada actually have more (not less) state involvement. The US health care system is not the disaster most Canadians think it is. It is has some serious problems but so does Canada's. We can debate whose problems are worse, but the point I want to make is that Canadians actually pay less for health care then do Americans on average even when you include what Canadians pay in taxes toward health care. Here, then, is a counter intuitive situation: taxes can save money.

My final point for now: there may be some areas of the economy where the state should not be involved. These will be culturally determined but that does make them less real. Let me continue with my previous example. Let us assume that Americans are an intelligent bunch. Why, then, do Americans pay more for health care? That does not seem like a smart thing to do, does it (to pay more then you have to for something). The answer is that Americans want to maintain a largely private sector mode of health care delivery. And, that is worth something to them and so they are willing to pay more for it. This is a value (and, hence, cultural) and it has an effect on the population. Canadians -- as I've pointed out before -- look at the world differently then Americans. They viewed fully privatized health care as inefficient: it was not providing people with the health care they needed as a reasonable price. Hence, they changed it.

Now, Canadians will have other values -- there will be other spheres of the economy -- on which they do not want tax dollars spent. We have seen, for instance, that Canadians are remarkably skeptical about using tax dollars to fund professional sports (say, to build arenas). Oddly. Americans appear to be less sensitive to this point then Canadians. The Dallas Cowboys got a whole bunch of public money put into their huge new stadium. In thinking about taxes, then, we also need to think about spheres of the economy where we don't want tax dollars spent. This may end up costing us more on average or collectively then if we had the state involved. Tickets to hockey games, for instance, may cost more if the state does not contribute to the costs of arenas. But, we might say "gee, that is OK and we can live with that because we don't believe in spending public money on professional sports teams."

As a first salve in a different discussion of taxes, then, these are the points I would "put on the table": that we should try to be non-ideological, that we should study the issue and not make assumptions about the merits or demerits of state spending; that we need to consider where the problems with taxes lie (for instances in a lack of consistency over time as opposed to the specific rate), that public spending is not inherently inefficient, and that there are value-based spheres of society to which we might not want to see public spending (the direction of tax dollars) directed. These will differ from society to society and so comparison with other countries might in terms of taxes might not be instructive whereas a consideration of Canadian values might be.

Recent Nanos poll shows Conservative support slipping nationally - The Globe and Mail

2011-08-08T08:30:00.000-03:00

This is not at all interesting:

Recent Nanos poll shows Conservative support slipping nationally - The Globe and Mail

Some people like polls. I have a love/hate relationship with them. I use them all the time when I'm teaching but I also point out how one has to carefully contextualize the meaning, report on methodology, error rates, and that sort of thing. Of course, one might expect Canada's "national newspaper" to do the same sort of thing: exercise the same sort of care ...?

Consider the litany of errors in the reporting on this story:

1. The Conservatives are described as back in "minority territory": how can that be? The election is over; the Tories have majority and will for the next four/five years. End of discussion. Polls can't put them in a "minority" only an election can. Alas ... those reporting on this poll neglected this fact and so produced the biggest error I have ever personally seen in news reporting.

2. The opening paragraph describes the NDP "tumble" in Quebec, which is corrected later in the story to note that the NDP is actually either within the polling marin of error in Quebec month over month or increasing in support. Hmmm ... how does one's support both go up and down? The, after reporting that NDP numbers in Quebec both went down and up; the reporter notes the "chill" on NDP support in Quebec suggesting that they went down again. One is tempted to sarcasm: that was quick, down, up, and down in the span of one news story.

3. The reporter provides not context regarding this poll other then Jack Layton's illness (which supposedly explains the rapidly fluctuating numbers in Quebec). It is as if nothing else happened when the poll was done.

4. We are also told of the dramatic Liberal resurgence but no other information is provided. When and where? And ... who cares if we are X years away from an election?

Polls are easy political reporting. Someone else does the work for you, passes it along and even gives you a couple of key quotes to fill in to the story. Polls are also useful. However, properly assessing polls is hard work. It requires some understanding of stats, and ability to communicate that, a knowledge of history, and a current events, and that is to start. Moreover, a poll -- such as this one -- one be irrelevant to public life. There will be another one next month. Trust me. It is really too bad that no one in a national media outlet can bother to take the time to properly report on polling.

Nova Scotia’s surplus sparks accusations that taxes are too high - The Globe and Mail

2011-08-04T20:20:00.000-03:00

This story is a good example of the politics of taxes:

Nova Scotia’s surplus sparks accusations that taxes are too high - The Globe and Mail

OK, everyone thinks taxes are too high or ... well ... do they? The complaint -- taxes are too high -- is something we learn to say. It is a matter of public discourse and something people say without thinking. This story is a classic example of this. Why? Well, because the only reasons the Conservatives are arguing taxes are too high is to try to get elected. In the process, they are not thinking of the good of Nova Scotia. Indeed, they are putting their own partisan interests ahead of the public good and, because of that, I shudder to think what would happen if they were elected.

Surely, someone will say, the fact that the government has extra money means that I should get a cut in my taxes? Intuitively, this makes sense, but not if we pause to consider the issue for several reasons.

First, how often does NS run surpluses? Imagine, for instance, that you're paid $100 per week. Because you have $100, you spend $100. One week, your boss decides to give you a bonus and puts your pay up to $120 for one week. Do you instantly start spending $120 per week? No. Because what happens the next week when your pay goes back to normal? You're $20 in the hole. You might spend a little mad money (go see a movie or something) but no adult of ordinary intelligence would suddenly ramp up their spending because of a one week different from the norm. If, in the longer run, you started earning $120 a week, then you would increase your spending but not before you knew you had $120 a week.

NS is like this. It is silly economics to assume that a one time surplus represents a long run trend, particularly when there are so many unknowns in the economy. The US debt crisis is far from solved; Italy and Spain are in serious economic trouble; the DOW dropped 500 points today. A prudent person would not make predictions in a situation where the future was so unclear and there were so many troubling signs on the horizon. Yet, to get elected, a political party will and what is most upsetting is that the people who run the Conservative Party know this. I have no secret network of spies providing me with information on the economy. I get my information from the media, the same place the Conservatives do. They know that prudence is called for in an unstable economic situation and they know that NS has a bad t track record of piling up debt (in other words, surpluses are unusual). Yet, they are willing to throw all that out the door for a few political brownie points. One might hope for better.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, there are other things that can be done with this money. There is a different between a deficit and a debt. The debt is the accumulated deficit, all those years NS ran in the red didn't disappear. NS borrowed money to pay for that deficit and like money that anyone borrows, sooner or later you need to pay it back. I don't know exactly how big NS's debt is, but a good guess might be $14 billion. That's right, $14 billion. Why not take some of the surplus and start paying back the debt?

This is a good idea because, just like a mortgage or a credit card bill, the longer you don't pay it back, the more interest you have to pay. Right now, NS pays interest on $14 billion worth of debt. Again, I don't have an exact figure (the provincial budget if you care to look it up would have debt servicing charges listed) on hand and I'm too lazy to look it up but that is a lot of interest and that interest is a dead waste. It produces nothing. It is money you pay -- and by "you" I mean taxpayers -- and you get nothing for it. It is a service charge for debt. You get no new bridges, no new teachers in schools, no extra fire protection, no potholes paved, nothing. Because you get nothing for it, the faster you can pay it off the better. The faster you can pay it off (or even hunks of it), the less service changes you have (because the less interest you pay), the more tax dollars can be directed to useful ends (like tax cuts, if one were of this mind). By paying off the debt, IOW, there is more money all around.

And .... what is more ... the Conservatives know this. They are not idiots. They've all had to pay mortgages and they all have credit cards and they can all do some simple math. The fact that they know this and chose to ignore it in order to score some quick points ... is disconcerting. One might expect better.

Finally, let's do some simple math on this surplus. According to the Globe the surplus will be $570 million (give or take). Sounds like a lot of money but don't get too excited too quickly because you (and by "you" I mean taxpayer), ain't gonna get $570 million in your pocket. NS has a population of 940 000 (give or take). I'm using conservative figures here just to be careful. This amounts to about 606.38 per person. But, you don't just get this figure for everyone who is in your family. Instead, the way our tax system works is that the amount deducted on your pay cheque is changed. So, instead of getting this amount, you'd get an extra $23.32 per pay before taxes. Since taxes are still going to be there, you need to deduct your marginal tax rage from this. Let's imagine its 37% so deduct $8.63 from the $23.32 you were getting every two weeks and you're now at $14.70 per person every two weeks!

Now, I admit that this figure is not accurate. Not everyone works and we could do some more math, allowing deductions for various things and extra money if you have kids, etc. However, the point would be the same. The amount of difference this will make on your pay check is limited. Very limited. It is not enough to help you buy a new car; pay off your mortgage early. It would get you dinner at McDonalds but that is about it.

My point is this: there is no big windfall coming to you even if all this surplus were put back into the hands of taxpayers. Rather than doing this, then, Nova Scotians should be sensible. They should think about their long-range interests and adopt a policy that is prudent, guards against economic instability, and creates more wealth for the province in the long run. Unfortunately, I suspect that the NDP will have to follow course and try to bribe taxpayers with their own money.

Christianity and Postmodernity

2011-08-01T08:53:00.002-03:00

Friends of mine at my church periodically give me books or recommend DVDs on "postmodernism." Yes, I can hear you saying … but a bit late in the day, no? After all, haven’t we been talking about postmodernism for … well … a generation? Is there a new interpretation (perhaps the post-modern equivalent of Jackson Lear’s No Place of Grace or Marshall Berman’s All that is Solid, to galvanize discussion?) Unfortunately … no and so that is not the subject on which I will be commenting. Instead, I thought I’d take some time to break from my normal commentary on Canadian subjects to comment on Christian ”takes” on the postmodern.

I am currently reading Graham Johnston’s Preaching to a Postmodern World, a book recommended to me by a good friend and wonderful man. I’ve not yet really had chance to discuss this book with my friend but I am not all that impressed. There a several things to note by way of introduction to this text, Christian approaches to postmodernism, and my engagement with them.

First, honesty in advertising: I’m Christian. I attend Middle Sackville Baptist Church, a self-identifying evangelical church. I’m involved, I’m an usher, teller, facilitator of corporate prayer, on the “prayer team” and I do the odd shift (with another friend) in the Sunday morning nursery. What I say, then, I say as a person who might be described as an adult convert to born-again Christianity.

Second, the Christian approach to postmodernism confuses me. In fact, I cannot quite figure out why Christians are all that concerned about it. Postmodernism is, of course, an artistic and architectural movement that may have some validity in culture as a whole in Canada, the US, and some other western and former communist countries. But, it is a contested concept. Christian texts on postmodernism seem to treat it as a fait accompli: “postmodernism says …” or “postmodernism suggests …” instead of as the deeply debated and thoroughly contested concept that it is. No one writing these texts, for instance, seem to have read (or, if they have read, paid any attention to) such important texts as Mike Davis, City of Quartz or Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. The result is that the Christian takes on postmodernism that I have read tend to be very one-sided.

And, here is where I get even more confused. This text is not a bad example of Christian writing. It is, in places, persuasive, articulate, caring, concerned, and direct. It is painfully honest and there is no doubt that the author has read far more Christian writing on postmodernism than I have (or, perhaps, will). The author is no dewey-eyed apologist for modernity. In fact, he rejects Christian efforts to find a rapprochement with the legacies of modernity. Nor, overtly, does this text draw sectarian distinctions, something to which too many Christians (perhaps including me) fall prey. In short, there is much to recommend this book.

It also has its problems and one problem is the relationship between postmodernity and modernity. Everything postmodern is, in the author’s eyes, bad. It is relativism run awol. It is individualism become hedonism. It is a-moral. Its denizens are media junkies. Just about everything you can think of that is bad is laid at the feed of postmodernity and this, in my view, is problem number one and confusion number two. I think postmodernity (whatever it might be) is problematic, but gee … is everything about it wrong? Did not Foucault’s analysis of power have something important to offer? Did not Derrida’s exposure of the metaphysics lying at the heart of rationality have something worthwhile to say?

The problem is more then a lack of balance. The problem is one of a perspective that the author cannot seem to escape. The author reads postmodernism using the language of modernity. The result is that his assessment of postmodernity is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” The author is focused on the individual and the effects of postmodernism on individualism … as if postmodern writers were talking about a modern subject. We can argue whether or not the postmodern subject is of any validity another day. The truth of the matter is that Foucault, for instance, is trying to think the subject in a way that elides modern conception of individualism. By returning to the individual (over and over again), Johnston can only read postmodernism through the lens that its key thinkers had already thrown away.

I’ll make my point even more bluntly: Johnston assumes that postmodernists are talking about the same thinking, acting, free-will individual who attracted the attention of modern thinkers. But since they are not, he cannot really grapple with what they are saying because he cannot really understand it. And, because he is trying to understand the postmodern through the conceptual framework of modernity, he himself is trapped in a descriptive modern language that was disregarded a generation ago by the likes of Foucault and Derrida.

He falls prey to the same problem with regard to texts. Derrida never said, for instance, texts were meaningless or could mean whatever one wanted. What he said was that rationalist discourse was sustained not by reason or empirical reality but rhetoric that disguised the metaphysics needed to sustain argument. Texts were not without meaning. The instability of language created multiple meanings. These two things are different, but again Johnston cannot “get” this, because within his framework there either is meaning or there is not. Texts either communicate an authorial intention or they do not and if they do not they become meaningless .

I can agree with much of what Johnston says, but I can also wonder about it. Why, for instance, be concerned about postmodernist irony and kitsch when millions are starving? Seriously: why not attack racism rather then express our concerns about what is, after all, a largely white, western, upper middle class cultural phenomena? I’d suggest -- as problem number four -- that the author has confused his own cultural world (or, at least one with which he interacts) with the world. The text is a decade old and so much of it is out of date (in terms of popular culture), but the same principle could apply today. He might select his examples differently, castigating Lady Gaga’s “Born this Way” instead of whatever was on the charts in 2001. My point would remain the same: surely unemployment, violence against women, racism, third world poverty are issues of more pressing concern if we want to demonstrate our love of our neighbours.

Finally, I also wonder about Johnston’s politics. He tries hard to not be political: to keep spiritual matters front and centre but he can’t quite avoid his own politics. He cannot quite avoid using homosexuality as an example of things that are wrong in the world, for instance. One story was instructive. He related a Bush Sr era speech writer’s concerns about a single pregnant teen getting her high school degree. The audience applauded (as they should). But … something was not quite right in this. Reading Johnston’s discussion of this story, it illustrates what is wrong with society: the teen should not be pregnant in the first place and we have no business saying it is OK through our applause. Both the speech writer and author are taken aback that people actually appreciate the fact that this young woman persevered in a tough circumstance and did something of note. It is not right, in their view, that pregnant girls get high school degrees. It just isn’t.

Why not? What were the alternatives? The author suggests that this is a historical transition: there was a time when teens were not pregnant and we have to get back to that time. When was that time? This is not a historical transition. This is a myth masquerading as history. This time never existed. It might have existed for individual families but it neglects that simple fact that there have been single pregnant teenage girls as long as there have been teenage girls. To pretend otherwise is to perpetrate an and this is the biggest problem with Johnston’s interpretation of postmodernism. It relies on a mythologized conception of the past that allows it only to draw false distinctions with the contemporary world and hence suggests false choices and false problems. The issue, then, is never “should we have single pregnant teenage moms.” That is not a real question: it is ideology. For a Christian to ask it, merely consigns his spirituality to the real of ideology. The real question -- and the question Christians need to ask -- is what do we do with reality? Do we applaud or not?

The same mythologized history is evident in other aspects of Johnston’s consideration of the postmodern as well. The pre-postmodern (modern) age, say before the late 1960s, is a world without racism, without violence against women, without poverty, and in which all families were kind and loving. The author does not geographically locate his study. Instead he presents postmodernism as a global phenomena. Modernism appears the same way but I would have liked to have known exactly where this modern society -- whose only real failing was enlightenment skepticism -- actually was. I suppose we are all prone to nostalgia. I bore my kids with stories of my childhood which are likely inaccurate. But, this is not nostalgia. It is history as similacra.

I’m not certain one can write large from one text. So far, however, what I’ve seen and listened to does not bode well. If Christians want to engage postmodernism using this text, they are on the wrong track. It ignores key studies into the character of postmodernism and ignores, in fact, postmodern thinkers themselves. It lacks balance and works with a mythologized history that smuggles a neo-con politics in through the back door. This mythologized history presents false options and fake choices as illusory historical turning points while ignoring real history and, in the process, turns what should be an important message into ideology. Alas …

What Good Are Taxes?

2011-07-28T15:08:00.002-03:00

Canada’s youth crime plans bewilder international observers - The Globe and Mail

2011-07-20T11:06:00.000-03:00

This story is worth reading:

Canada’s youth crime plans bewilder international observers - The Globe and Mail

I suspect that there will always be some debate about how to address youth crime. What is interesting, however, is the info graphics. They provide a comparative take on Canadian youth incarceration rates. Let's acknowledge that the US rate is pretty difficult to determine precisely (for an important reason given in the info graphic) and so we can discount the rate provide for the US. Leaving the US out, however, we find Canada's rate is pretty darned high. Second only to Mexico. I wonder how many people knew that?

The real issue with youth crime is twofold. First, the real need to address it becomes confused with ideology, with hard line takes on crime in general. Here, those who tow the hard line seem more concerned about punishing criminals then lowering the crime rate ("you did the crime, you do the time"). My own concern, frankly, is the opposite. I'd rather see a lower crime rate so that there are fewer victims.

Second, I suspect that most people are not well informed about youth crime. For example, I suspect most people don't hunt down comparative incarceration statistics. I suspect most people don't look at the long term trajectory of the crime rate. I might be wrong. The fact that I don't normally check such things out doesn't mean that others don't. If I'm wrong, let me know. My point, however, is that if we are better informed and more clear in our objectives, we might make better public policy decisions.

Finally, I might add, it does not surprise me that our current government is "behind the curve" in terms of thinking about youth crime and crime prevention. Many of their ideas are old US Republican ideas that didn't work in the US. OK, that might have been a bit catty.

History doesn’t bear out Harper’s hopes for brief NDP honeymoon in Quebec - The Globe and Mail

2011-07-18T11:07:00.001-03:00

The analysis is this article is a bit simplistic but interesting:

History doesn’t bear out Harper’s hopes for brief NDP honeymoon in Quebec - The Globe and Mail

If I had to guess ... I wouldn't. There are other examples that might be listed of failed honeymoons (United Farmers in Ontario, the ADQ in QC) and near miss honeymoons (the Liberal "resurgence in MN under Carstairs, COR in NB, Farmer-Labour in NS) and successful ones (United Farmers in Alberta, UN in QC) or near miss (the Creditistes hung on for 15 years, I'd need to check, as a minority group in QC). The issue is complex, but the author's overall point is correct. The history of the NDP -- when looked at dispassionately -- does not suggest that people elect them and run away shortly thereafter. Bob Rae was the exception; not the rule.

I don't necessarily see why, Quebecers would back away from the NDP. Public opinion surveys suggest that Quebecers are as divided on political issues as other Canadians, but that the Quebec political spectrum (overall) is more amenable to the NDP then the Conservatives. And, Quebecers are aware that they have elected an opposition party. They are not looking for the NDP to "deliver the goods" but to represent a particular perspective. I expect the NDP will be able to do this and I suspect that phalanx of Quebecers elected under their banner will help them.

Democrats, Republicans, Rob Ford and Idiots

2011-07-17T23:54:00.000-03:00

Rob Ford became mayor of Toronto, in part, by promising to end the "gravy train." His election represented a bit of a populist grass roots revolt against what was seen as overpaid out of touch municipal civil servants and -- for some -- unions. I even think Rob Ford believed what he was saying: that the problems with municipal finances were the result of a relatively small number of fat cats who were using tax dollars as their gravy train. There are -- to be sure -- some serious problems with "fat cats" and "gravy." I'll address those in another post. Right now, what I would like to point out is that what is evident is that Toronto is in a financial mess and that that mess cannot be solved by cutting back on a few people who are doing things in an untoward way. Instead, it will involve deep cuts to services for seniors, to daycare spots, the layoff of up to one third of the firefighters in the city and cuts to the police department as well. In other words, essential services will need to be cut to balance the books. Or, if not essential services, then services the merits of which are not in doubt (no one, to the best of my knowledge, believes seniors or children should be without proper care).

Now, it might be easy to gloat at Ford, particularly in the wake of his failure to appear at Pride events. He is still saying that labour costs are "four time too high", but one might notice that that begs questions: four times too high as compared to what? Does that mean workers in Toronto are paid 400% the national average? (So, if the national average for a civil servant were $50 000, according to Ford, Toronto bureaucrats make $200 000.) Or, that Toronto has 400% more workers then other cities the same size? Who determined the wage rate anyway? Ford is willing to argue that wages are 400% too high but he will not show his math. I suspect even a lot of those people who supported him are starting to think that this is a figure he pulled out of the air with little or nothing to substantiate it.

What should we learn from this? Should we learn that Rob Ford is an idiot. There are people -- particular some people who support Pride -- who seem to feel this way and fair enough. The quick math I just did above suggests that Ford must have failed grade six math. But, this is not the lesson that is important to learn. There are those who will believe what Ford says because they want to believe. They want to believe that municipal finances are in mess because of a small group of lazy gravy trainers. Heck, I want to believe this. If it were true, it would mean that we could solve our financial problems relatively easily. We could solve those problems without losing fire and police protection. We could solve our problems while ensuring that children had safe care and seniors weren't left to their own devices in run-down flats. What we need to learn from Rob Ford's financial problems are that this is not true and we need to learn it soon. We need to learn that solving our financial problems will require a mature approach. We need to learn that there will always be Rob Fords: people who will rail against unions and wage rates and gravy trains but we then need to ask them to "show their math" rather than voting for them.

Is this -- my comment -- biased? No, not in the least. This is not an anti-right wing statement. Everyone should be asked to show their math. The fact that Rob Ford was not and the fact that he is not will only create serious human problems for Toronto. I lived in Ontario during the Mike Harris cuts. I saw the legacies of homelessness, violence against women, health problems, loss of municipal services, conflicts with Original Peoples, and the like that went on. That is what we need to avoid and we can avoid it only by asking to see the math and behaving in a mature way.

In politics, there will always be those who say "vote for me, the answer is easy." Or, "vote for me and you'll be rich." Rob Ford is one of those. He said "vote for me because some fat cats on the gravy train are costing you money." Instead of believing him we need to be responsible and mature and use our own minds. What is a mature approach? Two things strike me as important:

First, we need to investigate issues so that we can make informed decisions. It is possible that some fat cat gravy trainers are ruining the system. In Toronto, of course, this turned out not to be the case. If voters had investigated this before hand, they would have found this out. Just like those who look into his claims about labour costs and municipal government will have serious questions about his math.

Second, we need to consider what taxes are used for. There is a long-standing anti-tax position in our society that has gotten worse over the years but … taxes are not all bad. Indeed, and perhaps I will post on this later, they can serve very useful purposes. Until we come to grip with this point -- taxes are not just empty -- we will not be able to have serious and meaningful discussion of this issue.

NDP keeps door open for merger talks with Liberals - The Globe and Mail

2011-06-19T23:03:00.000-03:00

NDP keeps door open for merger talks with Liberals - The Globe and Mail

Is there a good reason for the NDP to merge with the Liberal Party? My gut level reaction is no for three reasons. First, the NDP and the Liberal Party historically occupy different positions on the political spectrum and with regard to political ideology. There is some overlap between so-called "social liberals" and what we might call a "reformist" wing of the NDP. Both would be based in the middle class and both would look to address issues relating to poverty, inequality, social justice, and the environment. But ... well ... who doesn't believe in these things. The Conservatives? OK, yes, but is a broad agreement on common sense issues (say, the need to protect the environment) enough for a merger. Traditionally, there have been significant differences in the ways in which Liberals and NDP have looked at Canada. Traditionally, they have had different views on federalism, capitalism, and the national debt as well as national defence. For a merger to go forward, these differences would need to be addressed. Traditionally, for instance, Liberals have subscribed to a federalism in which their is a more pronounced role for a strong central government and little interest in "special status". The NDP argues for a strong role for the state but has had less interest, frankly, in a strong central government since the mid 1980s. They have also supported "special status" (or, whatever we call it). Liberals have show that on this issue, at least, there are sizeable numbers of them who are willing to "fight to the death."

Are these technical issues that disappear? I don't think so. I don't think the constitution and the division of powers -- however dry it may be to some people -- is a silly issue or so much academic talk. It was, according to some studies, the root of the divisions between Turner and Trudeau and Chretien and Martin and those divisions end up polarizing what was then a functioning party. Moreover, I would argue (I won't here!) that they are important and likely should not be dismissed. My point, of course, is this. Those people who see no differences between the NDP and the Liberals don't know very much about either.

Second, the NDP are in competition with the Liberals on the provincial level in a number of places. The ties between the federal and provincial Liberal Parties are not hard and fast, unlike the federal and provincial NDP parties. Officially, in fact, federal and provincial Liberal Parties are usually (always?) separate parties. Yet, there is an appreciable overlap. (This is the reason right wingers are trying to change the name of the BC Liberal Party, precisely because there is an overlap and they are trying to break it). The NDP and the Liberals are in competition provincially in NS (the NDP seems to have won for now reducing the Liberals to a rump but not necessarily a disappearing one), ON, and BC. The NDP has no provincial precise in QC, PEI, NB and Newfoundland so there is no real competition there. And the Liberals are dead in the water in MN and SK so no trouble there. And, of course, neither does very well in AB. Even in those areas where the NDP does not have a strong traditional vote (NB, Newfoundland, for instance, and AB), my bet is that they will be looking to increase their vote, bringing them into direct competition with provincial Liberals.

Why mention this? Well, this is reason two why the NDP might not want a merger: that merger would be difficult. The Liberals have little interest in signing onto an NDP in NS and ON, PEI and likely NF and NB, among other places. They have a reasonable chance of doing well politically by themselves and even winning (I don't expect the NS Liberals to win the next election but ... perhaps the one after that?).

Finally, why would the NDP want to merge with the Liberals if they had to take over the federal Liberals record? Why would they want, in other words, to take over part (even a small part) of a bad brand? This does not make sense. At the federal level one has to ask: do the benefits outweigh the costs of absorbing some bad history? I won't make that calculation right now but that is not my point. My point is that it is not a lock sync that it does.

So, put all this together and a merger does not look all that smart from an NDP perspective. The NDP needs to take on people with whom they have ideological disagreements, who will support provincial parties with which they are in competition, and who have a bad brand. This does not mean that there will not be a merger. It means that I'd recommend a different strategy to growth for the NDP.

User Fees

2011-06-09T11:17:00.001-03:00

The federal government is considering “user fees” as a way of addressing Canada’s deficit. To be sure, user fees will not be the be all and end all of the federal government’s deficit reduction strategy, but it look like it could form a key component of them. What are user fees? Do they make a difference? And, how do they differ from other ways of raising money for programme delivery, say taxes?

User fees sound different from “taxes” and, in some ways, more fair: those using the service pay for it. Economists, however, don’t completely agree. The distinction between user fees and taxes need not be hard and fast and is not necessarily more just.

User fees can be like taxes in the sense that we already have taxes that are targetted in the sense that not everyone pays them. For instance, not everyone pays the tax on gasoline. Only those who purchase gasoline (admitted most -- but importantly not all -- of us) pay this tax. Sin taxes (applied to alcohol and cigarettes) are paid only by those who purchase those items.

User fees are also like taxes in that they transfer money from people to the state. Here is where things get a bit complicated. One reason for having lower taxes, according to Conservatives, is that lower taxes stimulate the economy but keeping more money in people’s pockets which they then spend on things they want. So … one cannot raise taxes to pay off the national debt or to balance the books. But, if you have a user fee, the exact same amount of money is being taken out of people’s pockets. How so?

Think about it like this. Imagine that there is a programme that costs $100.00. Imagine, too, that there are 100 people in our hypothetical country (let’s call it Canuckland). To raise this $100.00, the government could tax each citizen $1, hence removing $100.00 from people’s pockets. The government does not want to raise taxes (because that would hurt the economy) and so instead decides to have a user fee. Now, not everyone wants this service. Imagine only half of our Canuckland citizens want the service and so they each have to pay a user fee of $2 (as opposed to a tax of $1) to get this service (say, fire protection, just as an example). Those people who have not paid the user fee now have $1 more in their pocket they they otherwise would have. They are happy. They can take their $1 and buy a chocolate bar or something. But, the people who have paid the user fee have $1 less then they otherwise would have. They find themselves in a position where they need to forgo a purchase (say, they cannot buy a chocolate bar that they otherwise would have).

What is more, the exact same amount of money has been removed from the economy: $100. In other words, on an aggregate level, the user fee has not made a difference in the total level of consumer spending. The chocolate bar store owner has sold no more chocolate bars. The extra purchases from those who had $1 extra are offset by the absent purchases (that otherwise would have taken place) by those who have $1 less.

What you can see, then, is that shifting to a user fee from a tax makes no economic difference. Because the price of the service (in our case fire protection) is constant the distinction between user fees and taxes in terms of macro economics is non-existent. Our shopkeeper (our economic engine in this fictional Canuckland) is no better off. He has no extra sales so he needs to hire no new staff, order no new product, has not extra profit to devote to his or her own consumer purchases.

But, are user fees more fair? If they ensure that only those using a service have to pay for it, that might be a reason for having user fees (and, potentially, a very good one). My example is loaded but you can see from it that, in fact, the issue is more complicated then a simple “user pay” argument. Everyone benefits from fire protection whether they pay the user fee or not. How so, those not paying the fee might ask. I didn’t pay the fee knowing that the fire department will not come to my house if it is on fire. I am taking my own risk. This is true but fires are not discriminate. If my house catches on fire, then those people who live near to me are in danger (whether they have paid the user fee on not). Just by putting my house out, those around me benefit. They are safer (hence, for instance, have to pay less house insurance) by virtue of the fact that I paid the user fee. Economists call this the “free rider effect”: a person derives a benefit for which they did not pay. Generally, most people consider this unfair (getting something for nothing or getting something for which someone else had to pay) and it is one of the rationales for taxes. By making everyone pay taxes, the free rider effect (having someone else pay for your benefit) is eliminated. The same thing can be applied to other situations: everyone in a town benefits from a good minor athletics programme, whether or not their kids play, say, soccer. How? Well, by keeping kids off the street, frankly, fewer people are harassed by crowds of teenagers.

This does not mean, I hasten to add, that user fees are unfair. It does mean that this issue is not straight forward. Sure, my examples are loaded but I am trying to make a point, or rather two: (1) the economic rationale for user fees (v. taxes) is not clear and may amount to a wash, and (2) the ethical argument for user fees is not clear and they may end up creating unfairness.

Catholic school board bars lesbian comedian from performing in Toronto - The Globe and Mail

2011-06-08T19:18:00.000-03:00

Surely, I am not the only one who find the irony of this story amazing:

Catholic school board bars lesbian comedian from performing in Toronto - The Globe and Mail

A lesbian is barred from an anti-homophobia event because she's married to a woman. Hmmmm ...

2011 Federal Election Pt 2 NDP

2011-05-28T10:56:00.003-03:00

I’m not a particularly energetic person. Sometimes this … laziness? … saves me. It did with regard to the recent Canadian federal election because I had started to blog on the NDP’s electoral chances but never finished the blog. That was lucky because I seriously underestimated the number of seats the NDP would win. Why did the NDP do so well and what does this tell us about Canada.

A working assumption of my political analysis is that personalities matter less then people think. Leadership, a friend of mine who studies such things tells me, is an important issues in any election. Perhaps, but I find this a bit difficult to believe in this case since I find it hard to see Harper as a particularly good or effective leader. No offence. He’s managed to reorganize conservatism in Canada into a viable governing force. That was no mean feat. But … a leader … really. I know the Nanos leadership index put him considerably higher then Ignatieff but that is sort of like saying Andrew Nurse is better looking than a rock. A few people will pick the rock but most people will pick Andrew Nurse out of an absence of alternatives. I’m not trying to be ideological here, but Harper’s record is one of anything but leadership. His government was caught unaware of the global economic crisis and unprepared for it. Indeed, their overspending and budget cuts lacked caution; they spent the piggy bank, as it were, and had nothing when the economy went in the kicker. The result was a huge budget deficit in place of the surplus they inherited. They are building prisons that their own stats tell them they don’t need; will axe gun control despite the urging of police forces; harmed Canada’s international reputation with poorly considered policies on the environment and blind support of Israel (costing Canada a seat on the UN Security Council), were found in contempt of Parliament; ignored warnings from AELC on Chalk River; and refused to release budget information to the Parliament Budget Officer.

Is this leadership? Let’s grant Harper what we can. All political parties will strive for some degree of spin and manipulation to stay in power. That is the nature of political parties. I’d argue that the NDP would be slightly better then the Conservatives in this regard but the Liberal track record is worse (historically). That is not the point. The point is: is this leadership? I’d argue that it is not leadership at all but a pretty crass effort to win by hook or crook.

What does this have to do with the NDP? Well, what it means is that leadership, if it is important, may be more a matter of perception than accomplishment. What, after all, have the Conservatives done to make Canada a better place since they came to power? You can tell a government that does not think its record is good from its campaign adverts. The Conservatives adverts basically said “don’t vote for X or Y because they will be bad.” Only at the very end of the campaign did they try to portray Harper as a leader (oddly, he was portrayed sitting alone at his desk reading). These adverts demonstrate that the Conservatives themselves don’t believe they have much in the way of a good record (the product of leadership) on which to campaign.

If leadership is a matter of perspective, the NDP victory was not a product of people liking Jack Layton or … if they did, we need to figure out why they liked Jack Layton, why they perceived him as a leader (in the same way that we would need to figure out why some Canadians perceived Stephen Harper as a leader). Instead, I would argue that the NDP success is the product of a number of factors:

1. The first past the post system, which has for years worked against the NDP. It did not really work for them this time. They NDP got about 30% of the popular vote and about 33% of the seats. That is a bit of a pick up but nowhere near what the Tories got (over 50% of the seats with slightly less then 40% of the vote). I’m not complaining about the first past the post system, btw. I might later but not now. What I am saying is that a part of the NDP success was actually simple fairness. They were more popular in the past then their seat totals allowed. By contrast the NDP won 12% of the seats in 2008 with 18% of the vote; 9% with 17% in the 2006. This time, the NDP simply won about the number of seats that their popular vote would indicate that they should have won. Their bump, IOW, was not as great as might at first seam because they were winning fewer seats then might have been the case under a different electoral system.

2. Even with this the NDP continued to build in areas of past success: Halifax, St. John’s, Toronto, for instance. Here, they seemed to absorb leftist Liberal votes, which makes a certian amount of sense. Why vote Liberal if you are left-wing in your outlook? Well, there might be good reasons under other circumstances, but in this case there was nothing to gain. The Liberals were not competitive, clearly were not going to form government and so left wing votes in places like Halifax, Moncton, St. John’s drifted to what might be viewed as their natural home.

3. The success in Quebec shows that there are a lot of Quebecers who want another option. I’ve mentioned this before, but the separatist vote is easy to over-estimate. Quebecers do not want to separate from Canada. They want changes to Canada. That makes them, in fact, pretty darned normal. In Quebec, the BQ was, oddly, the status quo party. A vote for the BQ was a vote for politics as normal. Quebecers who voted NDP said, gee … we don’t want that. We’re voting for a left of centre party anyway but we would like a different type of politics then what we have had. This shift shows that a great number of Quebecers thought this way.

What are the implications of the NDP success? Well, the first thing I would ask people to note is that this is note the death of separatism in Quebec. I’ve mentioned this before: separatism is a legitimate political option. I disagree with it; but a democratic society cannot eliminate it. A lot of Quebecers still did vote Bloc and a lot will vote PQ in the next election. So, don’t imagine that this is the end of separatism.

This said, the BQ was clearly desperate in the last days of the campaign, likely because their own polling told them that the numbers were bad. The fact that they called out Parizeau to campaign indicates how bad their own numbers must have been. Parizeau is a lightening rod and the Bloc has never been a big fan of his. The fact that they called on him indicates that they understood that their hard core base was slipping away. IOW, they might have been OK losing the soft nationalist vote; that might even have figured: we can win that back later. But, if one loses one’s core base … the Party is in trouble. Were they able to salvage enough of the core base to survive? Only time will tell.

The coming conservative court - The Globe and Mail

2011-05-14T08:40:00.000-03:00

There is a problem with this story: The coming conservative court - The Globe and Mail

The problem is fairly simple: it demonstrates no understanding of the process of Canadian judicial review but assumes that divisions in the United States (between liberal and conservative jurists) apply to Canada. The recently announced retirement of two Supreme Court justices provide an interesting opportunity for some enterprising journalist to educate Canadians (or, at least open a dialogue) about the nature of Canadian judicial review. One wants to say "true to form" but that would be catty, _The Globe_ seems to have swung and missed on its first change.

What are some of the problems with this story? Well, consider the definition of "conservative" when it comes to judicial review ... hmmm .... OK, there is none. We learn -- from a Harper quote -- that liberals are supposedly "extreme" in their interpretation of the Charter. I am not at all certain what that means. If it is extreme it must be bad ... but exactly how and why is not explained. We learn that conservatives believe in "conservative" Charter rulings (I hardly find that shocking, btw). That Harper's appointments will likely pose "nightmare" for civil libertarians and progressives (whomever these are), and that conservatives like a court that defers to Parliament. Oh, and conservatives apparently don't engage in "debate" or "bold decision making."

In other words, what we are left with is a code that we cannot decipher. The person who wrote this story has done no real research. For instance, they have not queried whether a conservative/liberal distinction applies as well to Canada as it does to the US. They have not tried to explain what this distinction means, and they have discussed the issues at stake. For instance, are Charter provisions upholding the equality of citizens under threat? Harper and other conservatives argued that equality was a matter on which Parliaments voted and if Parliament decided that some people were not equal ... well ... then it could implement or maintain laws that rejected equality giving some Canadians a lower legal status (and less benefit of the law) then others. After he was elected, Harper quietly stopped talking such non-sense largely because it is non-sense (and potentially fascist!) but is this perspective about to make a come back? Is Harper going to appointment judges (exactly where he would find them is not clear) who would reject equality? If so, this would be a serious issue and reason for people to be concerned about his appointments.

Let me be clear: I'm no Harper fan. I doubt I will like the appointments he will make to the Supreme Court. However, we cannot assume that America -- really American popular cultural -- conceptions of the judicial review apply in Canada. They don't. Explaining the distinctions, however, would require that a Globe reporter do something more than what as episode of _Law and Order_ to write their column. So ... its not done.

Election 2011

2011-05-08T21:55:00.000-03:00

I’ve held off commenting on the federal election for two reasons: (1) saying something other than what others have said is requires time and consideration. There really is no point in me repeating what someone else has said, likely in a better way. And, (2) I was pretty wide of the mark on my own election predictions. I didn’t post them to this blog but my family and friends are had a good laugh at my expense after the election. I think, however, there are several issues for people to consider as we move toward a new political environment.

First, I’ve been suggesting for some time that the liberal vision of Canada has run its course. It still has power and still appeals to large number of Canadians. Multiculturalism, bilingualism, Charter Rights, etc., aren’t going anywhere. Whether or not the Liberal Party is a force for the further development of Canada, however, is now very much in question. This is what I mean by run its course: it is not that it is a bad vision, but that it can no longer animate progressive reform. In the face of that reality -- that the Liberal Party had become a party without a vision -- Canadians abandoned it for other alternatives.

Several people have asked me since the election whether or not the Liberal Party is done for. The answer is that we cannot know. This will depend on Liberals. Is there a reason for Liberalism to exist as a political force in Canada? Only Liberals can supply this answer. In some ways, the Liberal Party is a victim of its own success. Many of its key beliefs have become naturalized in Canada. The vast majority of Canadians (check any poll) support equality of opportunity, pluralism, freedom of religion, multiculturalism, Charter Rights, etc. The NDP does, the Green Party does; heck even the Conservatives more or less claim to support these things. So … why is a Liberal Party needed to carry this ball when there are a bunch of other people who can. Liberalism will need to find a new vision; it will need to be more than an opposition party trying to regain power for Canadians to trust it with government. It will need to present a vision of the country.

I say this because I am fully convinced that the Liberal front bench talent was deeper then that of any other party. In other words, if we were picking a government on straight abilities -- as if we had some neutral way to test this -- the Liberal Party had more talent then anyone else. Ignafieff’s crew did not do a lot to increase the talent pool of Liberals to be sure. But, Marc Garneau, Justin Trudeau, Bob Rae, Ralph Goodale, Martha Hall Findlay, Stefan Dion, etc., are a talented and generally experienced bunch. They outclass both the Tories and the NDP in terms of ability. Ability then alone is not a selling point. One needs something else and, right now, the Liberals don’t have that something else.

Speaking of visions … are the Conservatives really sold on Liberal values and institutions mixed with a more aggressive form of capitalism. The short answer, I think, is yes, no, and not really. Some are. Former PC types for sure. Harper and his crew … less so but they are also political realists. This is why they change the names of things. They know that they cannot oppose, for instance, gun control and win elections; so they talk about eliminating long-gun registries. Harper says that no government of his will touch women’s control over their bodies … and I don’t expect him to. I do, however, expect Harper and his crew to continue to snipe at the edges of Liberal Canada. They may not be able to eliminate women’s ability to control their own bodies but they can try to lure women out of the labour force through tax incentives and a failure to address day care needs. I doubt they can roll back same sex marriage and so will likely look to avoid it.

Some Conservatives are not at all sold, however, on the Liberal vision of Canada and do want to roll it back. I’ll leave silly Americanesque comments about scared “eastern elites” and stuff like that to the side because that has no basis in fact and is simply the product of political commentators who watch too much American TV. There are, however, conservatives in Canada who really are conservatives and who would like to roll back equal rights for gay people, women’s ability to control their bodies, Charter rights, diversity, etc. If past experience is any guide -- and it might not be -- these people will not say very much while Harper is in power. I think of what happened to the PC coalition as it went down in the early 1990s. It supporters tended to stay “on side” even when they clearly disagreed with Mulroney until it was evident that his party was headed to defeat. The same thing happened with Richard Hatfield’s long-running PC provincial government in NB and, to a lesser extent, the Buchanan Tories in NS. In all these cases, there was appreciable discord that was submerged by power. I expect that the same thing will happen with Harper’s crew. There might be the odd test here and there -- a back bench bill against abortion, say, or against gay marriage, but these will be handled with procedure, blamed on the opposition, and everyone will be more or less happy. In other words, if anyone is waiting for the Harper PCs to implode … they will have to wait a while.

What about the NDP and the BQ? Let’s leave those for another time and take stock of some conclusions we might draw so far. First, that the Liberal Party has a choice about it. This choice is different, in my view, then the choice faced by the PC or CA or NDP in the past. These were parties for which there was a core of believers who could carry them forward, keeping the faith, as it were, in really tough times. Second, the Liberals cannot be saved by the implosion of conservatism. This NDP has absorbed -- and will continue to absorb -- the space of opposition to the current government. In 1993, 1997, 2000, the Liberals were able to unite federalist non-conservative Canadians more or less behind them. This same act is much more difficult with a vibrant NDP, but even if it were true, it is not at all clear that Harper’s conservatives will implode the way Mulroney’s did. Harper has learnt the lessons of Mulroney and so as along as they have a reasonable chance of staying in power, don’t expect a similar type of collapse.

The Election: Things to Watch For

2011-04-17T23:22:00.000-03:00

What are we to make of the election campaign more than half way through? It depends on how you look at it. This leader said that; this party candidate said stupid thing X. Harper looked “cool under pressure.” Duceppe won the French-language debate. This is the normal type of reporting and there is a place for it. Election campaigns are important and do make a difference. I’d like to believe, however, that there is more to the campaign then a hockey playoff play by play. I’d like to believe that elections, parties, issues, etc., can tell us more about the character and nature of Canada and where it might be going. Let’s approach the election campaign in that way. I will confess, however, that I have no crystal ball. Instead of suggesting that the election means, then, let me suggest some things to watch for.

First, youth vote. At the start of this semester, the vast majority of students in my intro class claimed at least to not vote nor did they express much interest in voting. At the end of the course, the vast majority claimed they were going to vote. The difference was not me. Formal education, we know, makes a difference in intention to vote. I hope, however, that something else might be underway, a political re-engagement among Canadians who have been alienated from the political process. One thing to look at closely, then, in this election is whether or not we see at least some of that re-engagement.

Second, the Quebec vote. The polls at the mid-point suggested an increased fragmentation of the vote in Quebec with the BQ dropping as low as 32.X percent. Again, this should not surprise us after what has happened to the PQ in Quebec and what seems like an increasingly clear search, on the part of Quebecers, for other viable political alternatives. My bet is that a lot of that vote will return to the BQ. By yesterday the BQ was back up in the high 30s in projected pop vote and the distribution of seats means that even if they dropped to the low 30s, it might not seriously hurt their total seat count. I’ll save armchair quarter-backing for another day. It will be interesting, however, to see if the vote in Quebec fragments.

Third, how much will the Tories and Liberals be helped by the “first past the post” system. The details here would take a long time to explain but the Canadian political system has, for a long time, translated minorities of vote into majorities of seats in the House of Commons. Chretien never won a majority of the popular vote. Canadians don’t seem to like our current system but they also don’t seem to like potential alternatives to it. The NDP historically has been the big losers. I’ll comment on this in another post. The degree to which this trend continues will be interesting to note.

Fourth, what has happened to the Green Party? My gut tells me that a lot of their vote is migrating back to the Liberal Party. The Greens, from what I can tell, never took a lot of vote from the NDP. They seemed to be siphoning off middle class voters who normally would have voted Liberal. As time goes by some of that vote seems to be slowly moving back to the Liberals. Will this trend continue in the election?

There might be other things that are important to note, as well, such as the degree to which political reporting in major media outlets effectively assessing the implications of this election or even reflects the public mood. Perhaps you have some thoughts or this or some other matter?

Elections

2011-04-08T13:07:00.002-03:00

Personally, I can't generate much excitement about it, nor does it seem can a lot of other Canadians. Why not? And, what does this tell us. We have some standard answers: I hear people mentioning this all the time: elections cost too much, we just had one, etc. My own take on this line of thinking is that it is wrong. First, what price is one willing to put on democracy? Democracy costs something, to be sure. How much is it worth? If it is not worth much to you ... well ... you probably don't believe in democracy.

What about this: We have too many elections ... hmm .... In a democracy what else is one supposed to do? How many is too many? If the alternative to an election is to let a minority group (I'm not slagging the Conservatives, but making a philosophical point), run the country the way they and potentially in opposition to what the majority of people do want ... well, I'm in favour of an election. Because, let's be clear, this does seem to be the alternatives with which we were faced: an election or turning the country over to a party that did not secure 40% of the vote in the last federal election.

These points seem pretty self-evident to me. I think most Canadians support democracy and, I hazzard a guess, most support it rather strongly. Nor, do I feel they think minorities should run the country. So ... why aren't people excited?

They are not excited for two reasons. First, public discourse and, second, powerlessness (or, alienation). Let's look at public discourse first. There is simply a lot of confusion about elections, cost, issues, etc., "out there" and unfortunately single issue reporting by under-educated journalists or Ottawa focused "he said/she said" (as if an election were Canadian Idol) does nothing to alleviate this. An example: I'm at a party last weekend. One person, someone who is not a friend but who I've known for years and always gotten along, says "elections cost too much." I asked: "how much?" She said "I heard $32 million dollars." I said "So, this election cost you a dollar." Now, I was not meaning to make fun of this person. I was making a point. Her out of pocket expenses seem to be worth the price for democracy. I'm not holier than thou. I have my price and if I was being seriously pinched by this election I'd raise concerns about it. But, what was clear to this person and those chatting with us -- and this is my point -- is that she was repeating a line she had heard and not paused to consider it. If she had, as a reasonably intelligent person (like the rest of us), I doubt she would have made her comments.

Powerless: they are all the same. This was the next comment made by the next person at the party. This one is more difficult to address because: (1) they are not all the same. Voting makes a difference and we have different political parties for precisely this reason: there are important policy differences between them. However, (2) these differences do not always translate into public policy. In some ways, the person making this comment was right in a twofold sense. Voting for person X does not directly translate into policy changes and those changes are the product of a bunch of different factors. Electing a particular person does not mean that that person will be able to make the changes that they have promised to make. In other words, powerlessness is very real.

I can argue that it should be real. I can argue that in a democracy one vote should not be a trump. I've made this point before: one of the drags about living in a democracy is that one can end up on the losing side. But, I think the sense of powerlessness goes deeper then this. I think a sense of powerlessness is the reason people complain about the cost of elections. They are being forced to buy a product -- democracy -- that will not make the changes in their lives they want to see. I think this is the reason people feel they have wasted their votes.

All of these points are debatable and all of them have explanations. For instance, if one votes, one never wastes one's vote. There is no such thing as a wasted vote. There can be winning votes and losing votes but never wasted votes. If people knew more about the character and nature of democracy, they might not say such things. The upshot, then, is that we need a better public education on elections, their costs, and importance.

Beyond this, however, a sense of powerless (of alienation) is based on other things too, including real powerlessness. And, as long as there are serious inequalities in power -- and their are -- we should not be surprised that people feel this way. As long as the system is unresponsive to democracy ... why would people not be alienated from democracy.

Perhaps, I'm making all this up to excuse my own lack of excitement or even at times interest. However, I don't think so (and I do plan to vote). The lack of excitement, then, is symptomatic of wider and deeper problems with the way Canadian public life functions. We need to grapple with those problems or our democracy will be in trouble ... perhaps it already is.

Catholic school students sent home for displaying pro-choice stance - The Globe and Mail

2011-03-16T09:00:00.000-03:00

This is an interesting story:

Catholic school students sent home for displaying pro-choice stance - The Globe and Mail

The simmering abortion debate in Canada is important. Both pro and anti-choice people argue that they are silenced by the other side. The fact that I used the word anti-choice indicates where I stand. There are several points to make about this "debate."

The first might be that it is not a debate. The anti-choice side is committed, determined, and vocal. I don't actually fault them for that. Such in the nature of democracy that people have the right to make their case in the public sphere. I don't fault people for doing so. It is a right of citizenship. Nor, do I fault anyone for being determined and committed. Indeed, I'd like to see more people who are determined and committed. We might have a higher voter participation rate.

Still, to call this a debate is to call it something that it is not. The vast majority of Canadians have made up their mind on this issue and the debate, such as it is, is carried forward only be a small coterie of the diligent and committed. For most Canadians, this is simply not at issue. It is no where near as important as education, health care, the environment ... if public opinion polls are to be believed.

This does not mean that people don't have conflicting views on the subject. They do. But, the majority view (from what I can tell) is this: I might agree or disagree with abortion, but I'm loathe to tell a woman what she should with her body. I'm even more loathe to argue that the state should regulate women's bodies. If the state steps in and says "OK, 51% of the population will not have control over their bodies" something vital to democracy is lost.

What does this mean? Well, first it is a pretty sophisticated philosophical perspective. Second, it shows that the anti-choice side is embedded in a bit of a problem. They need democracy to make their case but the arguments that they are making challenge one of the basic conditions of democracy. They are using, in other words, democracy to subvert itself. There is reason people need to be consistent. One need not be logically consistent to avail one's self of constitutionally guaranteed rights. However, in my view, it makes the anti-choice perspective open to other questions. To what extent do they believe in democracy?

The next thing to note is that a minority of Canadians support eliminating abortion. I'd defend abortion in the same way I defend other rights: to eliminate them damages the society. If you eliminate free speech, something bad has happened that cuts to the heart of democracy and the quality of life we live (and I don't mean that in a consumeristic way). Or, due process of law. Same thing with controlling people's bodies. In other words, defending democracy sometimes requires defending the rights of individuals. Still, the minority point is worth noting because what we are talking about is a double hit at democracy. Not only would we eliminate 51% of the population's control over their bodies; this would be done against the wishes of the majority of Canadians.

Next, those who are anti-choice argue against my point (above) on the views of Canadians. Here is where they get interpretations of polling wrong. They note that Canadians are divided on abortion. I agree: they are. But they are divided on its merits; not on whether or not the state should regulate women's bodies. Hence, the anti-choice side is telling half the story. They note that Canadians are divided, but don't note that that division is a matter of conscience and that the issue regarding public policy is something else. Again, my point is that Canadians think "I have my own views on the ethics of abortion. That does not mean, however, that the government should step in and regulate women's bodies." In short, Canadians have a more sophisticated and nuanced position on abortion then the anti side lets on.

The anti-side is not without its tools. As I Christian I argue that we should not, in this instance, turn to the state if we are anti-abortion and I think this is actually the tactic most people take. There are a range of options available other than criminalization. These include prayer, discussion, support for the decisions people make regardless of the decision.

And, this is where the anti-side, frankly, drops the ball. Everyone talks about supporting people when they have to make hard decisions but they fail to think about how much support is required. Supporting a young woman, say, who has elected not to have an abortion means something more then donating a few used clothes on Sunday morning. It means something more than tagging a portion of your church offering to a "crisis" centre. It means being there for the person on an on-going basis over a long haul. It means helping with child care and providing income support where needed. Some anti-choice people do this but not near enough. Indeed, in public discourse, the anti-choice perspective has narrowed to a one shot solution -- bring in the state -- when so much more is needed. To say this differently, anti-choice people need to put their money where their mouth is. They need to be willing to make the time commitment to helping out. And, frankly, until I see that on a mass level, I find it hard to take the anti-position seriously. There are all kinds of things I oppose but no one should take me seriously if I do nothing to change things. Same thing for the anti folks on this one. And, what is more, supporting someone doesn't mean saying "I'll support you if you agree with my decision." The really hard thing about supporting someone is that you need to do it even if they make the decision with which you disagree.

Finally, does the church have the right to send students home because they offered a political perspective with which the church disagreed. I don't disagree -- as readers of this blog will know -- with religious education. Anyone who sends their kids to Catholic school should expect a Catholic education. Sorry, to imagine differently or argue for something different is naive. (I know people who get upset at my church because we run a youth event and at it the youth pastor talks about Christ. What did you expect? It was a Baptist youth event!) I wonder, however, how are those students best served? Even if one wanted to promote an anti-choice perspective, are those students best served. Are they best served through coercion? Or, are they best served by keeping them in school?

In Madison, the reactionaries are in the streets - The Globe and Mail

2011-03-01T22:08:00.000-04:00

I commented on some silly things Margaret Wente said one time before. This column is equally silly and makes me wonder about the quality of Globe editors:

In Madison, the reactionaries are in the streets - The Globe and Mail

The argument is this: unions are bad because they want to protect people's pensions. Yep, you read that right. They are reactionaries, in fact. Imagine that, you work your whole life, pay into a pension plan, reach the time to retire and the government, in this case, says "nope, sorry, we know we made a promise and you kept your end of the deal but we've decided not to pay you your pension."

How would you react? Would you say, as Wente believes you should say "gee, that's too bad but I guess I'll live in poverty for the public good after working my whole life to avoid it." I guarantee you that if the shoe were on Wente's foot, she'd want her pension. Indeed, here is a test of how serious she is about this issue. She should put up or shut up. If she is not willing to give up the money she worked for, she should not declare that someone else should.

Oh, and in terms of the editors of the Globe, c'mon guys, at least insist that your writers do some research before spouting off. Since no research seems to be required to write an editorial for the Globe, I'll do it. I will. In fact, I'll write Wente's columns for half of what you pay her.

Moral Standards

2011-02-11T11:57:00.007-04:00

Sorry folks: this one is long.

One of the low level on-going debates here in New Brunswick relates to Crandall University, formerly Atlantic Baptist University. Crandall receives modest amounts of public support. That public support is larger then one might think if we were to properly calculate it, but let’s use the existing definition that Crandall’s critics seem to be using: direct grants from state bodies. The federal government provided some infrastructure spending last year (or, over the last two years, apologies I did not check out the facts) and the City of Moncton provides a very small grant, somewhere between $100 000.00 and $200 000.00 dollars. For those of you who go, gee … that ain’t small, for comparison Mount A (where I work) has a total budget approximating $40 million and we are a small university. Crandall is primarily supported through tuition fees and the Atlantic Baptist Convention. To be sure, then, we are not dealing with regularized state support (infrastructure grants are not regular) or on-going support in any significant way. In terms of university funding, to say this again, we are dealing with tiny amounts of money.

I feel I need to make this point because reading some of the critics of Crandall, particularly those who argue that something is horribly amiss if the institution receives state support, might lead one to believe that mass amounts of public money are flowing to religiously based institutions. Point number one of this discussion should be to acknowledge that this ain’t the case.

Point number two should be to acknowledge that the problem with Crandall is not its statement of faith. I listened -- courtesy of a friend who sent me the link -- to the CBC discussion of whether or not religious institutions violate academic freedom. I think that anyone who seriously believes in diversity will accept the idea that in a vibrant civil society there will be all kinds of institutions. Some of these will be secular (in NB UNB), some will be semi-secular (STU), some will be secular in practice and ignore their religious heritage (Mount A), etc. In other words, different institutions will do different things and provides services to different communities. Moreover, these institutions will change over time as they direct their future. I see nothing wrong with this. I do think, however, that the argument made by critics of religiously-based education -- that it is somehow wrong -- is completely off the mark. One would need to do something more they theorize here. I’d need some evidence. In other words, I would say that one is innocent until proven guilty, a fact that a lot of the critics of religiously-based schools seem to have neglected. They assume the worst.

So, is Crandall’s statement of faith a problem? Does it hamper freedom of speech? Is anyone making that allegation who works there (as opposed to people who have visited for an afternoon and have no knowledge of how it works)? Are any students alleging that their voices are being silenced? To date, the critics of Crandall have provided no one single case. Now, I am not trying to be hard on the critics. If there is a case, let’s here about it. But, the fact of the matter is that the facts seem to be for Crandall on this point. When its president argues on CBC that the statement of faith does not hamper academic freedom, he seems to have the weight of evidence on his side.

This is important to me as a scholar. Anyone can speculate and speculation can be fun. But, we need to remember that speculation is speculation. It is not empirical reality. So, for those who don’t like Crandall, don’t speculate: send in your evidence. Post it on this blog. No “if X then Y but also maybe Z” but actual cases.

In point of fact, if we accept the idea of freedom of religion, as guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Crandall’s statement of faith is fairly innocuous. It basically says you have to be a Christian to work here. As I understand it, everyone who works at Crandall has to sign this statement of faith. Those who oppose Crandall will say that this is wrong but this raises another issue. Do we want the state telling universities who they can and cannot hire? Would not that be a violation of academic freedom? Gee … Mount A, I see that you are semi secular and you don’t have enough agnostics on staff, your next six hires will have to be agnostics. I’d argue that this would not be good. Yet, oddly, in asking for sanctions against Crandall -- financial penalties, in effect -- this is what Crandall’s opponents argue. The state should use its financial power to punish those people who take seriously the freedom of conscience provisions of the Canadian constitution.

The real issue and the crux of the matter is something other than the statement of faith. It is Crandall’s “Statement of Moral Standards.” In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the real issue is not its anti-porn provisions (most academics, I suspect, will accept that having already been convinced by feminist arguments against pornography) but its anti-gay provision. In other words: one line is cause the problem.

I am less certain how applicable this. I don’t know whether one must agree to this statement as well. Here those people like me who defend Crandall run into difficulties for a couple of reasons. Let’s start with big reason number one:

1) the theology is faulty. Yep: this statement is based on a pretty loose and weak reading of The Bible. Let me give you two examples: the anti-gay provision is simply debatable. Sorry. If anyone takes the Bible seriously, there is no way that they can make a hard and fast statement that “God doesn’t like gay people.” End of discussion. Only an ideologue could make this statement. Jesus, for instance, never mentioned anything about homosexuality. (Again, I’m a bit of an empiricist: prove me wrong. Post your evidence. Give me a quote from Jesus.)

Moreover, this statement is a bunch of “thou shalt nots.” That is pretty shaky Christianity. Where is the “thou shalt.” For instance, references to helping the poor are mentioned frequently by just about everyone in the Bible (I read there are something like 2000 references to helping the poor). That is absent from Crandall’s statement and that is just plain wrong from a Christian perspective. I’d argue, in fact, that Crandall should be embarrassed about this absence and about their neglect of God’s word.

2) The “Statement of Moral Standards” readily acknowledges that it is not based on the Bible. Here is a direct quote: “Every community has standards. As a Christian community, Crandall University upholds Christian standards of behavior to which faculty and staff are required to conform. These standards derive not only from the Christian scriptures, but also from the culture of the supporting evangelical constituency.”

Here is the problem, you are not asking me to defend your freedom of religion any longer but your culture. I’m more than willing to argue that culture is culture. The government should not be in, say, the assimilation business. Someone moves to Canada from, say, England, nothing should be done to force them to change their accent or change their diet or religion. A silly example, to be sure, but you get my point. We can defend freedom of religion and argue that this is important. It is another thing to defend the intrusion of institutions into people’s lives on the basis of something as vague as “the culture of the supporting evangelical constituency.” I consider myself part of that constituency. I don’t donate a lot of money to Crandall but they are on my list of missions to which I will be contributing this year. Yet, the anti-gay part of their moral statements clearly contravenes my culture. Culture is notoriously slippery. If the supporting culture favours Italian food, does it become a requirement?

Moreover, and this is the key point, we need to be really careful here. Crandall advocates can say “this is God’s will” (or this is Biblically grounded) but, as I have already demonstrated, they have made selective use of the Bible, neglecting key elements of God’s desire for us (care for the poor) and substituting others that are far more shakey. This is not the word of God but human beings claiming the right to tell us what the will of God is. And, let us be clear, this is something different. Christians have a bad history of interpreting the will of God for other people and imposing it on them. We don’t need to review the history such things in Canada because we can simply use the words “residential school” and that should be enough for anyone to be cautious about too much certainty.

Let’s not go overboard. If there is no requirement to sign the moral statements and agree to it, no harm has been done: no harm no foul. If Crandall permits and encourages open discussion of their statement of faith, how far it can be applied, whether or not it should be modified, etc., academic freedom has been preserved. Their president seemed to be suggesting this and so I will take him at his word. What I would suggest is that just about everyone in this low-grade debate is wrong. Those who reject state funding are wrong and, in fact, in violation of the very document -- the Charter -- on which they base their arguments. There is no mass movement of public dollars to religious institutions and, in fact, Crandall is part of a broader post-secondary educational system that includes all matter of different institutions (it is not a secular v religious black and white dichotomy). Crandall, on the other hand, needs to rethink their moral statements and needs to make them more pro-active. God is about many things, but among the things he is about are mercy, justice, and love. I’d like to see those things more directly stated.

CBC News - New Brunswick - Mount Allison accepts staff wage hike

2011-02-04T09:57:00.000-04:00

I don't like to be involved in union/administration issues. This story on CBC, however, allows me to talk about something else:

CBC News - New Brunswick - Mount Allison accepts staff wage hike

What I'd like to talk about is bad reporting. Let's leave the dispute at Mount A to one side (in terms of arguing about who is right and who is wrong. That is your decision to make.) Instead, this is an example of really bad reporting. For instance, there is some discussion of NB's financial situation, painted as dire (it is bad, to be sure). But ... no discussion of Mount A's. Mount A is not New Brunswick. Surely, someone reporting on a labour dispute at an institution should look into that institution. Instead, what it looks like they did was go the files and drag out a quote from the finance minister.

Second, the piece mentions the salary for a professor but does not specify that the word professor means different things in different places. My friends call everyone who teaches at Mount A a professor. So do faculty and students. If you stand in front of the room you are a professor. Some confusion, then, is fair enough. But, professor is also a rank. This reporter has confused the rank with the position. People call me professor. I've taught at Mount A for ten or twelve years (I'd need to look up exactly how long). My students call me "Professor" as do my friends when they are joking with me. Yet, I am not a "Professor by rank." I'm an Associate Professor by rank. I will not be a Professor for some time and I make no where near the figure given in the news story. Nor will I under any new contract based on the Conciliation Board report, nor will I for ages (maybe decades!) after that. In other words, the figure is not wrong but it distorts a financial picture.

Finally, this story is imbalanced. Some people I know complained that the reporter did not interview anyone from MAFA. I don't think they needed to do that. I don't think balance is a this side and that side type thing because, as I've said before, there are more than two sides. Objectivity is not given "each side" equal weight. Balance is created by investigation and evidence. Where is that investigation?

To sum up, you can have whatever view of what is going on at Mount A you want. I have my own views. My concern here is with bad reporting and this is bad reporting. It intuits Mount A's financial position from the provinces (something that cannot be done: Mount A's picture might be better or worse) and does not bother to use even the publicly accesible financial documents to make an independent report. Second, it distorts meaning because the reporter did not investigate the issue. It is OK for my friends to make a mistake, but this reporter is paid to *not* make this mistake. Finally, it lacks balance, not in a two sides type of thing but in failure of investigation. Reporting like this is the reason why Canadians are poorly informed about public issues.

Corporate tax cuts could bring down government - The Globe and Mail

2011-01-31T08:50:00.000-04:00

This story Corporate tax cuts could bring down government - The Globe and Mail suggests that the government could be brought down by the combined opposition over its plan to lower Canadian corporate taxes. It should be. The Conservatives are trying to sneak one through here -- "tax cuts" -- without explaining who is getting this cut, who is going to have to pay for the lost revenue, and what effect the tax cut will have. It will improve the economy? Really? How? Cuts to the GST were supposed to do that, but it didn't. In fact, the cuts were political; designed to make the Conservatives look good. There is not a reputable economist in the country who believes they had a positive economic effect and virtually everyone agrees, in fact, that the effect was negative. So ... how will corporate tax cuts help the average Canadian? Corporations will spend more? Really? How do we know that? But, more importantly, where will they spend? How much? Could a corporation not take a revenue saving and spend it on a foreign factory and cost jobs in Canada? Well ... no, it would not do that? Really? How do you know?

This is a very poorly considered policy. It is driven by ideology and that is what makes it bad. According to conservative economic theory tax cuts to large companies should improve the economy. Do they? Well, I don't think anyone in the government bothered to check and that is the problem with ideology. You believe it so fiercely that evidence is irrelevant. Everyone knows it to be true so why bother to check the details. (There is someone reading this blog right now, saying "he must be a raving lefty to ask such questions about things everyone knows to be true. Yet, all I have done is ask empirical questions). It is possible that Harper is right. Let's see the evidence, though, before we had over a chun of national revenue, no strings attached.

Youth Voting

2011-01-27T13:34:00.000-04:00

I am about to speculate, but that is, after all, the purpose of a blog. Why don't people vote? This is a question that has preoccupied scholars and enters into the political calculations of party officials and leaders. George W. Bush, for instance, seemed to have little interest in increasing the number of voters or registered voters in the US. Harper, in Canada, seems to express a similar lack of disinterest. My bet has been that this is based on an assessment of their core constituency. Or, to say this differently, those not voting are unlikely to cast a pro-Harper (that is CPC) ballet. Hence, the government of the day has little interest in drumming up its own defeat.

I could be wrong. That is speculation but here is more. A great deal of time has been spent assessing youth political alienation and why youth don't vote. We have all matter of explanations: bad knowledge, political communications, shifting media, "post-materialist" values, etc., etc. I will confess that I don't by any of it. I've noted before that while youth spend a lot of time on computers, it would be wrong to over-estimate their tech savvy. And, I don't think we are any more post-materialist then any other generation (how did environmentalism somehow lose its materialist implications?). And, we could go on. I won't because the upshot is simple: I don't really by the existing arguments.

Here is a new one: the cultural extension of youth. Youth don't vote because the think of themselves as youth. Here my speculation is wild so to this as a first venture in forming an hypothesis. In the past, people looked forward to voting as a mark of adulthood. I did. It did not matter for whom you were voting; the important thing was that you were voting. You were exercising an adult responsibility. It was -- along with being able to stroll into a bar and not worry about being asked for ID -- a mark that one had grown up. And, that was important to us. We did not want to be children or youth. We looked forward to taking responsibility for ourselves and enjoying the rights of adult, in particular greater autonomy.

Do youth today still think like this? Or, do they get the autonomy and still get to be youth (that is, they don't have to accept the markers of adulthood, as we believed we did, in order to have our freedom). Do youth today not believe they are adult? Or, do they still see themselves as someone who is looked after by someone else (that is, a dependent or child). If they don't, if youth don't look forward to adulthood, have found other means to promote their autonomy, then they are not voting not because politics is not interesting (I don't think politics is any more or less interesting then it ever was) or because they are alienated (alienation is not new, folks) or because media have changed (find a time in the twentieth century that media were not changing). Instead, youth are not voting because they have rejected this marker of adulthood and the self-conception it implies. Their autonomy is provided by someone else (parents paying the bills, for instance) and so there has been a cultural extension of youth.

Now, I am trying not be judgemental. I am venturing an explanation; not a moral judgement. How exact might this be? How could we measure it? Those are questions I will leave off for another day. I'll end this blog in anecdotal fashion since I'm not being very scientific in my analysis anyway. We have all seen movies or TV shows about adult children remaining at home. I had one of those moments. The other day I was in a meeting and some of the people (my co-workers) in the meeting were suggesting that "the kid" (by which they meant someone at Mount A) was having problems and that someone might need to intervene on behalf of "the kid." Heck, I said, yep, if "the kid" needs help, someone should help "the kid." By the way, I asked (concerned about "the kid") how old is "the kid" anyway? One of my co-workers said "or, 30 or 32."

Now, this is scary. We have someone who is potentially 32 who cannot fight their own battles. Yes, power differentials exist. They exist because of class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and because of age. But, we are talking about an adult male. I'd been married for almost 10 years at "the kid's" age. We were infantilizing this guy and he was willing to let us do this because we were fighting his battles for him. Why, then, should he become involved? Why should he participate? Would you?

CBC News - Saskatchewan - Marriage officials can't refuse gays: Sask. court

2011-01-10T15:21:00.000-04:00

I'll draw attention to this new story: CBC News - Saskatchewan - Marriage officials can't refuse gays: Sask. court

There is nothing shocking in this story, or at least no one should be shocked. If you are ... think again. To pat myself on the back, according to this story, the court used exactly the same reasoning I've used in this blog over the years. Public servants are public servants. One can have whatever view one wants but public servants must serve the public. If they don't want to, they should not be public servants. Their job is not to impose their views on the public but to help the public accomplish its goals.

The idea that public servants should somehow have the right to refuse services to the public on the basis of their own philosophies is absurd. A couple of examples will suffice. Imagine the reverse: a gay public servant decides that he will not help straight people. If this ever happened we'd hear howls of protest (and rightly, btw). Imagine another situation: you want to register your marriage license and show up to do so. The clerk happens to be a Nazi and starts asking if you have any "Jewish blood" and he won't serve you until you answer. Finally, imagine if this were private enterprise! Imagine what the Royal Bank (my account happens to be at the Royal, hence my example) would do if one of their tellers said to a prospective customer "before I can open your account I need to know if you are straight or gay."

Some people will claim that this is an attack on freedom of conscience. It is not. Freedom on conscience is about belief. This is about whether or not one has to do the job for which one is paid or one can opt out of their job on the basis of their personal beliefs. Some people will claim that this is the court making public policy. It is not. Canadians support equality. It is our legislature that are behind the curve. If they weren't, the court would not have had to catch up for us. What we have is a government trying to find some sneaky way out of equality. Shame on the government.

Polls

2011-01-07T16:05:00.000-04:00

What should we make of polls? They are the stuff of political reporting or ... well ... punditry. The polls are a bit like a sporting event. One can see how is winning and who is losing and have some sort of "gameday" assessment. Change a few words from running game to chief of staff and, in fact, the same style of commentary fits both the weekly CFL prognostications and assessments of polls.

I don't blame anyone for finding polls interesting on enjoying listening to punditry. I do. I get the polls sent right to my inbox (a convenience at least one research firm provides). I look over the regional breakdowns, look at the gender breakdowns (if they happen to have those), scruntize the margin of error on a national and regional basis. And, then see if my assessment is the same as the pundits.

I also don't blame anyone for not finding this approach to polls interesting. My wife -- try as she might -- is just not a football fan (go Mounties!). Some people just don't like politics as sporting event and I can't blame them for that. Indeed, there is likely something fundamentally wrong with treating public life as if it were a sporting event, and I'd even guess that this approach to politics contributes to the plague of political alienation.

Is there something else we could do with polls that might be more meaningful and more long-term and perhaps a bit more scholarly? It seems to me that there are two important considerations:

1. There is a great deal of division in the Canadian electorate. In earlier posts -- even some time ago -- I've wondered if Canada is not in the midst of a sea change. For a long time, liberal ideas (what Michael Ignatieff when he is being an author called "civic nationalism") defined the basic Canadian philosophy of nation. This made, I argued, Canadian liberalism different from American liberalism. Both Canadian and American liberals saw themselves as political progressives but Canadian liberals had a far more defined philosophy and programme and were able to implement their programme. This programme consisted not just of political progressivism (welfare state, etc.) but a definiing philosophy of nation that lent some level of coherence to this project. I won't rehash the details but I argued that the Charter, multiculturalism, rule of law, regional economic development, etc., were all of a piece in that they were geared to the realization of a liberal philosophy of nation (geared to liberal virtues particularly individualism).

I have wondered if this project is not near its end. Polls help us think about what this end means. Liberalism -- civic nationalism -- I would contend was never a majority view among Canadians. It was likely the largest minority; other philosophies of nation (Quebec separatism or two nations), socialism, "community of communities" Joe Clark conservativism, Red Toryism, Neo-conservatism, all competed with liberal civic nationalism. The liberal vision was based largely in the middle class (francophone and anglophone, primarily in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada but -- if one looks at election results -- it had some strengths in parts of western Canada (Vancouver, urban Saskatchewan, urban Manitoba, even suburban Edmonton) as well.

The demise of this vision of Canada is far from complete. Indeed, I would argue that it has been so successful that even its opponents have been either (a) convinced of some of its key elements or (b) have accepted that they have to live with some things they don't like because otherwise they cannot win elections. What I wonder, however, is whether or not this vision has run its course. The Liberal Party is no longer needed to guard this vision because it infuses other political parties or because it is too strong for its opponents to resist. What this means, is that Liberals will have a tough job winning elections as their raison d'etre is no longer there. The great project of refashioning Canada undertaken by Liberals has worked. The Liberals retain their core supporters -- the core believers in this vision of Canada who distrust others acceptance of their ideas -- but other parties can now pick off parts of Liberal support relatively easily simply by no infringing on the core of this vision (Harper might not like the Charter but he's tried to do nothing to it, for example).

The suggests, then, the the demise of civic vision of Canada is not really a demise but something else. A debate over degrees with NDP supportes suggesting furthe changes and modificaitons and Conservative supporters trying to limit the effect of change. The debate is done: Canada is bilingual, multicultural, etc.

2. The interest in polls might also tell us something about political journalism in Canada. Since the attention devoted to polls -- including this blog -- is way out of proportion to their importance ... why devote attention to them?

I don't have an easy answer to this question but instead what I'd suggest is better interpretive journalism. Better interpretive journalism, for instance (or, political reporting if you will) might focus on this larger issue. It might not focus on who is "winning" or "losing" but on what increases and decreases in support over time for specific parties means about the character and nature of Canada.

Some pigs are more equal than others - The Globe and Mail

2010-12-11T07:58:00.000-04:00

This story and the study that it cites is well worth one's attention:

Some pigs are more equal than others - The Globe and Mail

Flaherty welcomes U.S. tax cut deal - The Globe and Mail

2010-12-10T12:47:00.000-04:00

Flaherty welcomes U.S. tax cut deal - The Globe and Mail

The link is to a Globe and Mail story in which Finance Minister Flaherty explains his belief that tax cuts stimulate spending. This is a common argument made by neo-liberals but does it hold up? The argument that tax cuts increase consumer spending which is good for the economy is, in fact, so taken-for-granted that I can't recall ever have seen someone question it in the regular media. To Flaherty's credit, he does not that tax cuts for the rich don't work nearly as well, in theory, as tax cuts for the poor in order to increase spending and you can see why. Poor people are not having needs met and so lowering their taxes clearly does produce more spending on their part because they need to spend. The rich, on the other hand (and not, I'm not being to specific in the way I am describing social classes) already have their needs met and more. Cutting their taxes -- giving them more money -- therefore will likely not increase spending because they don't need to spend.

But, the first question I asked is a good one, don't you think? Surely, there should be some evidence that tax cuts can increase spending and hence improve the economy because everyone says it and no one questions it so if someone knows of an empirical study that demonstrates this, please send it to me.

I'm not trying to be an idiot here. In theory, I can't figure out why tax cuts would increase spending and improve the economy. Imagine, for instance, you sell computers. A tax cut allows people to buy more computers and you are happy with this. More orders means you need to hire more staff and can spend a bit more on Christmas presents for the kids, etc. But, should not the same principle apply regardless of who is buying your computers. For instance, imagine that the school system wants to buy a bunch of computers for their students. This is state spending. Now, if you own the computer shop, what do you care who buys your computers. It makes no difference to your bottom line whether I buy them as a private citizen or the school board buys them. In each case you have more sales and the amount of money you've earned is the same. It seems to me that if consumer spending is to have a positive effect on the economy, that spending must be greater then the amount that would have been spent by the state because the state cannot spend money it does not have. If you cut taxes -- to increase consumer spending -- then the level of state expenditures will go down.

Let me give you a really simple example. Let us imagine that I have an income of $1000.00 and I pay $100.00 in taxes. That gives me a total amount of money to spend that equals $900.00. The state takes the $100.00 from me and uses it for all kinds of things (including buying computers for schools and paying doctors). Now, imagine -- just as an example -- that I spend all my $900.00. This means that I have spend $900 but the $100 in taxes did not disappear. It was spent, too (on computers and doctors). Now, to continue this example, imagine that someone wants to decrease taxes to increase my income in order to stimulate the economy. So, I get a tax cut of $25. I now have $925 to spend. But, overall spending has not increased, has it? The state no longer has $100 to spend but $75 so the total level of spending is the same: $1000.00. In theory, then, a tax cut will not increase spending and so cannot stimulate the economy because the total amount of money being spent is exactly the same as before.

But, it could get worse, couldn't it. My model is really simple. What happens if we add in issues like saving (imagine I don't spend all my tax cut, then the total level of spending in society would actually decrease because I saved money!) or overseas investment: what happens to the Canadian economy if I take some of my money and invest in ... oh, I don't know ... oil in Russia. That might be good for Russia but how would it help Canada? In the case of saving or overseas investment, a tax cut could produce ironic effects, couldn't it. It could decrease overall spending and hence hurt the economy.

There are a range of other issues to consider as well. What about the inflation rate? If the tax cut increases my income by less then the inflation rate ... what is the overall effect?

In short, I cannot figure out why tax cuts would increase overall spending in the economy. Businesses don't care who buys their goods as long as someone buys them. The effect is the same regardless of whether Bob or I or Stephen Harper buys them.

Here is what I think. This argument - tax cuts will increase spending -- works because people assume state spending will remain constant. Instead of cutting spending when I got my tax cut to $75 dollars (laying off workers and hurting the businesses from whom they bought things), I think most people assume that the government will continue to spend as before. And, in the short term, this might be possible through borrowing. But, and here is the kicker, in the long term, it is just not possible.

There may be reasons to cut taxes. Nothing I have written indicates that a good argument to cut taxes cannot be made. It does suggest, however, that we need to think again about the standard rationale given for tax cuts because it just doesn't make sense.

Charge Flanagan

2010-12-03T19:09:00.000-04:00

This news story says that Tom Flanagan, a former advisor to the PM, and a noted Canadian political scientist, has said some rotten things about Wikileaks should be assassinaed:

CBC News - Canada - WikiLeaks founder calls for Flanagan charge

It is easy to be outraged at this. The founder of Wikileaks was him charged with incitement to commit a crime. I don't know Tom Flanagan. I've had some dealings with him on a professional level and found him to be ... well ... amazingly professional. Top drawer in fact.

Let me be clear about this: I've read Flanagan's work, particularly his stuff on First Nations, and I don't like it. Let me be clearer: it is bad. Personally, I'd like to believe that Flanagan would welcome this engagement with his ideas. I think it is bad for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that it does not meet the bar on scholarship. We can leave his politics out of the question. As scholarship, his work on First Nations is ideology parading as scholarship. It simply fails the test that most of us -- I teach at a university -- would apply to good scholarship.

All that is beside the point. Obviously, Flanagan has to right to express his opinion and obviously he was making a glib, some might even say, stupid comment. He was not advocating killing those with whom we politically disagree and so let's keep our heads about his comments and not overreact. Obviously, too, he should watch what he says and avoid making stupid comments. That is advice I'd give to my kids.

From the other perspective, those people who might defend Flanagan, don't go over the edge either. Just as Flanagan has a right to express his views, so too do the Wikileaks folks. You can't defend Flanagan's right to speech and not someone else's so if you are going to get mad at Wikileaks people, you better also be mad at Flanagan or you're a hypocrite.

The deeper issue is this: Why are so many people mad at Wikileaks? Why are so many people outraged, saying they threaten national security, etc., etc. What is it about these leaks -- other than some public embarrassment -- that is causing people to be upset? Is it just public embarrassment?

I saw a news show the other day with the "revelations" that supposedly came out of the Wikileaks releases. Folks, they were hardly revelations. US government officials were upset at Canada. Right-wing Canadians were pissed at other Canadian. The Canadian ambassador wondered about the competence of the Afghan government. Does any of this surprise anyone? It is all stuff we knew before and all pretty tame stuff, in my view. Sure, there may be some things that one should not say in "polite company" but that is parr for the course. Is there anyone out there who has not said something stupid in the wrong company and wished they could take it back? Is there anyone out there who has not more graphically said something to one person and then massaged their message for a different audience?

I don't have an answer to the question I just asked but I'd like to. Since Wikileaks with regard to Canada has been pretty tame; since there was nothing in the leaks that those people who follow Canadian/American relations or Canada's role in Afghanistan did not already know, why the big bru-ha-ha?

White Poppies and Remembrance Day

2010-11-11T20:09:00.000-04:00

A good friend of mine really dislikes Remembrance Day. Well ... let me put that a different way: he really dislikes how Remembrance Day is politically conscripted. I think he's right. No one has any problems with Remembrance Day. Well ... no one should have any problem with Remembrance Day. I think it is important that we keep people's memories alive, that we pause to consider -- even if only once a year -- the remarkable human cost of war. I remember the veterans; I also remember the civilians, the prisoners of war, the young people on all sides of conflicts who were scared and who -- data tells us -- did not fire their guns or shot them in the air because they simply could not bring themselves to kill another human being. This is not an insult. This is respect for the amazing humane quality of action of scared young men living day in and day with death and danger.

The problems with the political conscription of Remembrance Day is that it does an amazing disservice to those people who died, whether they were soldiers or seamen or plant workers or some poor person trying to get from point A to point B as their city was bombed. It manipulates them, their memories, and their deaths in the service of someone else's political agenda. Often those screaming the loudest in defence of the vets and Remembrance Day are those doing the manipulation. Remembrance is about thinking about -- I'd make it active; not just passive -- people who died. It should not be about politics. It should not be about one's view on, say, the merits of Afghanistan.

Years ago I was at a conference and a noted scholar who happened to be a war vet was speaking on Canadian military history. A number of younger people who were "war buffs" gathered to hear his talk and were remarkably disappointed that he spoke about ordinary working people instead of the glory of war. He was asked about this and, the question went, should we not spend much more timing teaching young Canadians about Canada's military history? His response was fascinating in that he slowly surveyed the room and said something like (I don't remember the exact quote): I think I am the only person in this room who has actually ever fought in a war. The only thing I can say that you should teach young people is that if you have experienced war, then you know why we don't want any more of them.

I wear a white poppy and some people have made statements about this. I gather a chap in Ottawa decried what he saw as the militarism of the red poppy. I don't see it that way. I wear a white poppy because it is about peace, about why we don't want any more wars. I want to remember, let me be clear about this, those people who died. I think it is an obligation. But, I accept, as well, the international statement that there should be no more war. Is this naive? Perhaps, but it is not simply how I feel. As a Christian, I feel I also need to make a statement against violence. Another friend told me the local legion would be upset at me. Why, I wondered. After all, legions are filled with those people who know more than anyone else the horrors of war. Peace is not a bad thing. And, it is not an insult to those people who have died to say that we want peace. I wanted it before they died. If we had it, they would still be alive.

Republicans take control of the House - The Globe and Mail

2010-11-02T22:58:00.000-03:00

Republicans take control of the House - The Globe and Mail: "“I have a message, a message from the people of Kentucky, a message that is loud and clear, we have come to take our government back,’’ Mr. Paul told cheering supporters at a victory party."

This is not rhetoric. We're so used to over-the-top political rhetoric (think Paul Martin, folks) that we might pass on this. In the case of Tea Party people, they really do think their government has been captured by alien forces. This is, of course, disturbing for a democracy. The division of citizens into us and them is not something that should happen in a democracy. Indeed, it is antithetical to the very ideal of democracy. Have no doubts about it, however, they do want to take "their" government "back."

Note, too, what this means: they once had it. One assumes that he is here referring to Bush II. My view is that these kinds of statements are likely just the first of many we will hear over the next two years. They are divisive, to be sure, and disruptive and alienating. From whom, we might ask, are they taking their government back? It was elected by other Americans.

Omar Khadr

2010-11-02T22:47:00.000-03:00

I don't want to add to the slew of commentary on Khadr that repeats the same old lines. I'll try to say something a bit different and if I don't succeed, let me know. Khadr's case is intensely political. A friend asked me today what I thought of it and I told him that I had made up my mind a long time ago. He was going to jail, convicted of murder or admitting it one way or the other. He had to. His die was cast. I don't, however, think this makes him a victim; nor do I think he is innocent. And herein lies precisely the problem.
Here are the facts as I know them with the proviso that I won't claim to be an expert. Khadr was a relatively young teen who had been intensely socialized. Along with other family members he was in Afghanistan working with al-Qaeda. The US and other forces invaded, he was a driver for an important person in that organization. A firefight ensued and he threw a grenade at people who, he had been taught since birth, were the enemy. And, not just the enemy but evil. This grenade killed a soldier, a good man leaving a heartbroken family behind.
Much of the critical commentary on Khadr's treatment has suggested that a grave injustice has been done in his case. He was a child who had not had a neutral upbringing. He was involved in a firefight and a war -- even if it was not called that -- was in progress. How is one supposed to respond to a war if one believe one is being invaded? Is he a child soldier under the UN definition? Here is what I know.

No conviction is going to bring back the dead soldier.
The discourse of victim and guilty party does not work well in this case.
His trial and guilty plea (or, conviction if it had come to that) were needed because those who supported al-Qaeda needed to be branded as bad people and the organization could not be recognized as a legitimate military organization even if it was responding to an invasion.

And, most importantly, people die in military conflicts. Leaving this particular case aside for a second many of those people who kill other people in conflicts are not bad people. They are not criminals looking to mug someone to make an easy buck. They are not organized criminals selling drugs to kids. They are often ordinary people put in rotten situations. They often believe they are acting for the right reasons -- for reasons of faith or nation or security -- and find themselves compelled to do horrible things. This is the best reason to avoid conflicts if at all possible.
   Yet, this way of thinking runs counter to the effective fighting of wars and that is why it is not part of any official discourse. If governments admit that they are sending people to kill other people whose only crime was intense socialization by their parents ... well ... that doesn't go over very well on the home front, does it? If we concede that the people who are cast as bad (as terrorists and murderers) might be ordinary people much like us, well ... that doesn't go over very well on the homefront, does it? It seems to me vitally important that we remember these things.
   It also seems to me vitally important that we consider the implications of people doing horrible things who might not be guilty in the way we understand the word normally. It seems to me that if we lose cite of this idea we run the risk of being no better than the ideologues and fundamentalists we condemn. Finally, it seems to me vitally important that we hold out the hope of reconciliation and reform. I don't expect Christopher Speer's widow will ever embrace Omar Khadr. No one should ever blame her for that. As a society, however, we have to hold out the possibility that people who have done horrible things can still make amends and can strive for forgiveness. And, if we say (however understandable this may be from an individual perspective) that we will never forgive ... what are we saying? We are saying that we will abandon the hope of reconciliation; we will abandon the hope of people changing.
   What happens if we change our thinking? What happens if we hold out the hope that real change in individuals is possible? What happens if we hold out the idea that those people who are our enemies are not bad people? What happens if we think about the mental competence of child soldiers placed in violent situations? Can we find a way to think beyond the victim/guilty dichotomy? I have mentioned a couple of times in this blog that I'm a Christian. Let me be even clearer: I self identify as an evangelical Christian. There is no doubt that this perspective colours my views. I don't like to judge others (that is not moral relativism on my part as any one who knows me will tell you, but judgement is God's business; not mine); Jesus always forgave and those who follow Jesus must follow his model. And, Jesus did not give up. So ... I won't.
   Many of those who condemn Khadr are Christians as well, evangelicals in fact, so you can likely easily find a different view from mine. My take, however, is that the principles laid down in The Bible regarding forgiveness, judgement, etc., are good principles that should be followed. They might, in fact, help us think this issue differently and think our responses in a different way.

Gun Registry: Toronto's Fault

2010-09-16T12:31:00.001-03:00

Maybe he said this, maybe he didn't. Federal Conservative minister John Baird is quoted as blaming Toronto elites for keeping the long-barrel gun registry. The story is here. Hmmm ... Baird is a real partisan. That is not bad. All parties have them and there is a reason why people are partisan so let's not blame him for that. What is interesting is that somehow one gets to be a member of the elite for supporting a policy that is popular with the police and that the government's own internal studies say is efficient and effective. Ah ... whatever happened to law and order. I guess I'm a member of the elite to for being in efficiency and effectiveness in public policy.

Francophones and the Canadiens

2010-09-16T12:27:00.001-03:00

This story (click on line) is interesting. I know there have been some concerns lately about an anti-Francophone bias in the NHL. It might be true but the other point is also worth noting. PQ leader Pauline Marois complains that there are not enough francophones on the Habs while one of her ministers intimates darkly that this might not be "by chance." The issue is not that "talent trumps" language in the NHL and so the Habs will get the best players, the issue is that French-Canadian players are good and so other teams want them. Exactly how are the Habs supposed to go about getting more French-speaking players?

Well ... they could draft them. To have first pick (or, even a low pick) in the draft, however, they 'd need to be a really bad -- oh, Leafs-like -- team. They're not and so the best prospects are snapped up by the time they get to draft. Think about it like this. Imagine that you're running the Leafs or the Senators or Flames. And, your team had a bad season and you get to pick first. And ... there is a really good French-Canadian player. What do you do? You take him. If I'm running that team I might respect the Habs and respect the PQ but my job depends on me putting the best team on ice I can. I'm not going to pass over a good player just because the Canadiens might want him. Why would I make my competition better?

You could trade for him. Sure ... but that depends on having something to trade that the other team wants. Again, if I run, this time let's say the Oilers or the Canucks and I have a good French-Canadian player and I know the Canadians are desperate to get him, I'm going to hold them up for ransom. Again, I'm not going to surrender a player I've draft and developed in order to pass him along to another team for next to nothing and because I want to win, I'm going to drive a hard bargain.

The issue, then, is complicated. It is not a matter of les Habs not having the will get more French-speaking players or not wanting to. It is a matter of how you get them when other teams don't want to give them up.

Marijuana effective in reducing pain, study shows - The Globe and Mail

2010-08-30T09:01:00.000-03:00

Marijuana effective in reducing pain, study shows - The Globe and Mail

Duh ....

CBC News - Canada - Long-gun registry efficient: RCMP report

2010-08-26T10:34:00.000-03:00

This story -- Long-gun registry efficient: RCMP report -- on CBC online continues to describe the sage of the "long-barrel gun registry." I have some views on this because I think the whole consideration of this issue has become so politicized that it is approaching the point of not making sense. I could be right or wrong. Indeed, I often am wrong and this blog is a think place and not a place of scholarship. So, if you disagree with me, let me know.

First, the gun registry is about gun control. One can like or dislike gun control but let us correctly situate consideration of this issue. Gun control is about social safety. It is not about stopping hunters. That is another debate. For the record, I don't own any guns. Members of my family do. Members of my family have hunted, gone target shooting, and close friends of mine are avid hunters. Indeed, I look forward to one friend's annual hunting expeditions because it brings him by Sackville where I live and gives us a chance to get caught up. My point is this: gun control is not about hating firearms. One might hate firearms. Fair enough. I'm not in love with them. But gun control is about something else. It is about making society safer and about ensuring that the police have more information before they into a potentially violent situation.

Second, gun control does not always work. Those who oppose gun control use this as an argument against it. I think this is just plane dumb. Not everything works all the time. Do we stop doing something because it does not work? Do I stop cooking supper because one burner on my stove didn't work? Or, do I move because my overuse of electrical appliances tripped a breaker? The fact that something is not perfect does not mean that it is not useful or that it is not better then what came before it. A gun registry gives, for instance, police more information; it does not give them perfect information. Should we deprive the police of potentially important information because that information is not foolproof?

Third, too much of the debate about gun control in Canada uses a discourse brought in from the US. I shudder every time I hear some opponent of gun control using an American tag line "guns don't kill people" or "put the criminals in jail not the innocent." The US, as I've pointed out a number of times, is a different country. What applies there does not apply here and vice versa. We have different issues with regard to crime, a different police structure, and a different culture. Let us have a Canadian discussion of this issue and not one that just adopts an American perspective without thinking about it.

Fourth, have you noticed that the discourse of gun control has changed in Canada. In fact, most people no longer talk about gun control, even its opponents. Instead, they talk about things like eliminating the "long barrel gun registry." I have no evidence of this but I suspect that this shift in discourse is intentional. I suspect that because gun control is supported by the Canadian population, those who oppose gun control gave up using that discourse and tried to find something less innocuous. Eliminating a "long-barrel" "gun registry" just sounds different from cutting back on gun control.

Fifth, Canada is not unusual in having gun control. Most countries do and the countries to which we most frequently compare ourselves -- with the exception of the US -- have it. In other words, gun control is not some radical idea of flaming lefties. It is a moderate position adopted by most OECD countries and supported by ordinary middle class people both in Canada and in those countries. The US is the outlier.

Sixth, the police like control and gun registry. CBC radio did their best the other night to make this issue look like a matter of controversy among the police. I was, in fact, shocked by the horrible job of their reporting on it. The reporter -- whose name eludes me -- passed over official support from the police chiefs association and the RCMP (see story linked above) and the government's own officials in order to move to the opponents of gun control. They could find two people: one -- that is right one -- police chief and one person identified as a constable who had conducted an "informal on-line poll" of other police officers. The effect of the story was to say that rank and file police officers don't agree with their chiefs. Now, think about this. An "informal" "online poll" done by a known opponent of gun control as treated by Canada's national broadcaster -- or, at least this particular reporter -- as a serious piece of evidence. How many people participated in the poll? What controls were used? What were the questions asked? Were they leading questions? What sampling technique was used?

You can guess the answers to these questions. This is the type of data that would earn an introductory level student an F in one of my courses (or, any course I know of) and the reporting on it might earn something lower then an F! And, yet, the reporter spent most of his time talking about this one chief and this one constable and his poll as if it were solid evidence. No other evidence was mentioned in the report at all.

Which leads me to my final point. Data is important. If we are going to have a serious discussion of this issue we can't have Americanesque tag lines and ideology parading as authoritative. The RCMP thinks that the registry is efficient and effective. So ... the folks in charge of law enforcement like this particular law. One might think a law and order government -- if they were truly committed to law and order -- would be supportive of its police officers, wouldn't one?

The Bloc

2010-08-23T00:14:00.002-03:00

A lot of English-speaking political pundits don't like the Bloc or anything that keeps it winning seats in Quebec. The story in the Globe is a case in point. Here, the blame has been spread around so that the provincial Liberals are also under fire. The host of sins laid at the feat of the Bloc are many. Extreme comments paint them as a treasonous, and suggest that they should be dealt with in that way. Less extreme but still fairly strong views suggest that if only Quebec's political elites didn't play with separatism to get what they want out of federalism, the Bloc would have withered and died. John Ibbitson in Open and Shut goes so far to suggest that Canada cannot get a majority federal government as long as the Bloc is about and that maybe a test -- say, an oath of Loyalty to the constitution -- should be brought in for MPs.
My view is that this perspective is more an ill-considered expression of frustration that severely misses the mark in terms of what might be wrong with Canadian democracy, then it is a reasoned critique of the Bloc. Let me be clear: democracy is not about electing majorities. Democracy, as Rosa Luxemberg once said, is democracy for the other. It seems really easy and almost reasonable to limit other people's choices so that they might support yours. It is undemocratic. The people in Quebec are Canadian citizens; they have every right to form political parties like any other Canadian and vote for whom they please like any other Canadian. The fact that someone may not like their choices .... has little to do with anyway. To deny them their choices is to deny democracy. Or, to put this slightly differently, to cast aspersions on their choices or to try to find a sneaky way to eliminate their choices is no more democratic than to suggest that the folks in Saskatchewan are somehow doing something wrong by electing the Saskatchewan Party.
One can have reasoned disagreements with Saskatchewan Party policy (or, say Wildrose policies if one is in Alberta) and that is fair enough. Reasoned debate is the stuff of democracy. But, to suggest that a choice is illegitimate because one does not like it or because it impedes the abilities of one's favoured choice to gain a majority is not.
And, let us be clear, the Bloc is not a radical party. I don't support their aims. Anyone who has read this blog knows I'm a federalist. But, the Bloc's policies do not include ethnic cleansing, say, or something revolutionary. Indeed, in some ways, their policies are pretty staid, if one compares them to other ethnic or language based separatist movements in other parts of the world. They are responsible; do their job in Parliament, and play by the rules of the federal political game.
Finally, blaming the Bloc also misses the point. The Liberal majorities of the Chretien era were, potentially, artificial because of the nature of the first past the post electoral system. The Bloc did not stop the Liberals, however, from winning three straight majorities. The Conservatives have not been able to gain a majority because the majority of Canadians don't like their policies and don't want to see them in government. The same might have been true of the Chretien Liberals -- although I am less certain about this -- but what we can say is that a larger majority of Canadians don't like the Conservatives then did not like the Liberals. Canada, in other words, does not have a majority Conservative government because something close to 2/3rds of Canadians -- depending on which poll you read -- don't want the Conservatives in office. That is their problem; not the Bloc.

Bathurst, Flags, and Equal Rights

2010-07-23T22:57:00.000-03:00

An English-language rights group wants to fly its flag at City Hall in Bathurst, NB. The town council first said yes (in a 4-2 vote) and, then, after significant popular protest changed its mind and said no. I was reading some on-line discussion of this issue and there is a significant amount of confusion about it. The question is: is this a legitimate action? Should not, in an effort to respect multicultural diversity, Bathurst fly this flag? Those who want to fly the flag seem to be suggesting that the town council’s failure to do so show multiculturalism to be a shame (they argue other things, too, that I will mention below, but this is the most “philosophical” of the points the flag’s proponents make).

The answer is “no.” First, the flag of a small, extremist, lobby organization is not an ethnic flag. In this sense, it multiculturalism does not apply. This group has as much philosophical right to fly its flag in front of a government office as any other lobby group, whether it be the Canadian Manufacturers Association or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or the local chapter of the “Save the Bull Frogs Foundation” (OK, I made that one up). In other words, multiculturalism does not apply because this flag does not represent an ethnic group or a nationality.

Ah ... its proponents say, “it represents ‘English’ people.” No it does not. I am an English-speaking person and the Maple Leaf represents me. No one in this organization ever contact me to ask if they could represent my interests. Their position on bilingualism (opposition to it) is decidedly out of step with popular views, which makes them a special interest group. No conference ever certified this flag, at least one that was widely attending by representatives of English people. No one every determined, either, exactly who these English people were. Is this a heritage group? Is it a language group? Both? This is a group that has, in other words, no democratic sanction. It is a group that represents a small minority view. And, it is a group that claims for itself the right to represent me. I deny it that right. Sorry, you don’t represent me or, to the best of my knowledge, anyone in my family or among my friends or in my community. Indeed. I actually personally no one one who even knows someone in this group.

I’m not trying to be harsh here. I am trying to make a point. There is a difference between a special interest lobby group and a national or ethnic group. To confuse to two creates problems. If we accepted the right of this group to fly their flag outside a government office, then we would have no choice but to accept the right of Nazis to fly their flag or members of Al Quaida. Or, members of the local “Save the Bull Frogs Foundation.” Any lobby group would now have the right to put its flag up and is this what we want. Do we want our City Halls festooned with the flags of lobby and special interest groups.

Some might say “you know, we might. There just might be a group we’d like to show we support on a municipal level. Our town loves bull frogs. Why can’t we put their flag up.” One might be able to, indeed it might be legitimate to, as long as we are clear about what we are doing. I am arguing above that there is a qualitative difference between a national or ethnic flag (the Canadian flag, the Acadian flag, for instance) and governmental flags (city or provincial) on the one hand and those of special interests on the other. This group is a special interest and so has no moral or ethical or legal right to have its flag flown at a government office, no more right, at least then any other special interest group (like the local bowling league or a butterfly collecting club). It is possible that someone might want to demonstrate their support, however, for butterfly collecting. If so, could the two council authorize this one group to fly its flag on a special occasion.

Yes, as long as its justification was not multiculturalism. The butterfly collectors are not a nation!. And, it seems to me, as long as its rationale was ethically sound. In other words, not all social groups are, as it were, “created equal.” I’d argue that provisions of the criminal law, for instance, should apply. One should not fly the flag of, say, an organized crime group. Nor should one fly the flag of a terrorist organization. These strike me as pretty straight forward and generally acceptable points. Nor, should one fly the flag of a group that is propagated hate. For instance, a racist organization should not enjoy the support of a state committed to freedom, equality, democracy (say, like Canada) because the goals of this organization run counter to the goals of Canada.

In this regard, consider the differences between this English rights organization and, say, Acadian organization. This English rights organization opposes equality. It seems to eliminate French-language rights in NB. Acadian organizations do not oppose equality; they are not arguing the use of English in NB; nor lobbying for the elimination of English as an official language or a language of instruction. Note, too, the important distinction: I am talking about an organization. Organizations that promote intolerance often justify their own intolerance by saying that a member of ethnic group X was once intolerant to them. This is almost certainly true but the logic is perverse. Using francophones and anglophones as an example, it run like this “because a francophone was once mean to an anglophone, all francophones should lose their rights.” Does that make any sense: because one person who you may not have known; who you might have thought was an idiot, whom you opposed did something, you lose right because they happen to speak the same language as you.

Let’s flip this around and reverse the field. Suppose an anglophone was once mean to a francophone. Does that mean that English should be eliminated as an official language? That is the logic we are talking about here. It is a guilt by virtue of language spoken. If someone in your linguistic group did something wrong, you are guilty purely by virtue of the language you speak. Does this not strike you as akin to a fascist logic?

My point is this: (1) there is a difference between an unrepresentative group that argues against equality and symbols broadly representative of a nation that support equality, and (2) the logic used to justify the equivalence between the two is faulty to the point of being fascistic.

For these reasons, Bathurst correctly reversed its decision on this flag issue and did the right thing.

Censorship II

2010-06-14T15:14:00.002-03:00

Before I broke to blog about a Liberal-NDP merger, I was writing on censorship. Let me return to this subject. Two blogs ago, I argued that irredeemable speech can gain an economic rationale on an individual level: the speaker (or, author) gets something (say, publicity) and others have to pay the price. On the surface this seems like a good argument against politically-useless and offensive expression. Surely, individuals should have to pay the cost of their actions or at least take responsibility for them?

The counter argument is this: surely we should be concerned about the individual because our society is based on individualism. Moreover, someone holding a different view then me might go further and say "Surely, Andrew, you defend individual rights -- say, equality rights with it comes to the GLBT community -- what happened? Is this not a contradiction: you defend people on the left of the political spectrum but not on the right?!

Initially, when I planned this blog, I thought this was a pretty easy argument to address. I'll confess that it might have some merits and that I likely need to put more consideration into this issue.

This said, the question, it seems to me, is this: is there a merit to social cohesion and politeness? Let's start with politeness first. OK, I'm out of vogue. Dignity, concern for others, and moderation appeal to me. Everyone swears ... do we need to swear all the time? Is free speech harmed by politeness? It might be. In literary or artistic work form is often as important as content. One could express one's thoughts in prose but that is no reason to disallow poetry. If form were unimportant, we'd have no troubles disallowing poetry or music or TV, as long as we had print-text prose, we'd be fine. We don't disallow other media, of course, because form is important. Avatar may have been a great script. I'm glad I saw it in the theatre.

This, it seems to me, is the rationale behind protecting artistic expression from unwarranted intrusions by the state or the public. To force a change in form damages expression in a way that calls the integrity of that expression (or, even its content) into question. Here, then, I think one needs to argue on the side of caution and for as little state intrusion as possible, even if the form and content are offensive to some.

This can apply to impolite expression. One might find parts of Denys Arcand's Jesus of Montreal offensive or another film (say, Decline of the American Empire) impolite. Yet, that impoliteness, say, is with purpose. It is needed to make the point Arcand wants to make (that the Church has abandoned Jesus racialism for more comfortable social service that is, sometimes, self-interested). In Decline of the American Empire, the character Remi is a truly despicable human being. To understand the depth of his hedonism, we actually need his discourse; we need that effect, however impolite it might be.

This also strikes me as something different then offending for the sake of offending or hypocrisy. Let's look at hypocrisy first. It is one thing to argue against, say, pornography. We can have reasoned debate on this. It is another thing to argue that gay expression is, by definition pornographic simply because it is gay expression. Or, to argue that gay expression is pornographic and ignore the host of "girlie" magazines in the corner store. Such a contradiction -- condemning gay expression while ignoring girlie magazines -- raises questions about the intent of someone demanding censorship: are they really against pornography (a potentially legitimate position) or simply against gay expression (whether pornographic or not)? In this case, the contradiction seems to me to be something other than a logical argument. It is a way of naming something (gay expression) in order to censor it for reasons other than one's true concern.

Offensiveness: if we accept the right to offend as a legitimate, what happens when we take to its logical extreme? To argue that there is some merit in ... say, portraying Mohammed is a way that some Muslims find offensive means does not mean, I think, that we must accept the proposition that offensiveness is good without any qualifications. If this were so, what is to stop someone from standing outside my local grocery store and saying I beat my children as I stroll in to pick up some milk. It is not true -- indeed libel -- but should not the same principle (offensiveness has merits) hold true? What is to stop someone from taking my picture and photoshopping it onto a capture that reads "terrorist"?

Surely, no one would argue that this is legitimate. Indeed, that is why we have libel laws. And, surely, no one would argue that it is wrong to insult a single individual for the sake offensiveness but OK to insult a group. If we did, then the line "Israelis should go back to Poland" would be legitimate.

None of this actually answers my original questions but I hope it provides people with something to think about. Let's recap. I've argued:

-form is as important as content sometimes and so we need to be careful to protect form from censorship
-we need to be wary of hypocrisy and find out if those arguing for censorship and making a reasoned case or simply advancing their moral and political agenda
-the principle that offensiveness for its own sake is good is open to question when looked at logically

NDP Liberal Merger

2010-06-10T12:44:00.000-03:00

An NDP/Liberal merger?

I'm sure everyone is blogging on this so ... why bother? Well, because I think talk of this merger tells us something about Canada and so I'll break from my promised next installment on censorship (which might be a relief to some) to address this.

This merger -- or, talk of or potential merger -- is important for two reasons:

First, note the way some journalists have addressed this issue: almost as if it were a scandal (I found The Globe's coverage particularly interesting in this regard). So and so denies ... sworn affidavits; so and so confirms .... Why address this issue in this way? It is no secret that the Liberals have "picked off" some NDPers over the years or that parties try to make allies in the case of a minority government. Indeed, I would be shocked if the left wing of the Liberal Party and the right wing of the NDP had not been in some level of communication over the years. Why present this story as an almost scandal? Perhaps a journalistic proclivity to see everything as misinformation and scandal in which the journalist becomes the hero of the story by uncovering the truth? If so, this type of presentation is a tad self serving, no? More darkly, one might see this mode of presenting this story as a continuity of leading media outlets anti-Liberal bias. I'm not certain of that and some analysis would need to be done, but I also would not discount the possibility out of hand.

Second, and I think more importantly, a Liberal-NDP merger would be something different then some sort of electoral alliance in which the parties looked for common ground that would allow them to form a reasonable governing bloc that could address matters of importance to themselves and a large section of the Canadian population (although certainly not all Canadians). This might include environmental issues, reversing some Conservative policies re funding for Status of Women or developing a realistic plan to address the economic morass that is federal finances.

A merger, however, would speak of something different. For a number of years I have been hypothesizing that the Liberal project for Canada, let's follow Ignatieff and call it civic nationalism, has reached its end. This end is not that it has been rejected by Canadians because we know that large parts of this project are now broadly supported. Canadians, by and large, accept the idea of equality of citizens, Charter rights, multiculturalism, and official bilingualism. Whether or not these things can be treated as part of an evolving project for Canada is, I think, an open question. Aside from the extreme edges of Canadian society, these things might almost be seen as status quo.

In this sense, the ending of the Liberal project for Canada might signal the development of a transition to something else. And, that transition might signal a political re-alignment. In this sense, an NDP-Liberal merger might be something more than a "get the Tories out" coalition. It might be part of a process through which a different type of Canada is evolving into being.

Censorship Part I

2010-06-09T14:31:00.002-03:00

Current concerns over censorship in Canada represent an historical disjuncture. In the past, the advocates of free speech (anti-censorship) came primarily (but not exclusively) from the political left, broadly and generally speaking. Its base of support drew together an often unwieldy combination of liberals, socialists, communists, civil libertarians, artists, and the advocates of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as advocates of gay and lesbian equality. Today, many of those same groups would self-define as anti-censorship. Advocates of GLBT equality, for example, continue to express concerns about the operation of Canadian "obscenity" laws while civil libertarians wonder about the way trademark can be use to silence political -- as opposed to commercial -- competition. And, artists, of course, have expressed concerns about the way in which manipulations of funding criteria can silence some forms of expression.

In terms of vocality, however, the field of force in anti-censorship has passed to the "right wing," broadly and generally understood. Here, the issue appears to be almost anarchistic: the right to say what one will about whomever regardless of consequences. Or, rather, that there should be no consequences for saying whatever about whomever. Free expression, in this sense, has been elevated to a penultimate principle that must be defended come-what-may because the alternative is so much worse: authoritarianism seem to lurk in the background.

Is this true? I argued, for example, that there was no good ethically justifiable reason to republish cartoons of Mohammed that were deeply offensive to Muslims. I'd argue the same thing (btw) with regard to Jesus. No great cause was advanced as there was already access to those cartoons and no serious political debate ensued. Michael Adams, for example, without offending anyone!, did more to advance reasoned consideration of diversity in Canada in Unlikely Utopia. If we perform a cost/benefit analysis, then, the cost (divisions within the country) was much greater than the benefits (nothing).

This issue highlights the dynamics of censorship today and, I think, points to some of the odd things going on with this debate, not the least of which is this: individuals with near unprecedented access to media -- and sometimes control over of the media itself -- are claiming that they are be censored. Does this ring true? How does a publisher or editor who can put out just about whatever they want claim they are being censored. Moreover, how can they do this and ignore other issues relating to censorship? For instance, how can a publisher or editor publish offensive cartoons but keep silent while the state cuts funding to its Court Challenge programme or manipulates arts funding or changes the mandate of Status of Women? One form or censorship -- a limit (even a reasonable one) on saying whatever one wants whenever one wants -- is supposedly horrible but another form -- impeding the exercise of due process of law, limiting the speech of those who advocate equality between citizens, or forcing film makers to conform to conservative moral standards -- is ignored as if it did not exist. One person, I concede, cannot do everything. There are limits to human stamina. But, surely, someone who sincerely opposed censorship would be concerned about state intrusions into expression. Which is the greater threat: the state or a small marginalized religious minority?

My cost/benefit analysis failed in one crucial respect. I failed to calculate the benefits on an individual level. I argued that publishing those cartoons had no redeeming cultural or political value. It advanced no cause and only created divisions within the country. What about on an individual level? The individual who chose to publish the cartoons did benefit in the form of public attention. People know his name (I know his name; I doubt very deeply that he has ever heard of me). In a media-oriented world, this type of publicity is not a bad thing for a person working in the media industry. I don't know if he performed a cost/benefit analysis of publishing the cartoons (although I suspect all those running a business do since ... that's how you run a business), but if he did the result would be something like this:

Costs = born by others (society at large in terms of divisions and religious minority)
Benefits == accrue to journalist through increased publicity.

Economists call this a "negative externality." It occurs when someone else has to bear the costs of our actions. For instance, suppose I pollute ... who pays the clean up coasts of my problem? I pay a bit through taxes but not all. Others -- future generations, the ecology -- pay more. In this sense, my polluting -- a seemingly irrational form of behaviour -- gains an economic logic because I am "getting something for nothing" (or, below market value) -- heat, transport, etc. -- and someone else is picking up at least part of the tab. Publishing offensive cartoons for no good reason that creates divisions and are offensive, gains an economic logic in the same way: the publisher (or editor, etc.) get something (publicity); others pay the costs.

Is this good for society? Should we even be concerned about society?

More next time.

Anti-Semitism and Honourary Degrees

2010-05-23T23:12:00.000-03:00

A last word on Heather Reisman's honouary degree from Mount Allison. OK, more than one word ....

First, a student drew my attention to a National Post blog in which Mount Allison's faculty were called "loopy" for having concerns about international affairs. That is a simplification but only baring. Basically, the Post blog attempted to mock the concerns of Mount A faculty and did describe them as loopy. Too bad. One would have hoped for better from a journalist/blogger working for the Post. In particular, one would have hoped that he would have engaged the issues or even been informed about them. I was at the debate in Senate, btw, and there was nothing loopy about it. The issues under consideration were serious and, frankly, they should be. Public dialogue on controversial issues is obviously not advanced by calling people names.

Second, I'm not certain she said this but here Reisman suggests some level of anti-semitism may have been at work on the actions of faculty and others who opposed awarding her an honourary degree. Actually, the quote is "borders on." I will confess I am not certain what this means. Can one be a little bit anti-semitic? Again, what is odd, is that Reisman calls for dialogue and then -- if true -- makes a statement like this. She accuses her opponents of being uninformed and yet she appears to be -- if she said this -- woefully uninformed. She was not at the debate in at the university Senate and seems not to have bothered to inform herself about some of the key figures involved. In a previous post, I note my disagreements with those who would have taken back Reisman's honouary degree. Let me state, though, that they are upstanding people. I know Wayne Hunt and David Thomas (two people quoted in the news story) personally. They are good, kind, and honest men. To accuse them of behaviour bordering on racism because they have concerns about an honourary degree recipient is, frankly, a mark of remarkable ignorance.

Heather Reisman

2010-05-13T22:42:00.000-03:00

Mount Allison University is according an honourary degree to Heather Reisman, head of Chapters-Indigo and key supporter of “lone soldiers” in Israel. This decision has come under some criticism, not the least of which is coming from faculty and students. As a member of the University’s Senate, I felt I would be called upon to go on record as to where I stood on this issue. Those opposed to the honourary degree link Ms. Reisman to policies of the Israeli government, particularly with regard to assaults on Palestinian civilians in Gaza. There is a petition that asks Mount A to recind this honourary degree (or, not grant it) or, in lieu of that, asks Senate to express regret over the decision to accord the degree in the first place.

Frankly, I found this one tough and still could be convinced by a good argument either way. Having had a bit of time to think about it, now, the conclusion I draw is that I need more information. In my last post, I attempted to generate support for my position by flipping the argument around. In effect, I argued like this: you say X but what if X were different. Would you still agree with the principle you’ve staked out (in this case, I was asking Christians if they would support religious freedom if that freedom were used to deny equality to Christians in Canada).

Initially, I was against the honourary degree for Ms. Reisman, largely out of my rejection of Israel’s policy with regard to the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel’s willingness to accept a large civilian death toll among Palestinians and Lebanese in his quest to respond to Hamas and other groups. But ... is it fair to tar Ms. Reisman with this brush. The short answer is “maybe” but I don’t know. The connection is a philanthropic organization that she set up in Israel for “lone soldiers”: non-Israeli Jews serving in the IDF who elect to remain in Israel after their tour. Is that enough of a connection to reject an honourary degree that has already been approved by the University’s Senate.

In thinking this matter over tonight I was not at all sure. I still know precious little about Ms. Reisman. The fact that she wants to support the integration of soldiers into a civilian population may, in itself, not be a bad thing at all. Flipping the matter around, I wondered: how would I respond to a person who set up an organization to help Palestinians reintegrate into civilian life after they had been members of a military organization? My politics would lead me to support that person (as I suppose self-determination for Palestine). So ... the difference between my hypothetical supporter of Palestinians and Ms. Reisman is political perspective. The question, then, is do I trust my political perspective enough to over-ride a decision made through the proper channels (originally). Perhaps the people in charge of those proper channels erred. Perhaps the Mount A Senate (again, I am a member) erred. But, I don’t know that.

Those who want to rescind the honourary degree are honest, upstanding and good people. Like them I oppose the actions of Israel in the Palestinian territories. That is, I will confess, easy to do because those actions have been pretty horrific. Should Ms. Reisman be held to account for the action of a foreign government because she is interested in the integration of soldiers into civilian life?

Can You Deny Others Rights if You Believe in God?

2010-05-13T22:22:00.002-03:00

This story is disturbing:

Saskatchewan Rights Case

Again, the reporting might be inaccurate, but if it is not, the basic premise is odd. According to the story a public official is arguing he has the right to deny a marriage to a couple if he believes marrying them contravenes his religious beliefs. I blogged on this before (years ago) and I see no reason to alter my views. I’ll recap my points:

1. Religious freedom is the right to practice your own religion; not to impose it on others. For instance, a church can pick and choose who is allowed to be married in that church. They cannot impose their will on other churches or the state. Doing so contravenes others religious freedom. It is an odd definition of freedom that defines it as the right to deprive others of freedom.

2. The issue here is this: should public officials -- whose salaries are paid for by the taxpayers have the right to deny service to those taxpayers services because of their personal convictions, however deeply held? I argued “no.” There may be means cases that test this theory and write in if you know one, but in general, I find the idea worrying that a public official can deny a service on the basis of their personal beliefs.

Consider a counter example: imagine this official was Jewish and decided that their religious freedom allowed them to deny marriage to non-Jews. We would not be having this ... well ... it is a court case, not a conversation so ... we would not be having this court case. The issue before us, then, is whether a particular group of people can deny others rights -- affirmed by the constitution and in court decisions and supported by the majority of Canadians, btw -- because they believe strongly in X, Y, or Z.

I argue no and I argue that if we open this up and permit this type of action, we are opening up a can of worms. Public servants are supposed to be ... public servants.

Taxes and Forgetting

2010-04-23T14:34:00.004-03:00

The Fraser Institute published a report indicating that 41% of household income goes in taxes. There is, of course, no surprise here. I tell my students to avoid using Fraser Institute reports as sources because you will know what they say before you read it. Their results, in other words, are pre-determined and this makes for shoddy scholarship. I wish it didn’t. I wish there were some serous conservative scholarship out there. I wish the Fraser Institute would take on this role. Instead, it has elected to use its appreciable financial resources to, in effect, provide ideological fodder for free market reform. Too bad: an opportunity has been wasted.

This discussion of taxes is no different. The implication is clear: Canadians pay too much taxes. Do they? The number seems big and one suspect that the journalists writing the stories use it to startle readers. The problem, of course, is that economists don’t calculate value on the basis of income. It is too superficial.

That might sound counter intuitive but bear with me for a second. If you can’t use income to calculate ... well ... how much a person makes or how well they live, what can you use. The calculations are complex, but one way to get into them is to ask how much one would have to pay for things if they were not paying taxes. If tax dollars give you good value for your money -- say, better value then you might get on the free market -- higher taxes can actually increase one’s standard of living. Again, I know this sounds odd.

Think about it like this: sometimes by pooling our money and buying things en mass we can get a really good deal. Everyone knows this. Minor sports associations, for example, usually buy all their jerseys at once because they can get a better deal if they by 12 sets of jerseys at once then if they buy 12 sets one at a time. They work together through the association to get a good deal, rather than leaving each team to its own devices. This is, in fact, one of the purposes of minor sports associations. It is easier and more cost efficient (which for minor sports means less of a drag on volunteers’ time) to register everyone at once rather than have team register their own players. We have group life insurance at work for the same reasons and big box stores like Cost Co work on this principle as well. They can get a better deal on ketchup buying by the barrel then buying it by the bottle and they can pass that saving along to the consumer.

Taxes work something like this for somethings. For instance, road construction, medical care, education, police protection, fire protection, water supply are all done as public services for this reason. How much would it cost you to put in your own sewer line? Medical care is a good example because we have a lot data on it and a ready point of comparison in the US. Canadians, by pooling their resources via taxes, eliminate redundant administration costs (the US system requires at lest two administrations: the hospital and the insurance company. In Canada these are combined meaning that there is less health care bureaucracy that needs to be support through fees) and realize a saving. Moreover, because there are no private companies making a profit (say, in the form of private hospitals), the profit that would have been siphoned off in fees is not. Hence, Canadian health care is somewhere between 25% and 35% cheaper overall then US health care.

Now, pay attention to this example. You have to pay for health care. There is no way around that because doctors will not work for free, nor will nurses, nor will the janitors that clean the floors, etc. Canadian health care is not free. Canadians pay for it through taxes. We just pay less. The average Canadian -- when we calculate this against what goes on in the US -- then saves money because of their health system and taxes. Moreover, the principles involved in this saving are simple and readily recognizable to anyone who has had to pay the bills. The final calculations to make these determinations might be complicated but the principles aren’t. If you lived in the US you’d have lower taxes but would have to pay more -- a considerable amount more -- for your health care.

When people tell you that your taxes are too high, they neglect to tell you that lowering them is going to cost you something. They neglect to tell you that you will be out of pocket for health care, that there will be more toll roads, that there will be extra school feels, that you will have to pay library charges, that you won’t be able to retire because there is no pension, that you will have to pay much larger water and sewer fees, etc. Take a look at the Human Development Index rankings. You can get them here: HDI. What do you notice about the top ten countries? They all realize economies of scale through their tax systems to provide services to their citizens at a lower rate then they could get them on the free market.

The good news about the Fraser report on taxes is that just about everyone seems to have ignored it. Perhaps, that means that you already knew what I wrote above. If that’s the case ... well ... at least you didn’t waste a lot of time reading it.

Idiocy Run Loose

2010-04-15T21:04:00.002-03:00

OK, I admit it, the Conservatives may be in trouble. The combination of problems with the transfer of detainees in Afghanistan and certain former Conservatives married to cabinet ministers who did ... well ... something (Harper won’t tell us what but it was bad enough to kick said minister from caucus) looks like it could cause some problems for the government. In this situation, in the “real world of politics” we would expect the government to do something to shore up its base. And, just days after I told my students that there was no way on earth the Conservatives would touch the abortion issue, it looks like they are going to touch it. It is a private members bill, to be sure, but one that looks intentionally designed to try to make the opposition Liberals look bad. The bill prohibits using coercion to force a woman to have an abortion against her will.

The Globe has a good take on it: Aborition Non-Abortion

One can have a range of different views on this bill. My take is that it is the worst type of politicking I’ve seen in some time. Why? Well, the bill is absolutely meaningless. The most meaningless passage in it is the following. The bill -- if it became a low -- would make it illegal for someone to break the law. Yep, you read right. It is not a typo. This proposed bill would make it illegal to break the law. If you vote for it, you are, in effect, saying that it is a crime to break the law. Hmmm ... I know the Conservatives want to find some way to tag the Liberals a good one after a bad week but is this not just a bit over the top?

Free Speech Follow Up

2010-03-26T09:12:00.001-03:00

For those concerned about Anne Coulter (see previous blog entry), here is another one. A real test of those who argue that Coulter's right to free speech was violated is whether or not they will ride to the rescue of David Frum:

Frum Fired (Globe and Mail news story)

How would I approach this issue. I might begin by saying the same thing as I said about Coulter: I don't really follow David Frum. There are some parallels, I think: we're dealing with private institutions, pundits, people who have access to the media, and unpopular views. In this case, the question -- it seems to me -- the question is whether or not the AEI violated their contract with Frum. The big difference, as you might imagine, is that we are dealing with a policy debate as opposed to someone who was insulting people on the basis of their religion. There might be a moral issue here, too: is the AEI a think tank or is it the propaganda arm of the Republican Party? If they legally removed Frum from his position, it seems to me that this is a question they need to answer.

Anne Coulter and Free Speech

2010-03-24T22:58:00.001-03:00

Were Anne Coulter's human rights violated when she her speech at the University of Ottawa was canceled? Some people might say this is a tough question, some people were outraged, but this is really not a tough question and not a matter to be outraged about. It is a question to which we should be reason. Several points:

1. I don't know much about Anne Coulter. I've seen her books in Chapters and the titles never held much appeal to me. I understand she's an American "political pundit" who supported Bush and bills herself as a conservative. Other than that, what I know about her is what I've seen in clips on TV over the years. Fact is this: for a Canadian there are just too many American pundits to pay attention to all of them. We've got enough in Canada; to be trying to follow the growth industry of American punditry is impossible since there appear to be no qualifications for the job.

2. I don't think Anne Coulter is a conservative. What I heard on the clips (and, who knows, these might have been jokes), was not conservatism. I know conservatives. I work with them, go to church with them, one of my grandfathers was a conservative. What she said was not conservatism. It was bigotry. Honesty in advertising: I'm not a conservative (if you're read this blog you know that). But conservatism is a legitimate philosophical and political perspective. I have a deep respect for the conservatives I know. They look at the world differently then I do. They believe in organic communities, support the weight of tradition versus individual reason, believe in a balances of estates (the traditional model of Parliament), rather then democracy, support local initiative rather than centralized government, are concerned about modernity (many conservatives I know would be called "backwards" because of their ambiguous views of technology and its affects on culture) and question the effects of commerce on culture. In church, they might hold to a slightly different theology then I. But, they are not bigots. They don't generalize about entire religions nor suggest that individuals should be banned from modes of transport simply because of their religion. Anne Coulter's self-billing, then, strikes me as a misnomer. I think it does a serious disservice to conservatism.

3. I can't help but feel that Anne Coulter's shtick is a put on. Does anyone other than a few dinosaur's really believe at least what she seemed to be saying on the clips on TV? My guess is that what she is looking for is cheap advertising to sell books. I don't fault her for that. I don't like the way she's going about doing it, but my guess is that she has made her piece with that a long time ago and decided that as long as she made some money from speaking engagements and selling books, she could live with the fact that a bunch of people won't like her. In other words, I doubt that she believes what she is saying. It might be a dangerous discourse (I'd need to know more before I could make a determination on that) and it might be all the worse for its contrived character but my best guess is that it is contrived.

Because of this, I'd suggest that no one get too worked up about it. If no one gets excited by her insulting Muslims, my guess is that she'll move on to the next thing to try to get a rise -- and the free advertising that goes with it -- out of people. IOW, I think that she got exactly what she wanted when her speech at the U of O was canceled. Far from being a defeat, I'd bet she sees this as a serious victory: she was able to trick a bunch of people into giving her headlines.

OK, those are the preliminaries. What about her human rights. It seems to me that this is the more important issue because of its wider implications. So, what human rights were violated. I can see two grounds on which one could argue that her human rights were violated. First, her ethnicity: and this is what she seemed to be hinting at in a news story when she asked if any Muslim was treated as poorly as she was. She seems to be suggesting that her speech was canceled owing to her religious or ethnic background. It wasn't. I've been to the U of O, know some faculty who teach there. All kinds of white Christian people speak there every day. I did (an academic paper on Canadian liberalism). I see no ground on which one could argue that the U of O limits the right of speech on the basis of religion or ethnicity. The empirical evidence doesn't seem to be there. Instead, it seems, her speech was canceled because it was viewed as incendiary. So, ground two: was her right to freedom of expression violated.

No. No one has stopped her from talking. Indeed, she seems to enjoy a remarkably high level of access to the press. She has a bunch of books on the shelves in Canadian bookstores. In other words, her ability to communicate her message has not been hampered. She just did not get to give a speech at one place. Does that constitute a limit on freedom of speech.

It can but it depends on the context. The University of Ottawa is a private institution. That means that the people who run that institution do get to make decisions about who can speak at it. This may sound odd but consider an analogy. Atlantic Baptist University is a private institution (like the University of Ottawa it accepts state money but it is a private institution). Imagine that someone decided it would be nifty to have me speak and asked me if I would come up and give a talk. Flattered, I agree. But, then the ABU administration looks into my views -- say, my support for equality of citizens regardless of their sexual orientation -- and cancels my talk. Does the ABU administration have a right do this?

Yes. Because ABU is a private institution. I have the right to my views, I have the right to publicize my views, I have the right associate with others who share my views, but I don't have a right to speak at ABU. Different case: does a church have the right to refuse to allow, say, an advocate of same sex marriage from speaking on that subject in Sunday morning. Could someone who supported same sex marriage just show up and demand to be given time during the sermon? They could not. My hypothetical church is a private institution with the right to control who can speak to it as a body. My hypothetical advocate of same-sex marriage has the right to their views and to publicize their views but they do not have the right to insist that a particular congregation listen to them on Sunday morning. The right to free speech is not a right that requires private institutions to accept any speaker who shows up and wants to say their piece. Private institutions -- say, a family in their own house -- have a right to control their own space as long as they do not violate the law. (It is obvious but just to write it down, one could not claim that one has a right to, say, organize a terrorist plot because one was in one's own home.)

This is an important principle, or so it seems to me. Do we want the state regulating private space. Do we want the government forcing the University of Ottawa to accept speakers that that institution does not want? Do we want the government forcing people to let speakers into their homes or their religious institutions? Oddly, this is the argument that someone who believes Anne Coulter has a case on free speech grounds is making. They are making a case for increased state regulation of private space in which those who own or control that space are not allowed to make decisions about it. I'd argue against this view and in defense of the right to private space -- provide laws are not being violated -- and argue that the state should intrude on it as little as possible (provided harm is not done in, which is pretty common sense but I thought I'd put it down just in case anyone mistakes what I'm saying).

Ah, someone might say, but the U of O contracted Anne Coulter. Doesn't that change things. No. I don't know who contracted Anne Coulter but if it were the U of O, the argument that one needs to make now is: they aren't allowed to change their mind. Again, think in terms of my analogy above. ABU has the right, I am arguing, to change its mind and cancel my talk. That might be disappointing to me but surely we want to extend the maximum level of control that we can within the bounds of the law to private institutions to control their own space. Changing one's mind can be upsetting to, in this case, me but surely people have the right to change their views. Imagine if we didn't! I'd have to believe what I believed when I was, say, 19. Learning would stop.

I do think Anne Coulter is owed something. If the University of Ottawa contracted her -- again, I don't know that they did -- they owe her the price of their contract. They can change their mind and cancel her talk but if that does not mean that they don't still have obligations. A contract is a legally binding agreement and from what I can tell Coulter was willing to fulfill her side of the deal. The U of O changed its mind and fair enough but one if one unilaterally changes one's mind one still owes the other party the amount agreed upon in that contract. If I contracted Bob to shovel my driveway for $10 and Bob showed up after a snowfall to do it, and can't say "sorry Bob, changed my mind, go home." Or, rather I can do that but because the contract is legally binding, I still owe him $10. Same principle applies. So, what is Anne Coulter owed: the terms of her contract. Beyond this, she doesn't have a case.

Hockey

2010-02-24T16:01:00.001-04:00

Let's shift away from contemporary political issues and back to a more Canadian Studies like topic: hockey. For some time now I have wondered exactly how hockey fits into, reflects, constructs, the Canadian experience, nationalism, culture. I know the standard lines, particularly from those who might consider themselves pro-hockey. Hockey is "Canada's game," "the frozen pond," etc., etc. I will confess that I have an immediate reaction against this image of hockey's relationship to Canada. After all, professional hockey is hardly Canadian, is it? Canadians are over-represented in professional hockey, to be sure, but there is no way to claim that Canadians dominate the game any more. In addition, a lot of Canadians, quite frankly, ignore the game. I have a small coterie of Leafs fans with whom I associate but my wife is, at best, indifferent; my son will pay attention to the game but Hockey Night in Canada is someone else's family ritual and not his. After all, he can watch a game any night of the week. Some of my coworkers are enthusiasts; others rent a action film or romantic comedy on Saturday night. In other words, there seems to be a great deal of variation in Canadians contemporary responses to hockey and I have no reason to believe that this variations is something that is historically new. If some patterns -- the massive infusion of Russians into the pro game -- are new, the pattern of mixed reactions likely is not.

What is more, I don't think we should believe the self-proclaimed defenders of hockey when they talk about hockey's importance. Asking a hockey fan if hockey is important is like asking a chef if a good meal is important, a new anchor if journalism is important. We know the answer is advance. If hockey is going to stand up to serious analysis, then, I think we need to look at impartial sources. I won't claim to be that source. And, I might say, impartiality is not the objective of this blog. But, let me throw a few ideas into the ring.

My argument is that hockey does indeed represent Canada but not because "Canadians love hockey" or "it is the only thing that provides unity." There are a number of things that promote national unity in Canada, to be sure. Hockey has no pride of place over things like, say, icons of nation (the maple leaf), social values (which are surprising consistent despite all the talk of regionalism), heritage, specific institutions (the Charter, multiculturalism, bilingualism). None of these, of course, is uncontroversial but, then, neither is hockey.

Hockey, then, represents Canada not because hockey is bread in the bone of Canadians but because hockey highlights the contradictions of contemporary Canadian culture. Let's look at a few of these contradictions:

1) hockey is both remarkably popular and ignored. Consider the Olympic Games a few years ago when it was widely reported that half of all Canadians watched the gold medal game between Canada and the US. Interesting, but have you paused to think about what this means from the other side: half of all Canadians decided *not* to watch a game billed as one of the most important hockey games in Canadian history. Despite all kind of options to tune in, half of the population chose to ignore the game.

2) hockey represents the purity of the outdoors life and childhood innocence and is a big business geared to commercialism and lace, in the discourse of some commentators, with violence and bigotry (particularly against foreign players but among some Anglos against French-speaking Canadians as well).

3) hockey is a hyper masculine sport whose enrollments at the minor level are being upheld only by the massive entry of girls into the game. In an odd sense, then, hockey has feminism to thank for its on-going popularity as a minor and amateur sport.

4) hockey is a violent sport and its discourse is violent ("rock 'em, sock 'em hockey), the co-national sport of a country that prides itself on peacekeeping. This violence of hockey, in this sense, sits unevenly next to Canadians self image as peacekeepers.

5) hockey emphasizes rural life (again, the "frozen pond") in a country that is one of the most urbanized countries going. How many Canadians, for instance, encounter a frozen pond that is not artificial as part of their daily life?

There may be others but those strikes me as some of the important considerations. Now, please note, I'm not making a statement one way or another here about the moral value of some of these things. What I am trying to do is make an argument about why we should study hockey -- even if we don't like it -- as part of Canadian Studies. My argument here is not that hockey is, in some deep essence kind of way, embedded in Canada's national psyche. I actually doubt there is such a thing as a national psyche. What I am saying is that hockey serves as a valuable prism through which to explore some of the contradictory dynamics of Canada.

Boys and Girls

2010-02-15T21:35:00.001-04:00

All the evidence we have before us indicates that girls are doing really well at post-secondary education. Boys ... not so well. Indeed, girls now outnumber boys at university and have pulled equal or outnumber boys -- we're now talking about men and women, really -- in non-traditional women's occupations like medicine and law. Some engineer schools also now have 50/50 enrollments. At Mount A, women outnumber men among the student body 60/40 and have for some time. All of this has a lot of people wondering if something is going on. Are boys being disadvantaged, particularly in secondary school? Is there are prejudice -- inadvertent to be sure -- against boys? Some of my colleagues seem to think the answer is yes.

I will confess that I am not so sure. Before addressing this issue, however, we need to get rid of some unhelpful arguments. The key one being a sort of: who cares? I've also heard people say "well, gee, even if this is true, so what? We don't have a lot of evidence right now and so why are people rushing to find prejudice against boys? These same people who -- rising to the defense of boys -- were silent about prejudice against girls, including on-going evidence of prejudices, like the gender gap in pay. How can we take their concerns seriously? Is this not really sexism by different means?"

This argument might be true or it might not be, but I don't think we should question anyone's motives. There can be all kinds of things wrong with what the self-appointed defenders of boys say, but I don't think anything is gained by calling them sexists by stealth. Are some of them sexist. Sure. But, some of of them are not. Some of them are honest people, parents, wondering about the future and their children. Let's grant them the legitimacy of their concerns. I'll be so bold as to say that as a parent, I share their concerns.

With this in mind, what we have is an issue that needs to be examined. We should not make assumptions about what the data say. We should be good social scientists and investigate it. And, if indeed, it does highlight a problem we should address it. I say this because we don't know yet whether or not there is a problem. The simple fact that there are more women in undergraduate degrees them men, does not mean that the secondary school system is sexist. Two other possibilities strike me as worth considering.

First, we need to look at why boys don't go to university. Are boys electing not to go to university for reasons we have not considered. The big one that I can think of off the top of my head is the labour market. In this sense, what might be happening is, in fact, the opposite of prejudice against boys. Academics like to assume that everyone wants to go to university but that just ain't true. Indeed, it just ain't true for the vast majority of Canadians. So, rather than imposing our conception of what people *must* want to do on them, we should look at why they actually make the decisions they make. Why might boys not want to go to university? Because they have a job that they can get that they want (say, that they find meaningful and economically viable for them) without a university degree. In other words, boys choose to go to university in lower numbers then girls because they can access the labour market more easily. Let's face facts: a lot of people go to university to improve their marketability. If one is already marketable (in a way that one wants), then why go to university? So, the first reason boys might chose not to go to university is because they can access the jobs they want in a higher ratio then girls.

Second, the flip side: girls go to university because they understand -- or, the parents that push them understand -- that they (girls) need this higher level of education in order to compete in the labour market. After all, we still live in a world that is dominated by men. Now, this domination is not what it was 20 years ago. Let us be clear on that. The feminist movement has made remarkable strides for women and good! The old boys network includes a lot of women now. The wage gap has not close the way a lot of us would like but it has closed and women are in a raft of non-traditional occupations. Indeed, there are so many women in some occupations that younger Canadians don't think of them as non-traditional any more. Still, there are gender inequalities that we can demonstrate empirically. It makes sense, then, that if these inequalities are there, people, on some level (either the students or their parents) realize this and push either themselves or their kids to attain a level of education that evens out an inequality. Again, if this were true, the problem is not prejudice against boys but lingering sexism.

I've provided no evidence to sustain these interpretations. They are hypotheses and, to be honest, I lack the math skills to test them. Heck, I'd be so bold as to say that my math skills are so bad that you don't want me testing these hypotheses. You want someone who can actually do it.

With this in mind, however, they strike me as reason and there is a bit of evidence to indicate that they might -- note: might -- have some validity to them. That evidence is that while academics and some journalists talk about prejudice against boys, parents and boys don't. Indeed, the concerns of academics seem to be almost irrelevant to the parents and boys I talk to. If there really were prejudice against boys, then we might expect more boys -- and their parents -- to be raising concerns about it. This is not hard and fast proof to be sure. It is just something that a non-math person can add to the checklist of evidence.

What we need now, then, is not more statements about prejudice. What we need is two things: (1) someone to test these hypotheses (bearing in mind that decisions can be overtly made and made on the basis of feelings and suppositions as well), and (2) an assessment of the entire system. Academics need to stop assuming that what they think is right is right and need to start looking at how students in the system make decisions. For example, not everyone will work to get an A in a course. We might like everyone to do that but they don't. Instead, a student who does not intend to go to university but instead intends to go right into the labour market might be happy with a lower grade. They might even enjoy school. Their priorities would just be different from a student who is intending to go to university.

I think, when we understand these things, we will be in a much better position to know if there is a prejudice against boys.

Democracy and Judicial Review

2010-02-12T10:53:00.001-04:00

The strongest opponents of judicial review in Canada have been quiet in recent years. I'm not 100% sure why. Perhaps it is become opposition to judicial review has been a conservative political perspective in Canada and we have a Conservative government in power federally so a bit of self censorship is going on. Perhaps the point has been made and those who articulated their opposition to it feel there is no reason to make the point any further. Perhaps, the opponents feel that they have "won the day" and have managed to cow the Supreme Court into a more quiet role in Canadian public life. I don't know. What I do know is that there has been very little serious and good discussion about the role of judicial review in a democracy. Its opponents used to be all over the airwaves; those who defended judicial review tended to be a bit more quiet or to make not particularly good arguments in its defense. Maybe it is time for a quiet rehash of judicial review and its relationship to democracy in
Canada.

The opponents of judicial review argue that it is wrong because the courts should not be involved in policy decisions. Judges, they say, should interpret and not make the law. Law should be left -- particularly important matters of public policy -- to the elected representatives of the people: the legislature. Ub theory this is not a bad argument. In practice, it is a mess. For those of you who would defend its theory, remember, Leninism looked good in theory! What is wrong with this argument.

1) Judges do interpret the law. The opponents of judicial review simply don't like the interpretations and so call it something else. In other words, they play a naming game. A ruling the opponents like is "an interpretation"; an ruling they don't becomes "making public policy." Yet, this is the same court -- in both instances -- applying the same rules and the same procedures. The only difference is the decision. No court says "we are out to make policy." So, from the beginning the opponents of judicial review are on weak ground. They are picking and choosing to call the regular processes of the court by a different name when they don't like the results. In this sense, criticism of judicial review appears to be politically motivated -- as opposed to motivated by principle -- and relies on shifting semantics ("interpreting" when they like the decision; "making policy" when they don't) to disguise an inconsistency in their own logic.

2) Opponents of judicial review often claim that the courts are out of step with society and that this is wrong. Yet, if we think about it for a minute, this point contradicts the first point (above) about interpreting law. According to the opponents of judicial review, judges should impartially interpret the law. Fair enough, but then they turn around and contradict themselves and say "judges should be in step with society." What do you want? An interpretation or a rubber stamping of existing social views without recourse to interpretation of law? Is it possible that an interpretation of law could be socially unpopular? Sure is: desegregation rulings were unpopular in the US south. Should the courts not have made those ruling and left -- and unconstitutional! -- racism in place? According to the opponents of judicial review, this is exactly what they should have done. Regardless of the rights accorded under the US Bill of Rights, the opponents of judicial review argue (or, rather this is their logic), that American courts should have ignored the Bill of Rights and made an interpretation in keeping with social views and upholding racism. In my view, this is not just a contradiction of their first point but some pretty freighening stuff for anyone who opposes racism.

3) But, I'm not at all certain that the courts -- in exercising judicial review -- are out of step with society. Consider, first of all, that Canadian trust judges a lot more then they trust politicians. So, in other words, Canadians say that their own politicians are not a good representation of their views and that they have more confidence in judges to make the right decision. Consider, secondly, that Canadians support individual rights protected by the courts. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is wildly popular with Canadians. Third, consider concrete examples of rights protections that the opponents of judicial review cite as examples of bad decisions: equality rights for gay and lesbian Canadians. But, the majority of Canadians actually support these rights. In this instance, then, the opponents of judicial review got what they wanted: a court that took account of social views. The decision was, interestingly, one they opposed but, by their own logic, they should, in fact, have supported it!

4) The operation of judicial review in Canada is usually misconstrued by its opponents. You hear/read a lot of talk about courts acting rashly and "striking down" laws. That doesn't happen in Canada. It just doesn't happen. Don't believe me. Well, that is fair enough. Go check the record yourself. Let's use the same example: marriage law. At the time that the equality of gay and lesbian Canadians was recognized, I heard/read a lot of discussion of the striking down of the Marriage Act. Never happened. Go check; the act is still in place. It was not struck down (whatever that actually means) at all. Striking a law is, in fact, a very, very rare remedy in Canada and, historically, has been reserved for disputes over jurisdiction between the federal and provincial governments, which is another matter entirely. Instead, usually courts change only a few words in a law. For example, in the Marriage Act, court involvement consisted of changing a few words. The opponents of judicial review, then, over-estimate the level of court involvement and by a very serious margin. It is actually far more limited in terms of actual change to actual laws then one might think.

5) But is it rash? Again, there has been a lot of mis-reporting on this matter. Canadian courts, in fact, are the opposite of rash. They give political leaders lots of warning about what is going on. In the case of the Marriage Act -- again to use a concrete example that is often wrong described as a rash act by the courts -- provincial supreme courts in Canada served notice on the federal government on at least two occasions that the federal Marriage Act contravened the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The federal government had, in fact, two years to respond. Only when the federal government failed to respond after two years did a provincial supreme court take the step I noted in point four above. Now, you tell me: is that rash. If I gave you two years notice of a problem and you refused to fix the problem, would you think I'm rash for fixing it, in a very minimal way, myself? You might not like how I fixed it but remember: (a) you did nothing and (b) I really can't imagine anyone saying I acted rashly with that time line.

6) OK, but its not democratic. After all, courts are not elected. This is right and this is point that deserves some serious discussion. That discussion, I think, needs to include a consideration of the importance of "rights." Are rights depended on democratic sanction? If so, then let's stop calling them rights. Rights are things you and I and everyone else enjoy regardless of what the majority thinks. I have a right to life, regardless of whether or not the majority of the population thinks I merit life. I like that, by the way and I'll bet you do too, but remember, I'm not the one opposing it. The opponents of judicial review are. I believe in the right to life, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, due process of law, security of the person. I'm not the one saying that these can be taken away by the majority, that they are not rights. Again, the opponents of judicial review may not like to admit this, but this the logic of their argument: rights don't exist and are subject to majority vote. Hence, in their view, life, security of person, due process of law, free speech, etc., don't exist -- or should not exist -- in Canada. If the majority chose to deprive, let's say, blond people of their lives; the courts should not intervene to "make policy."

I suppose you are starting to see why I think the opponents of judicial review are on really really weak grounds. In fact, their arguments are very poorly thought out and dangerous. They are based on misunderstandings of judicial review (indeed, they just get things wrong -- and I believe in right and wrong, by the way), logical contradictions, and principles that would uphold racism or worse! There is more that could be said but let's stop there to avoid overkill.

I don't think the opponents of judicial review are, by the way, racist. The fact that the logic of their argument can be used for racist purposes, does not make them racist. It just means they have a bad argument and should rethink it. I trust that, if they are logical and well meaning, they will.

Political Genius?

2010-02-04T06:55:00.002-04:00

Far too much has been made of Harper's supposed political genius. This might not have a lot to do with Canadian public life. Indeed, I think that most public discourses places far too much emphasis on the degree to which party leaders make decisions themselves. It does happen, but everything that I've read suggest that the norm is something else. It suggests that leaders consult with advisors, the cabinet, key members of the civil service, caucus, pollsters, foreign leaders, heck all matter of people before arriving at a decision. In this sense, the Conservative's decision to go for a majority government last time round, bringing down their own minority government, was not Harper's alone. There are a lot of people who can be blamed for it.

I mention this because in retrospect, it seems like a very bad decision. The goal was to gain a secure hold on government with what I think Conservatives thought would be a majority, a slim one perhaps but a majority none-the-less. Heck knows they have worked hard enough for it. And, of course, they are still at it. Harper has been on non-stop foreign tours, they ditched their own economic philosophies in the face a recession and started dolling out money right, left, and centre; cut taxes; subsidized stay-at-home parents; pulled just about every political trick anyone could think of -- proroguing Parliament, violating their own election laws, attempting to cut finding to opposition parties -- are in permanent campaign mode with a loaded "war chest" that allows them to blanket media in a way that other parties can't. They've even sent out flyers on the public tab.

Now, I am not blaming the Conservatives for this nor am I saying that they are any worse than any other political party. I've noted before that I think their political philosophy has problem and I think their electoral strategies -- which appeared modeled on the American Republican Party -- are intensely problematic. I would argue that they have moved politics to a different level, but politics is, after all, politics and we would be naive to believe that a political party would not take advantage of opportunities to defeat their opponents and maintain themselves in power.

And ... opportunities the Conservatives have had. They got lucky in that Paul Martin staged a coup inside the Liberal Party, deeply dividing it and just about killing a large chunk of its organizational structure. In other words, the civil war in the Liberal Party did not divide the Party the way the Progressive Conservatives fractured in the last years of the Mulroney government, but it did seriously hamper the ability of the Party -- and the desire of the Chretien wing of the Party -- to fight an election. Add to this, Martin's lack of vision; media that had become intensely hostile to the Liberal Party, an ineffective successor who few in the Liberal Party wanted; further disaffection; the collapse and discrediting of the Quebec wing of the Party; the collapse of the Party's funding; a revitalized NDP and a vibrant if ineffective Green Party siphoning votes away from the Liberals on the soft left; and policies that Canadians neither understood nor seemed, at least at the time, to want. Moreover, the Conservatives had the benefit of balanced budgets. They did not need to prudent -- at least in the short run! They could cut taxes and increase spending.

Put all this together and our understanding of the last two Conservative victories requires no interpretation at all. The character of the opposition parties virtually handed the Conservatives an election victory. Now, again, this is not anything to blame the Conservatives for. If we were in class, we'd analyse the election results to determine exactly how popular the Conservatives (or, their policies) really were. We're not so I won't. What I will say is that Conservatives found themselves in a situation that was similar to -- not the same as but similar to -- the Liberals in 1993. The Chretien Liberals won 1993 almost by default. There were other reasons, of course, but one big reason was that they took advantage of a fortuitous situation. And, they were able to parlay this luck into a series of election victories.

Here is where political genius might enter into our discussion. The Conservatives have not been able to do this. It was genius or calculation or strategy that helped the Conservatives into power. Strategy might have played a role but, in retrospect, the Conservatives were handed a golden opportunity. They took it ... but, so far at least, have not done very much with it. Let me pick just one example to illustrate my point. Again, the situations are different so my example is a bit forced by in 1993 the Liberals entered office with a defined economic plan. One might like it; one might dislike it. But, they had a plan and they stuck to it. The Conservatives entered office with an economic plan -- return the Canadian economy to a more free market basis -- but abandoned it quickly. They introduced meaningless tax cuts that served only to impoverish the capacity of the state, unleashed a dramatic increase in state spending, and, when the going got tough, tried to ignore world economic problems -- I'm actually not convinced that they ignored the problem; I think they actually may not have understood the magnitude of the problem -- and then abandoned their own economic plans completely. Now, Harper says (and, I believe him) that the Conservative government will consult with Canadians to determine in what direction they should move. This sounds to me a lot like they are unsure themselves. Ultimately, the Conservatives lack of faith in their own economic platform and their quick grafting of another platform onto theirs has created problems for them. They appear indifferent to problems and then unable to provide the resources they said were "in the tube" for stimulus. They have driven up a huge debt, with their numbers changing almost monthly and have declared that they don't have much of an idea about how to proceed from here.

This is not political genius. Political genius is the ability to determine policies in advance, ensure that those policies have some effect (or, that they work) and then stick to them. Political genius is the ability to take advantage of the opportunities with which you are presented. And this, the Conservative government has not done.

Six Years Later +

2010-01-28T20:45:00.002-04:00

It has been over six years since the same-sex marriage debated heated up in Canada with the federal governments decision to not contest lower court decisions that, in effect, legalized same-sex marriage in Canada. At the time the debate was a lot of light and sound, but did it produce any heat? What have been the longer term effects? We actually know several things with hindsight and time and it might be worth thinking about these.

First, we know the world did not collapse and civilization did not fall. Those opponents of same sex marriage who argued that accepting the equality of gay people put Canada on the slippery slope to accepting polygamy (or, worse!) might still argue that this could happen but -- from a strictly empirical point of view -- it seems increasingly unlikely. And, they would need to address the fact that families have not fallen to tatters and society has not slipped into chaos. The "recognizing the equality of gay people will lead to the end of civilization" was always fantasy, but with the passage of six+ years the weight evidence mounts with each passing day against this position. Indeed, society now looks a lot like it did ... well seven or eight years ago.

Second, we know that the predicted assault on churches did not occur. Many people I know argued that churches were going to be forced to marry same sex couples regardless of their spiritual views and that this was an abrogation of freedom of conscience guarantees in the Charter. This, too, did not happen.

Third, we know that some really, really bad ideas -- such former NB Premier Lord's plan to permit civil servants to refuse to be involved with same-sex marriages or the registration of the same -- were quietly ditched, likely for the really bad ideas that they were. I blogged on this at the and my view hasn't changed: civil servants should not have the power to refuse services to tax-paying citizens on the basis of the civil servant's personal value structure. I'm a teacher in an institution heavily supported by the state. It is not quite the same thing but close enough for a comparison. What would anyone think if I decided I would not teach non-Christians? The response would be "these people pay you, either through their tax dollars or directly through tuition, you signed a contract, get off your butt and do your job and if you can't do your job, you will have to resign." This is the right response and, on this one, reason shone through.

Fourth, I'll speculate a bit: we might now also know that this issue is not the earth-shattering issue that it was built up to be. It is important and I don't mean to slight in any way, anyone's personal experiences. If this change in law allowed someone to spend their lives in a legal marriage with their true love, well that is an earth-shattering experience for them and I wish them only the best. But, outside of those people directly affected, I am not convinced that this issue resonates with the wider public. Most Canadians are for equality and there is resonance in that sense but I wonder if this is an issue that can inspire passionate debate any more? The fact that Stephen Harper's government has let the issue quietly fall off the table suggests that his party feels there is little to be gained by re-hashing it and that the majority of middle Canada is content with things as they are.

Finally, noting the above, I might say with the exception of a small minority of ardent oppositionists. I don't think these people will go away, but they might have an effect politically. Power is an interesting thing. It will, for instance, keep people quiet. While in power the ardent oppositionists -- who congregate in the Conservative Party -- seem willing to voice their concerns in caucus and organize within the party. Yet, if the Conservative Party will not move in their direction -- OK, it might make a few "pro family" statements -- will they stay in the Conservative Party or move back outside it. After all, the Conservative Party is a political party. It will -- as I suggested before -- likely not intentionally do things that will cause it to lose elections. What this means for same sex marriage is: ignore the issue, let the combined opposition members vote it down when it comes up as a private members bill, and ask the oppositionists to keep themselves quiet with the promise that they will have a greater chance of getting their way if the Conservatives can win a majority. How long will extremists within the Party stay there, particularly if they cannot influence policy?

Six+ years after the legalization of same-sex marriage, we can conclude a few things that should help us address this issue from a reasoned and evidence-based perspective if this issue comes up again. The great lesson of the last six years, however, is that I expect it will not.

Proroguing Parliament: The Message

2010-01-17T20:49:00.002-04:00

Is proroguing Parliament undemocratic? Depends on how you look it. It is unusual but also a prerogative of a Prime Minister. In other words, it is not outside the rules by which the Canadian parliamentary system functions. On the other hand, the Parliamentary system is not static. To use a procedural trick -- a technicality, let's call it -- to avoid facing the music is something that is clearly of questionable ethics. Even if proroguing is a prerogative of a PM, it is not clear that Canadians believe such technicalities should be used to cut of legislative discussion of important issues.

There is a more important issue here, however, and it is this: I don't think Harper is lying. I don't think he is trying to avoid Parliament. That might be a side benefit and some of his ministers and MPs might be happy to have a chance to recover from the shell shock of some recent problems, but I think he's telling the truth when he says that he wants to test the pulse of the country. I think he is being completely honest when he says that he wants to figure out what Canadians think before bringing in new economic policies. And, this, is the problem.

Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament is a sign of the problems with Canadian democracy not because he is shutting off debate. That debate will continue in the news, in speeches, in door-to-door campaigning, in blogs, etc. (I'm not saying these are a substitute for a legislature!) Instead, this is a sign of the demise of democracy in the sense that it indicates that Harper intends to "govern by polls." In some ways, this should not be surprising. He and others have already suspended, for reasons of political convenience, key elements of conservative ideology. Why not go the next step and not even bother to put your ideas "out there" to see how Canadians respond. Why not go and find out what Canadians want and then give that to them?

I see this as a sign of democracy because it displaces serious public debate on important issues not by proroguing but by abandoning one's perspective and turning one's party, as it were, into political mercenaries. Conservatives long said that they were unfairly demonized by liberals. They were not scary. That's wrong. They were scary to a lot of us. They rejected equality, believed in a free market system that ... ahem, seems to be having some serious empirical problems, opposed bilingualism, rejected the idea of a national polity (remember the "firewall"?), opposed gun control, rejected the idea that women should control their bodies, wanted to dramatically lower immigration, wanted Canada to be fighting in Iraq, supported Bush, Jr's Star Wars II missile shield, and argued for a two tier health care system. This is scary stuff and, with some exceptions, they have moved away from most of these ideas or let them drop into the past or left them to private members to raise.

Now, you can tell by the way I have phrased these comments that I'm no C/conservative. I believe in equality, support bilingualism, was glad Canada did not involve itself in Iraq or in the missile shield. I support gun control and believe women should control their bodies. I'm pro-diversity and pro-immigration and think socialized medicine is wonderful. What I want, however, is democratic discussion of these issues and that requires someone to carry them forward. The most logical people to do that are the people that believe in them: conservatives. After all, if you rely on me to play Devil's advocate and argue against gun control for the sake of having a discussion about it, I won't do a very good job.

Proroguing Parliament indicates clearly that the Harper government has extended its "party for hire" approach to politics into the economic sphere. They'll spin Canadian views in the way that is closest to their believes, to be sure, but what Party doesn't? What they are telling us, however, is something other than spin. What they are telling us is that they don't want to put their own ideas on the table because Canadians might reject them and they could lose power so they are just not going to do that. I guess I can't blame them for this. Having power must be awfully appealing. It is, however, a missed opportunity for Canadians to consider their future.

Polls and Conservatism

2010-01-15T15:32:00.002-04:00

I spend a great deal of time speculating about Canadian liberalism. This is not out of any love of it, but out of an acknowledgment of its importance to Canada, particularly Canadian historical development. I spend less time speculating about conservatism because ... well, while conservatism is there, it has simply been less influential over the last century or so. There is no doubt that conservatism was vital to Confederation and the first generation of the Dominion of Canada and some of its legacies live on, say in the unelected Senate. My general take in scattered blogs is that Canadian conservatives are not really very conservative. They are fractured, divided group, some of whom are liberals who don't like specific elements of liberalism, some are honest-to-God conservatives (we might call these "red Tories"), others are populists who drifted into the Conservative party, others are refugees from old third parties (Reform, Social Credit) or connected to new ones (Wild Rose). Others hold strong religious views and still others -- a decided minority I think -- are bigots of various sorts (whom Conservative politicians try periodically to drive out of their party).

The latest polls are getting a lot of press because they show a free fall for the Conservative party. Various pundits have been quick to lay the blame at the feet of Stephen Harper with his odd penchant for proroguing Parliament; the dug and run, shoot the messenger on horrific news from Afghanistan, and the slower than hoped for recovery of the Canadian economy. Harper clearly deserves some of this blame. I personally think his government should be criticized for other reasons as well. But, we might ask: does this decline in the polls suggest that these events are having an effect on Canadian voting intentions? And, what does it matter?

One strategy to defeat a party in power is build up a bunch of different criticisms of it. This has been the strategy that the Liberals (and BQ and NDP) have taken with the CPC. We might call it the "death by a thousand cuts" approach to political transition. Go after everything, hold hearings to try to find more bad stuff lurking in closets, and grab every piece of potentially bad news in order to build up a long list of problems. The idea here seems to be that one of two things will happen. An increasing number of Canadians will conclude that this government is no good because it has done so many things wrong and vote for one of the opposition parties. Or, an increasing number of Canadians will conclude that this government is no good because one issue or another will appeal to them. It need not be the same issue for different people. If you can get some people upset at the treatment of POWs in Afghanistan and some people upset at economic management, and some people upset at anti-democratic practices then, together, you have a whole bunch of people upset.

Public commentators -- pundits -- often miss this strategy because they are so myopic. They focus on one issue at a time, rather than their cumulative effect. What is important to note here, however, is that for opposition parties, this is a long-run strategy, at least in terms of the way politics is practiced today. The goal is not to slam dunk over Harper's head, but take a lot of shots from the perimeter and play to win the game rather than get one highlight-of-the-night basket.

These same commentators, because they miss the point of this oppositional political strategy, also misinterpret polls. They suggest that CPC problems relate to immediate issues. In part they do but not in completely. The problems with the declining popularity of the Conservative government relates, in a large measure, to the fact that Canadians are not a particularly conservative people (prudent and believing in tradition are not the same as conservative. I like to think of myself as a prudent individual, for example. I try to budget carefully, check my kids homework, etc. I also like tradition. I my workplace and at my church I often argue to keep certain practices because they are traditions, even if those practices are not particularly useful). And, those Canadians who are conservative and fractured and divided. One can be a fiscal conservative, for instance (Paul Martin was as Finance Minister!) and reject social or cultural conservativism. This makes the CPC inherently unstable and its voting base has a lack of solidity. The election of the Harper government, I'd argue, did not represent an ideological or philosophical turn on the part of Canadians. Indeed, you'll recall that Harper expressly campaigned against this idea. He quieted social and cultural conservatives in his party and argued that the election was about "good government" not "ideology."

There are conservatives voting for the CPC and they will continue to do so. But, if Harper's election owes more to the implosion of the Liberal Party and to Canadians believing his good government message, then these recent polls need to be interpreted with care. They suggest that the issue for Canadians will continue to be good government and whether or not Harper can convince Canadians that he is the person to provide it, as opposed to whether or not this or that policy will shock or win the approval of Canadians. In other words, what the recent polls indicate is that to continue to government, Harper will have to continue to behave like a moderate and not a conservative. He'll need to avoid controversial issues, stall democratic fora, appeal to Canadians pocket books (even if that might not be the right policy decision), and keep his cabinet looking young and fresh. He'll also, I imagine, continue to sanction Karl Rovesque tactics in terms of attacking other parties.

From this longer run, perspective, then, there is nothing in the polls -- and this is the point I really want to make -- that spells danger for the Harper government. Parliament is prorogued, Canadians are not convinced that he cannot provide good government, and none of the opposition parties has much in the way of traction. There is nothing to be excited about, either, however, because they indicate that the factors that might spell longer run conservative dominance of Canada -- a return to the immediately post-Confederation era? -- are not in place. The conservatives have abandoned conservative ideology and become a collection of different groups opposing liberalism from the right.

Having Your Power

2010-01-10T17:04:00.002-04:00

The sale of NB Power to Hydro Quebec is controversial (in NB) for all the wrong reasons. First, no one who supports capitalism has any reason to be upset at this. I am not trying to make an ideological statement here or win cheap political points for the left. I'm trying to state a fact. Regardless of whether NB Power is a public utility or a private company this is what happens in a capitalist economy: larger companies buy up smaller companies. That is "the nature of the beast": to not like it is to not like capitalism. Second, I might be really wrong in this but I can't help but think that there is some anti-Quebec feelings mixed into this equation. I hope not, but I wonder if we'd get the same type of reaction if the company looking to by NB Power was from Ontario? (A quick footnote, I think we'd get even more negative reaction if the company was American.)

What people should be concerned about is the rationale for this purchase. The NB government wants to sell NB Power because it is loaded with debt and mired in an antiquated pollution making stock. The debt is the big issue. Hydro Quebec will, in effect, absorb something like 25 or 30 per cent of the provincial debt. With the deficit skyrocketing, the provincial government was looking for ways to shed debt. This will allow them to go to the electorate with an economic platform that will not increase taxes and will keep debt servicing charges (interest) lower than historic levels even with increased deficits. In the intermediate run it will make it easier to balance the provincial books and allow this government to claim that they are good financial managers. This sale, in other words, creates financial space for Graham government and that is its main rationale.

Here is the issue: why is NB Power loaded with debt? The answer is also pretty simple: New Brunswickers have not wanted to pay the full cost of their power. Here is the problem: if you don't pay the full cost, the price of power doesn't magically sink. Someone else has to pay that cost and that someone else, in the case of a provincial crown corporation is the taxpayers or ... exactly the same group of New Brunswickers who don't want to pay the full cost of power. In order to keep power costs low for political reasons, the NB government (both Liberal and Conservative) have allowed cash shortfalls to be run up as debt, rather than increasing taxes to pay for them. In this sense, NB taxpayers traded short term lower power costs for long term debt in a crown corporation, that is a corporation that is owned by the taxpayers.

You can think of it this way. Imagine your ... let's say car payments go up from $100 to $110 per month. Now you don't want to pay this extra amount and so you create a company, owned by your family, to manage your car payments. You tell that company that they cannot increase your car payments beyond the $100 at which they now stand. But, the cost of the car is actually $110 a month. So what does this company -- remember you created it and you own it; that is why you can tell it not to increase the car payments and it has to do what you say -- do? It borrows the money. The bank, of course, does not just lend you this money gratis. It charges an interest rate. I'm making this up so let's imagine that the interest rate is 10%/month to keep it simple. The first month, the company is in debt only $10. It is a small amount; no one notices and not a drain on anything. After one month, however, it is now in debt $11 because of the interest rate and in month two you add another $10 to that debate because another car payment is due. So at the end of month two, this company is in debt $21 in revenue shortfall and interest. Now add 10% and that is increased to $23.10. Let's do one more month: 23.10 + 10 = 33.10 + interest = 36.41.

So, in order to keep your car payments lower then the cost of those payments, the end result is that at the end of three months, the company you set up to manage payments is $36.41 in debt, or one third of pay. And, here is the kicker: $6.41 of that debt are interest. It has been accrued as the cost of service on month your company borrowed. It produced nothing so in effect there is nothing to show for you. One could argue, and I would, that there $30.00 of that interest represents the real cost of the car and so you have driving the car to show for. However that other $6.41 produced nothing at all. No roads, it is excess what one would have paid for the car had one gone along. Now, imagine that your car needs a repair. You've already told that company that it cannot charge you more then $100 a month so it goes out and borrows the money for the repair and this ads another $5 to your bill. And on and on and on .... The only problem is that you own the company that manages your car payments. After a year, this company is deeply in debt with no way to pay that debt. I don't have good math skills so I can't say quickly how deeply in debt it would be but it would have $120 in payments along, but all that interest compounded, plus repairs. The bill would likely be over $150.00 or more than a car payment and a lot of that would have been accrued as debt serving or interest.

The real problem is that you've lost track of things or weren't paying close enough attention and are shocked, now, to find out at the end of the year that you have a big honkin' bill to pay and forget that the reason you have to pay it is because you didn't want to pay smaller bills as you went along. What's worse, let's imagine that the economy has turned bad and while you have not lost your job, you did not get your hoped for raise this year and your hours have been cut so that the company you work for can balance its books. So, now you have a big honkin' bill and no way to pay it. What is more, the interest on the debt you've run up is greater than the difference of the payment that you did not want to make and the real pay. In my example, remember, you were trying to avoid paying an extra $10 a month. Well, if your company is $150.00 in debt, the interest is now $15/month. In other words, you're paying more in interest then the cost of originally biting the bullet and paying the extra tab in the first place.

This is what happened to NB Power and this is why this sale should be controversial. It is not whether or not someone else can run NB Power more efficiently or any "economies of scale" that might or might not come from being part of a larger company. The issue that we should be thinking about is why is NB Power so debt laden. In effect, no one wanted to give New Brunswickers the bad news: there is no free lunch. If you want power, you have pay for it. Instead, government after government said "well, we'll make NB Power swallow the bill" as if NB Power were not owned by the taxpayers. In other words, to give short term lower cost power, the government said "you can pay more -- and much more -- in the longer run by having NB Power run up a debt" and New Brunswickers, for one reason or another, said "yes, we like that deal." Maybe they were ill informed; maybe they thought "economic growth will solve the problem in the longer run;" maybe they thought NB could sell power to the US and make a profit (although exactly where this power was to come from is not clear); maybe they just didn't know any better.

There is a further problem here. In lowering the cost of power, NB has actually increased consumption and whether we should have or not is another important issue. Consumption of power is bad for the environment. And so in keeping power costs low, NB has actually worked against environmental protection by putting more pollution into the environment than would have been the case.

These are, in my view, the issues we should be thinking about with regard to this sale.

An Election

2010-01-04T09:30:00.002-04:00

Will Canada have an election this year? It appears that this is increasingly the case although exactly why is not entirely clear. Perhaps it will, in part, be the embarrassment of different party leaders: cooperating with each other would seem something akin to cooperating with the Devil. Perhaps this or that leader and his coterie will spy an advantage that they believe will either allow them to attain a majority government or to rest power from another party. In short, if Canada has an election, it will likely be for political reasons.

And, I say this because there appear to be no substantive policy issues that will be "on the table" in an election campaign. The Conservative, for instance, have discovered that they can stay in power only by ... well ... not being conservatives. Their self-made national economic disaster is a bit of a God send for them. Conservatives, these days, always feel better preaching restraint. If they have budget surpluses -- particularly surpluses created by liberals! -- they don't seem to know what to do with them because their long-held "cut the waste" mantra does not work (witness the arts cuts and the fake cuts to the Status of Women). We might, therefore, have some debate about what to do to re-balance the national budget. But, that debate will be technical. The substantive issues that it should involve will not be discussed, at least by the Conservatives because they would lose an election if they did so.

On the other hand, the Liberals are in the embarrassing position of having won even while they have lost. Basic tenets of liberalism seem safe: regional economic development, bilingualism, equality for gay and lesbian citizens, multiculturalism. Yes, the Conservative have been messing around with the way in which university based research is funded in Canada and in my gig that has some important implications but ... is anyone going to fight an election on this issue. Economically, it would be difficult to find significant differences between the Harper Conservative economic platform and the Liberal economic platform of the 1990s. In other words, and no one is discussing this, the Liberals are having a hard time generating a distinctive platform not because of a failure of leadership but because many of their ideas are so commonly accepted that Conservatives must necessarily adopt them if they want to remain in power.

What about the Bloc, NDP, and Green Party. Well ... what about them. The NDP's flirting with a re-branding indicates how badly off they are. Their politics should be different. They should be involved in an educational programme designed to build a new type of society organized around a different set of values. At least that is what socialists are supposed to do. But ... what are those values? The NDP has done a pretty poor job of articulating them because, frankly, I don't know what they are. Equality ... well, sure. But, that is hardly unique to the NDP. Support for "small business"? for the "little guy"? How does that differentiate the NDP from the Conservatives? Again, the very successes of the left in Canada -- gender equality, for example -- have undercut its raison d'etre or at least it chances or organizing a different type of discourse.

Add to this a defensive-oriented Bloc, which must necessarily be defensive because of their political aspirations and a Green Party that can't get any traction and we have a potential future election campaign that will likely be an odd re-run of what we've had over the last few years regardless of who wins.

This is a shame. This is a shame because there are important issues that need to be discussed. Canada's approach to environmental protection, the shape of aboriginal self-government, persistent poverty, the gender gap in wages, Canada's role in world affairs, among others. On all these issues and likely more too Canada needs a new political conservations. I doubt we will get it.

The Charter has Changed Everything

2010-01-02T16:05:00.003-04:00

I have to review a book for an academic journal and I will confess that I am having a hard time doing it. I won't get into specifics but the problem I'm having is that it is a really, really, really bad book. The book, in fact, is so bad that I'd give it a C- if it were submitted as a paper to my 2000-level intro. It might fail my 4000 level seminar. You can see my dilemma: one does not want to be overly negative but this book is so laced with problems that I don't know where to start.

The one interesting thing that, perhaps, comes out of this text is the argument that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms "changed everything." What is interesting about this argument is that it tends to be made by both those who opposed Charter rights and those who support them. Obviously, the different "sides" in a discussion of the merits of Charter rights view this development in different ways. Those who oppose Charter rights argue that it is undemocratic to have courts make important decisions while those who support them argue that fundamental rights must be respected regardless of whether or not legislatures support them. In this debate I side up with the fundamental rights argument but that is not my point here. My point is a question: has the Charter changed everything? Or, perhaps more widely, has "judicial activism" changed everything? What is interesting, then, is that both the proponents and opponents of "activism" argue that it has. Oddly, they agree with each other on this point.

Yet, I think this is an open question. For example, has judicial activism advanced significantly the Canadian commitment to equality of citizens? Well, for those people who believe that we should actually vote on whether some people are equal or not, this might seem like the case. For those activists struggling through years of disappointment, this might seem like the case, but I wonder. Sometimes the opponents of judicial activism -- like the author of the book I'm reading - - talk about the far and fundamental changes. They use metaphors of depth and decisiveness. Yet, has Canada changed all that much for the average citizen? Frankly, my job has not changed. My family life has not changed. There is little different in my church on a day to day basis. My kids still go to the same soccer matches; my folks are still retired semi snowbirds.

What is more, most Canadians support equality. They don't feel that the government should discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation or that whom you find attractive should be a means test for a job. And, they have not felt this way, from what I can tell, for a good time. From what I can tell far from being "activist", the courts were slow and the government even slower to catch up to Canadian views. Might it not even be possible that one of the reasons for the court decision on equality was that there was a significant consensus on this issue already in place that the the lingering discriminatory nature of the law look ... well ... backward? Had not the private sector already begun to extend benefits to same sex couples. Indeed, is it not government -- and not the private sector -- that has been the bulwark of the opposition to equality for gay and lesbian Canadians?

I was going to look at another example but I think my point is already well laid out so I won't waste any more reading time. If one were a person suffering from backward discrimination, denied, say, the right to see a dying partner in this hospital, a court decision -- on a human level -- a deep and important change. Yet, aside from what are, in fact, a very limited (however important they are to the individuals involved) cases, how has the recognition that gay and lesbian Canadians are actually equal to straight Canadians changed your life on a day to day level? Has it changed your job? Made your papers easier to write for school? Helped you with the grocery shopping? Got you off a speeding ticket?

Maybe ... we have over-estimated the importance of the Charter as a matter of day to day life?

You Don't Have to be Religious

2009-12-19T22:46:00.003-04:00

I don't mean to pick on Margaret Wente. I really don't. She said some silly things, demonstrating her ignorance of what actually goes on in a university and I noted that in a blog a little while ago. I thought I'd give her column another chance because today's was about her own struggles for some form of spiritual certainty. It was actually rather touching, minus the socio-biology (I didn't realize that anyone seriously believed this stuff anymore but ... ), and I'd recommend it to you. I expect that her struggles are generally reflective of a wide section of Canadian society.

The one thing that I would draw your attention to is this line:

"You don't have to be religious to endorse the Ten Commandments."

Before accepting this point too quickly, you might want to check out the first few commandments and then decide whether or not Wente's statement holds up.

Diversity and Religion

2009-12-17T10:49:00.001-04:00

Ah ... it is that time of the year when people object to public displays of religion. And then there are those, particularly Christians but also non-Christian traditionalists, who object to the objectors. Christian friends of mine talk vague (if authoritatively) about Canada as a "Christian" country, while others talk about politically correct madness, as if being PC had become anything more than a straw tiger. There are, I think, good reasons people are concerned about public displays of religion, specifically Christianity, and these are rooted in history. There is also good reason to defend public displays of religion, which is rooted in the ideal of democracy, individual freedom, freedom of conscience, and the right to the autonomy of the self. Let me explain both these things. My goal here is to suggest that, for most people, a few minutes thought will solve any troubles they might have over this issue and leave the extremes arguing with each other. And, that I can live with.

First, Christians -- like myself -- need to recognize that the issue is not Christianity per se but its place in Canadian history. Canada is not a Christian nation in any official sense, even if the majority of its population claims some affiliation with Christianity (we also know that a minority of Christians actually practice their faith so supposed majority status of Christianity is questionable, in my view). Canada is a liberal society that makes certain guarantees to the faithful. It guarantees that the state will not impede the practice of their faith, it guarantees that the faithful will not be compelled to perform economic duties on their sabbath, and it guarantees that one cannot be denied employment (as an example) because of one's faith. In addition to that, in realms of law and public policy, the faithful and those who do not subscribe to a faith must be treated equally. I work at a public institution (an institution that maintains a specific religion tradition as part of its history but a public institution nonetheless). This does not mean that I need to be a secular liberal to be hired. Far from it. What it means is that my employer cannot fire me because of my faith, whatever that faith my be, be it Christian, Judaism, agnosticism, etc.

Most Canadians, from what I can tell, consider this to be a good thing. They don't believe that employers or the state should be able to dictate the terms of one's faith through coercive measures (such as making it a condition of employment which, of course, means that to survive one could be forced to accept or reject a specific faith position). Indeed, from what I can tell, most Canadians believe that faith is rightly a private matter, best left out of the hands of public authorities (be they political, economic, cultural, or educational, etc.).

In the Canadian context, this situation is complicated by the fact that what I've described above has not always been the case. Indeed, in very recent history, Christian Churches exercised an undue influence over public policy. The residential school system for Original Peoples might be the most grave example of this but most people can likely think of others. The result is that the Christian calendar has been imprinted on the public calendar. Indeed, it is so normal that most people don't even bother to think about it. My students, regardless of their faith position, expect to write exams in December and "go home for Christmas." What is important to note here, however, is that the public calendar in Canada has been influenced by the Christian calendar and this influence is seen in other ways, too. It is seen at Remembrance Day in Christmas concerts at public schools, in small-town concerts. There are others, but you get my point. The objections to Christianity, in this sense, are objections to what non-Christians view as the intrusion of Christianity onto their space: after all, the public schools are not Christian.

Historically, we need to recognize that this intrusion has not been for the best. I want to be clear about this: not all Christians think this way and Christians, in Canada, have had a very strong progressive tendency that has contributed to support for universal health care, public eduction, community development and other things that most Canadians -- regardless of faith position -- support as well. However, Christians have also made mistakes, big ones, and have had the unfortunate tendency to blame this mistakes on God, as in God dislikes X. It is this tendency and this intrusion that is of concern to objectors to public displays of religion. There may be a few people out there who have serious problems with Christians practicing their faith. Understand, however, that there is a difference between having concerns about specific elements of theology and rejecting Christianity. Most non-Christians have concerns about some elements of Christian theology. That, however, is something different then rejecting the right of Christians to practice their faith and Christians need to keep this in mind.

I believe that Christians can address the concerns of non-Christians objecting to public displays of faith in a variety of ways and that they should do this. And, by the way, I believe the ball on this one is, rightly, in Christians court. Most non-Christians for example have at best a passing knowledge of Christianity. Sorry about that; I don't mean to offend anyone but that is the truth. Most of my non-Christian friends think they know about Christianity but what they know about is 1970s middle class church culture. Or, pick your date, but you see the point. What they know about is what went on the last time they went to church or what they have seen on TV. Christians need to explain what Christianity is about to non-Christians. They need to do so in a patient way because there is a steep learning curve. And, they need to be open to changing their views, too. Christians, in other words, need to be careful not to blame God for their cultural views or to assume that their cultural views have been sanctioned by God.

Second, Christians also need to understand what public policy in Canada is all about and be able to explain this very clearly and patiently to non-Christians. The public display of religion is a case in point. Most Canadians assume they understand Canadian public policy. They don't. What they understand is what has been conveyed through the media and, folks, that is frequently not a very good source of information. Let's pick multiculturalism. Everyone thinks they know what is is about, whether they like or dislike the policy. Yet, how many of you have read the multiculturalism policy? How many of you have read Kymlicka's careful work on the subject? In my job, I hear all the time about the problem of multiculturalism from people who know what multiculturalism is all about. Here is a made up but sadly typical example re multiculturalism.

"It costs too much."
"Really? How much is too much and how much does it cost anyway?"
"Well, I don't know how much it costs but its too much."
"So, let me get this straight. You have no idea how much multiculturalism costs and have never thought about what the proper level of state spending on, say, anti-racism, an important component of multiculturalism, might be but you will state definitively it costs too much."
"Exactly."

As Kymlicka points out, a little bit of investigation explodes a great deal of the myths of multiculturalism and its effects (it costs about a buck a year per taxpayer, Canada has the highest or second highest rate of second language learning the world, residential segregation has gone down since multiculturalism was introduced, etc.).

The same thing with religion. Freedom of conscience was never about driving religion out of the public sphere. That is enforced atheism or agnosticism, depending on one's view. It was about stating that Christianity could not and should not rely on the support of the state to get its way. In the public sphere, it could make no greater claim to state support then any other faith position. The same thing, of course, applies to agnosticism, atheism, Islam, etc. None of these positions -- if we really believe in freedom of conscience; that is: in the right of adult individuals to determine their own faith position -- can make a greater claim then the other to public support. Christians cannot demand that, say, the Great Commission be taught as ethics to the exclusion of all other systems of ethics. Agnostics cannot impede Christians from the practice of their faith on the ground that Canada is secular, because Canada is not secular. It is liberal and leaves these decisions to the individual. To deprive the individual of their rights in this regard, would be to reject not, say religion or Christianity, it is to reject the Canadian constitution. It is to reject the basic principles upon which Canada is now established. It is to demand a constitutional amendment.

Hence, those who object to public displays of religion find themselves in, oddly, the same position as Christians who claim that Canada is a Christian nation. They are demanding that their faith position (whatever it may be but usually some form of agnosticism) control over thing that they have the final say and that no one else have any resource or appeal. In my view to accept this position or to support it in the name of equality is a farce because it is not equality. A real supporter of diversity would say "I don't agree with you, but you have the right to do what you do."

OK, I have now written too much and there was a bunch of points I wanted to make. The real point is simple: some thought, some investigation, some consideration of the meaning of important principles brings us closer together not farther apart. If we think, research, and consider, the extreme positions melt away and we are left with values we all may not like but the vast majority of us will recognize as essential for a good society.

Quebec Wants ....?

2009-12-11T09:00:00.001-04:00

This is a short entry to complain about a specific way of looking at Quebec and Canada. I frequently hear/read people writing about "Quebec wanted to separate." It did not. This is a fact. There are Quebecers who support the independence option; Quebecers who support federalism. This is very important to note because to think otherwise is to be: (a) factually inaccurate, and (b) accepting a collectivist logic that is problematic. Quebec is different from Canada. I have no doubt that that is the case and a decade's worth of students at Mount Allison have heard me talk about that. Quebecois difference is not a new discovery to me. However, one should avoid personalizing nation and talking about Quebec in the singular. Quebec does not want anything. The views of Quebecers are divided on a broad range of subject. And, most importantly, English-speaking Canadians need to remember that Quebec has voted twice for federalism. Yes, that is correct. When asked, two referenda were not examples of Quebec wanting to separate but affirmations of Quebecois commitment to federalism. If we want to undertand Canada; if we want to understand Quebec, we need to get this empirical point of history correct.

Janine Krieber's Liberalism

2009-11-22T23:48:00.000-04:00

Janine Krieber does not like the "Toronto elites" or Michael Ignatieff ... who does? OK, that's too quick of a quip. The "Toronto elites" surely exist but they are also a convenient boogie man, dragged out of the metaphorical closet as a way of explaining X or Y, a sort of value elitist, economic group who secretly controls of the levers of power, at least, it seems, within the Liberal party. Focusing on unnamed Toronto elites is a good way to mobilize regional grievances. I live in NB. This kind of thing has been going on for years. Heck, my grandfather used to complain about "Upper Canadians."

The target of Ms. Krieber's vindictive, then, must be a bit less real and a bit less tangible then it first seams. The objective of her concern -- the supposed disintegration of the Liberal party -- is not. What I want to do in this blog is pick up on Ms. Krieber's concerns and suggest a different way of looking at them. What I want to suggest is that what is looking more and more like the slow death of the Liberal Party cannot be easily blamed on Paul Martin, the media, Toronto elites, Michael Ignatieff, or any other cause. Instead, what I want to suggest is that problems through which the Liberal Party is passing reflect a change in the dynamics of Canada. The Liberal Party "made hay," as it were, as the guardian of one particular vision of Canada. Because we don't often think in terms of visions beyond what are reported as feel-good, motherhood issues (everyone for world peace, put up your hand), the idea that vision is important is usually neglected in public commentary.

Perhaps the word "vision" is not the right word. Pick another one that you like better because understanding the idea behind what I say is more important than agreeing with my language. By vision I mean conception of Canada, a philosophy of nation, as it were: an ontology of the state or polity or civil society and state, an image of a different way of organizing public life.

The Liberal Party was the vehicle through which a specific conception of Canada naturalized itself as "the" Canada, except among those people who disagreed in some fundamental sense it. I don't have space to go into this here, but the Liberal party defended a conception of Canada that Michael Ignatieff called "civic nationalism": the ideal of a small l liberal polity. The logic of this ideal of Canada leads -- more or less directly -- to a series of policy reforms designed to transform Canada from the country that it was into ... well ... the country we have now. Multiculturalism, official bilingualism, regional economic development, a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, universal health care, and other such reforms follow logically from basic "civic nationalist" ideal: individualism, equality of opportunity, etc.

For right or for wrong, for good or for ill, the Liberal Party defended this conception of Canada against alternatives to it: ethno-linguistically based nationalism in Quebec, socialism, conservative traditionalism, etc., and did so mainly with the support of middle-class suburbanites, whether they spoke French or English at home. This Canada had much to recommend it. It had serious weakness and I don't have space to get into these either (suffice it to say, I've never been a supporter of this particular vision). But, it did appeal to a wide number of Canadians because it was committed to justice, equality, capitalism, and those are things that middle class Canadians like. They have some reason to. The point system for immigration - -whatever its appreciable weaknesses -- was better than the racialized system that preceded it. Canada remains deeply mired in sexism but at least there is strong protection for gender equity in the Charter, and on the down the line. The civic nationalist Canada of today is, in marked ways, a more equal and just place than was the pre-civic nationalist Canada of the century before the 1960s.

What is going on, I think, and the reason I offer this admittedly rushed history lesson, is that the liberal or civic nationalist order appears to be running into its first serious challenge in some time. Civic nationalists -- in an admittedly odd coalition -- were able to defeat the Mulroney mega-constitutional reforms that would have changed the character of Canada (or, at least maybe). They were able to rule Canada with only that one exception, virtually without stop from the mid 1960s to the first decade of the new century. Why? Two reasons: (1) on some level middle-class Canadians shared the Liberal's philosophy of nation are were willing to turn out and vote for it, and (2) the opposition was divided. Those who rejected the ideal of the civic nation could not agree among themselves on an alternative and so were willing, for the sake of power, to make some form of peace with liberalism. The promoters of Quebec independence abandoned Marcel Chaput's discourse of "separatism" and instead adopted referenda, talked of "interculturalism," and "associations" with Canada, and promised to wait for "winning conditions" and be a good government in the meantime. Canadian socialists ditched the "waffle" and "industrial democracy" and talked vaguely about the "ordinary" Canada and slowly shift their economic policies to the centre (indeed, it appears a third of the NDP's federal caucus now feels so comfortable with the abrogation of socialism that they can openly reject gun control).

As to the Tories ... well ... they just stopped being Tories. No one really knew what a "community of communities" was anyway and, as George Grant noted forty years ago, most conservatives no longer subscribed to anything that could actually be called conservatism, at least of anyone had the faintest idea what the term meant in a philosophical sense. Mulroney tried, to be sure, but he either failed (Meech Lake), backed away (de-indexing pensions), or promoted reforms that were consistent with liberal political-economy (free trade). In other words, by the time he was done, Mulroney's government ended up representing -- perhaps against its will -- a variant of liberalism as opposed to an alternative to it.

What is going on in the Liberal Party today is something other than bad political management or bad leadership politics. What is going on is that the Liberals are losing their base of support. Is this because the Liberal ideal of Canada has become so naturalized that Canadians no longer feel it necessary to vote Liberal? In other words, are liberal ideals -- equality, multiculturalism, bilingualism, a role for the state in the economy -- so common place that Canadians feel that what we can do is debate the merits of this or that policy by voting for parties that represent one or another trend of civic nationalism?

This is an interesting idea. But, I don't think that this is the case. I think the massive self-disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Canadians -- those Canadians who chose not to vote -- is the thing we should look at to explain the demise of Canadian liberalism. After all, the Liberals have not changed much. Michael Ignatieff may be beholden to the Toronto elites but he's really just an anglophone Pierre Trudeau in terms of his ideology. I'd argue, instead, that the civic polity in Canada has been affected by two forces: (1) it has reached its outer limits in terms of improving Canada. The Party itself, in this sense, has succeeded in its mission but that mission cannot accomplish all its goals (or, at least the goals Canadians would set for it). And, (2), the balance of class power has shifted. In this sense, Ms. Krieber has isolated something important. She's just not explained very well why this important thing is occurring.

The Political Future?

2009-11-19T16:05:00.001-04:00

I will confess that I've been caught a bit off guard by political developments -- or, rather the lack thereof -- in both Canada and the US. I normally don't comment on developments in the US and don't like to because I don't really have anything out of the ordinary to say, or at least I don't have anything more than the average person who watchs the news. I don't reseach American politics, teach it, or even delve very deeply into it. I think, however, in this case developments in both countries seem to be related.

A few months ago, I started to write my first substantive blogs on American public life. In them, I argued that the nasty mud-slinging style of American politics (the Karl Rove factor, let's call it) was about to end. OK, it was not going to end tomorrow but in the near future. There was, I argued, nothing to be gained from it. Obama's campaign had demonstrated on an empirical level the follow of Karl Rove strategies in terms of building a last political coalition. Because Rove, and other in the Bush government, were not interested in "big tent" politics, assumed political alienation would keep most people away from the polls, and prized ideology over compromises necessary to broaden the public support base, they had moved the Republican Party into more and more extreme versions of itself. The end result was a win by hook or by crook politics with a, frankly, shockingly simplistic understanding of foreign or domestic policy issues. To win, Rove and crew believed, one needed only something like 25% of the people on one's side and one could get this through an extremist discourse. The old style of brokerage compromise and accomodation politics was out.

Thankfully, I felt, this was at an end. The Democrats were no political angels but they had hit upon a different formula for victory. After a number of years trying to duke it out with the Republicans on their home turf, they abandonned that turf and, like good capitalists, sought new markets. If they could keep their base of support and extend it by drawing in more hispanic immigrants, minority and youth groups with historically low voter turnout rates, they could win without having to apologize for being Democrats. Indeed, their belief was that there was an audience in search of their message that could be accomodated within their party. Their approach was more classically brokerage, adding together middle class women, regional blocks in the Northeast and Pacific Coast, together with union support and minority groups and ... presto ... one is in power with a, let's call it, progressive, agenda.

While the Democratic political resurgence was not that simple or that short, that is -- more or less -- what happened. Having seen this, I figured that the Republicans would briefly spin out as a talk show hosts and pundicts stepped up as temporary party voices, but then good sense would prevale. The Republicans would realize that there was not much to gain if they were interested in being in government from continuing the Rovesque policies that, in fact, had cost them government. They'd need to rethink their policies, moderate some views, silence extreme voices, and take the ideal of accomodating diversity seriously. Otherwise, they did not have enough votes to win. Republicans might not like this, I believed, but math would trump ideology. I firmly believed that the Republicans would not get into a death match over things like health care reform (heck, who can opposed universal medical care?), rethinking the military edge of the Bush doctrine that has helping to bankrupt the country, and would rethink the need to regulate markets in light of ... well ... gee ... what shall we call it? Complete economic meltdown? In other words, I believed that somewhere in the Republican party there were realistics and public minded people who would re-evaluate their policy commitments against their empirical record and adjust matters accorrdingly. Where a policy had failed (such as private sector health care or go-it-alone foreign policy), the Republicans would choke one up to history and move on. I didn't expect them to abandon their commitment to capitalism (but to accept the reality that unregulated financial markets are a problem). I didn't expect them to abandon Christianity (but to accept the idea that calling people "Godless" likely has no place in a democracy predicated on the separation of church and state). Etc.

I did not expect this process to happen right away but I did expect to be seeing the signs of it. I imagined it might take the Republicans two years to make this transition but that it would be well advanced by now. Oddly, from my perspective, this has not happened. The Republican Party seems to be more and more defined by its most extreme wing and that wing, for right or wrong, clearly feels it can win without moving from the electoral strategy that kept Bush in power for two terms. Thus, rather than rethinking their commitment to unregulated financial markets, they've tarred those concerned about economic stability with being a "socialist" (I am, by the way, a socialist and I can tell you that the Obama admin is not socialist!). Rather than attempting to preserve some aspects of a two-tiered healthcare system, they have chosen to stand and find on it out on this issue as it were a death match. Rather than moderating their discourse and looking to engage the public in a reasoned discussion of the merits of different policy perpectives, they've drummed up a language of "death panels" and called Barney Frank a "Nazi." (As Jon Stewart noted, one lives in an odd time when a gay Jew is called a Nazi.) Rather than looking to find their own new markets, they've dragged Rove's bag of tricks out of the closet, dusted it off, and deployed it with a vengeance (a good example is Fox New's substitution of rally footage in which they reported on one anti-health care rally but showed footage of a different and larger rally that was about something else conveying the image that the anti-health care rally was much larger than it was).

Why have the Republicans not changed and why should we be concerned about it? There are likely a lot of reasons. Opposition parties reduced to rump support often run into this problem because their main activist base has shrunk to the most extreme versions of themselves. In other words, its shrunk to people who actually believe that Obama is introducing death panels and that gay Jews are secretly supporters of Naziism. What is important here is that it appears I was wrong in my thinking. The Republicans have not done what struck me as politically rational to do. And, there has been a spill over into Canada. In assessing the situation in the US, I believed that once the Republicans abandonned the Karl Rove electoral success handbook, the Conservatives in Canada would, too, and would turn themselves back into a more classic brokerage party that looked to unite alternatives to liberalism under their banner. The extreme approaches of the Republicans, however, seem to have either delayed a Conservative transition in Canada or upheld morale enough that Canadian Conservatives have stuck to their guns. In other words, the morass of public life that has prompted widespread political alienation shows no signs of abating and this is my real concern.

The change I looked to in the US was, I saw, a new opportunity to republic public life. The extremism, mud-slinging, name-calling, lying that defined the political dynamics designed to secure power by capturing a minority of votes would give way to the search for new political markets that would, of necessity and because they were new markets, needed to be approached in different ways. The result would be an elevation of political rhetoric, a halt and hopefully reversal in voter apathy.

My argument had the great merit of being logical. Each point in my chain of reasoning followed from the one before it. Its weakness, right now, seem to be that it lack an empirical foundation. And, with that, I now am starting to suspect that my hopeful future is somewhat less hopeful.

Why You Don't Want Margaret Wente as a Teacher

2009-09-20T21:31:00.001-03:00

Margaret Wente has a view on what is wrong with universities in Canada. You can find it here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/want-to-know-why-professors-dont-teach/article1293548/

For those who want the Reader's Digest version, her argument is that the problem is research. She has the normal couple of anecdotes and references to an American who no one knows as supportive evidence. We don't actually need to get into her argument. You've heard it before and you'll hear it again. (Frankly, I wish I could get paid for writing under-researched columns that simply repeat staid heard it before arguments, but then ... I'd have to be a columnist for the Globe instead of a professor). Normally, I ignore stuff like this because:

1) there is so much wrong with the argument that correcting it would require a long time and might be boring for you to read.

2) I see no reason to fight yesterday's battles. Since we have heard all this stuff before, why even bother to comment on it?

3) I like to reserve commentary for serious issues. Wente's column is so bad it would register an F in my intro class, not for the points she makes (which can be made in a serious, professional way) but for the absolute horrible quality of supporting evidence, unbalanced treatment of the issue, and simplistic analysis. In other words, it would not matter what she was saying, the way she has gone about saying it is so poor that no one who is not already convinced could support her argument. On the other hand, if you were not convinced, there is nothing in this piece that will provide you with any reason to change your mind.

So why comment on it? This line:

"Of course there's prep time and marking and so on. But it's still not much."

Which is Wente's assessment of a prof's workload.

Let me ask you folks -- if any students happen to read this blog -- how much time do you want faculty to spend on prep and marking? Let's say I teach a standard 2/3 load (six hours one semester/nine the next). Let's do our math with the six hour semester, just to keep things simple and to put Wente's argument in the best possible light. I spend six hours in class per week. How much should I spend prepping up for those six hours? A standard rule of thumb is three to one. There are those who can get things done quicker; there are those who take longer. So now my total work time is 6 + 18 = 24 hours. In addition to that I see students. Sometimes not a lot; sometimes a bunch. I meet three directed reading/honours students for an hour per week each so three more hours plus another nine hours prep = 12 hours. Quickly adding this up, I now have s pent 24 hrs + 12 hrs = 36 hrs, plus 3 hours general consultation (drop in time for undergrads with problems relating to anything in the course they want to discuss or clarify or question, etc.). Add this to the total and I've now worked 39 hours per week, fairly close to the standard (is still standard?) 40 hours work week. And ... this is my easy term.

Now note, I have not attended a meeting, I have not gone to Senate (I have not read the reports I have am supposed to read to effectively represent my programme in Senate). I have not attended any committee meetings or read any material relating to that. (I am, for example, on my university's grad committee, which is not a lot of work but we are in charge of making recommendations on admissions. How much time should I spend on these. I assume -- for students and parents out there who happen to stumble across this blog -- that you might want me to spend a fair amount of time and make a thorough assessment of you or your child. That's an assumption on my part. I'd like to believe it is warranted. Maybe you don't care and want me to decide my recommendation on the basis of odds and evens ... but I don't do that. To continue: I have not gone to Faculty Council. I have not checked with other faculty (I am in charge of my programme) to make sure all is well. I've not looked over class lists or checked with my advisees (all students at my school have an advisor to help them out) to make sure all is well. And ... I have not written a blessed single line on the research that supposedly takes so much of my time away from teaching.

But, more importantly, I have not marked anything yet. Now, I will ask you folks again the same question: how much time do you want me to spend marking your work. Let's say you're in my third year (3000 level) undergraduate class. And, you write a term paper for me. How much time do you want me to spend marking it. I can get them done quick, if you want. The marking won't be very thorough. Your grade will end up being impressionistic and you won't get any constructive criticism, but I can get them done quickly. If you want something more thorough, considered comments that (theoretically at least) can help you improve your work, then that is going to take more time. Most students feel -- and rightly -- that their grade should not ride on one piece of work. There are pedagogical reasons for this but simple fairness is another important consideration. So, we need other assignments, perhaps a mid-term or a presentation, etc. All of this needs to be grade. Even the short reader response assignments that we give the intro classes actually need to be graded. So ... how much time do you want me to spend on your assignment, paper, exam, etc.? My experience is that the vast majority of students want the thorough constructive approach and, folks, that takes time.

The good news in all of this is that these other things -- committee meetings, Senate, grading -- don't usually occur every week. We have a weekly assignment in the intro but that tends to be the exception in the humanities rather than the rule. All told, if one were to average things out, one would find that I am spending more than 40 hours a week on my job and I still have not written a blessed line.

I don't apologize for this and I don't look for pity. I have a good gig. I like my job. Otherwise I would not do it. The school for which I work does not have a graduate programme in my discipline and so I have the summer's relatively free to do what I want in terms of research. Others who work at schools with grad programmes don't have this luxury. My point is not that one should pity profs or raise a banner in our favour. My point is that Wente's argument is empirically inaccurate because she short sells how long it takes to mark and how much time needs to go into preparing for class. And, what is worse, as a supposed defender of education, she seems to not care that she's short selling. As someone defending education, she seem to be saying that we should not mark thoroughly or properly prepare for class. And ... that is a shame.

Economy 101

2009-06-22T00:30:00.002-03:00

A great deal of attention has been devoted to Ignatieff and Harper's deal, which preserves -- at least for the summer -- Harper's government and allows the Ignatieff to claim some minor victories and devote more time to party building all the while trying not to look like the Liberals are propping up the Tories. This kind of politics -- who will take the blame for an election no one wants -- is interesting as are the behind the scenes manovering. If one likes this kind of speculative Ottawa-centric political discussion (and, I'll confess that I find it interesting), then this type of national-politics-as-soap-opera is making for good viewing. Is there anything more in it? Should we, as some are doing, debate Ignatieff's sincerity? Should we, as some are doing, try to tar the Liberals with the Tory brush?

I don't know, but there is something important to note in the political manovering that has followed in the wake of economic crisis; that is: the degree to which Harper at least is committed to the very free market, small state policies that created the economic crisis in the first place. Harper, for example, is busy rationalizing the huge public debt his government has run up (as did Mulroney before him) as a short term expediency. Within a year, maybe two, he says, things will return to normal, five years down the line, Canada will again be in the black and governments can resume the policy of cutting taxes and slashing programmes.

Hmmm .... wait, hasn't anything be learnt here? After all, the Canadian debt is remarkably higher then it needs to be because of cuts to the GST that did nothing to increase spending and hence address looming economic problems and -- as I believe I have mentioned before -- how could they? A 2 cent cut on GST does nothing -- and can do nothing -- to alter consumer behavour. This about it like this. Suppose you want to buy a chocolate bar. Does the fact that that chocolate bar is now worth $1.15 instead of $1.17 change your thinking on the purchase? Does the saving of two cents convince you to buy two chocolate bars instead of one? The only thing cuts to the GST did was impoverish the fiscal capacity of the state to address economic problems when these popped up, which is exactly what happened. The cuts to the GST did nothing to help the economy but the loss revenue that the state would have had if all these small two cent purchases had been pooled would have significantly reduced the level of debt Canada is now accuring and hence lessened the amount of time needed to pay it back, perhaps but a year or longer!

Why would Harper and his government make such an elementary mistake? Why would they not want to have the capacity to address problems if they occurred? Why would they not, in other words, want to save for a rainy day, taking a prudent and cautious approach that would create options? After all, they are supposedly conservatives ... should they not love prudence, caution, and saving for a rainy day? The truth is that they don't seem to think of these things. Thus while they are willing to preach them as a recipe to address individual problems, they don't seem to think that it is good policy for the state to plan ahead wearing something other than rose-coloured glasses. What they are telling us is that as soon as they can they will reintroduce the exact same policies that helped make a mess of Canada's national finances in the first place.

Now, this is an important point and my wording here is important. I don't think Harper's government caused the national economic crisis. (Conservative friends of mine who are already saying Dexter's NDP government will hurt the economy ... same thing). The international economic crisis really is an international economic crisis. The issue is not did Harper cause it but ... how did he respond to it? Did his government put any forethought into policies? Did they adopt a cautious approach to finances that allowed the state to maintain capacity to address a problem if one popped up? Problems simply occur. That is the nature of life. The issue is not that they occur but that we learn from that occurence so we don't make the same mistakees again.

Unfortunately, this is where Harper and his government have fallen down. They don't seem to have learnt anything. If I made a set of assumptions that turned out to be wrong and those assumptions cost me a whole pile of money, I'd reconsider my assumptions. Harper and his government have not. And, for that reason alone, they are a dangerous national government. I don't know about you, but I want a government that is not so wedded to ideology that it refuses to consider lessons it can learn along the way.

$50 Billion Deficit but its OK, we've Got Iggy Attack Ads

2009-05-28T08:39:00.001-03:00

The combination of Ignatieff attack ads and record setting deficits make for an on juxtaposition. On the one hand, we have a Conservative government that did not predict this recession, let alone its depth and seems ... well ... uncertain about how to proceed. On the other, in fact, it seems that the Conservatives have decided that the best way to proceed on the deficit is to go into permanent election mode and do what political parties seem to believe they are supposed to do: mystify. The new Conservative adverts, if you have not seen them, have very little to do with anything other than attempting to convince some voters that Michael Ignatieff is not a leader but a basely self-interested free rider.

I like to think of myself as not naive and so I know that politics intrudes on the actions of political parties. In that spirit, my aim here is not to criticize these blogs or express outrage about them. Instead, the important question should be: what does this tell us about Canada? What does this tell us about Canadian politics? What does this tell us about the state of Canadian conservatism?

Some time ago (and in different blogs), I wrote that two things had happened to Canadian conservatives: (1) they had lost their ideological way and were no longer conservatives but something else, and that (2) because of this, they were going to have a difficult time winning elections because they lacked an alternative vision of the country. In place of a real national project (as offered by, say, the old Progressive Conservatives or the CCF or even the Communist Party! but most particularly the Liberal Party), Conservative election strategy turned on: (1) an appeal to disparate constituencies on the basis of a thinly disguised self-interest (vote for us and we'll give you money, aka a "tax break") and (2) tearing a page out of the Rove playbook and aping the American Republican electoral strategy.

The merits of this approach is that it certainly got conservatives together (the PCs and CA might not have agreed on principles but they sure agreed they were tired of being on opposition), and in a position that they could move into at least minority status in government when the Liberal Party imploded (I would argue that the Liberals did more to drive themselves from power in then did the Conservatives, but that's a story for another day, my point being: the Conservatives did not win; the Liberals lost). Now there are merits to this, at least from a political point of view. From a policy point of view, what it creates is: (1) permanent election mode, (2) with that mode geared not on building a true national coalition but luring in just enough voters to win (in other words, the idea of establishing a "big tent" as even Mulroney tried to do is just no there), (3) and a dearth of serious policy analysis that allows for implementation -- regardless of what one thinks of them -- of effective public policies.

This is of course the problem that Bush ran into; its the problem that Paul Wells document in his study of Harper and the return of Canadian Conservatives; and its the problem that the Conservatives are running into now with this recession. The issue, to put this in too simple terms, is that the Conservatives run out of ideas. And, they run out of ideas because they are not really interested in ideas and so ... why bother to have them. After all, I'm not interested in broccoli and so I don't have any about. The Conservative response to the recession is a case in point: attack ads that try to convince someone that Ignatieff is really just a snake oil salesman combined with outright robbery of Liberal anti-recession economic policy. In other words: don't vote Liberal because: (1) they can't be trusted, and (2) we stole their ideas anyway.

I continue to lament the lost age of serious Conservatism in Canada. Not because I find attack adverts offensive. Perhaps they are; the task of this blog is to provide a different order of assessment on them. I lament it because -- even while I disagreed -- it offered an alternative vision of the future and in so doing provided Canadians with choices and choices, it seems to me, are necessary for democracy.

Obama, or Will Things Change?

2009-05-14T15:05:00.001-03:00

So ... Canadians love US President Obama and who can blame them. I cheered for him on election night. I cheered for him for a number of reasons, including my own sense that the Republican party had become bankrupt of anything approaching a constructive ideal to address both America's domestic and foreign policy problems. And, I'd rather have a healthy and happy US next door to Canada than one strewn with internal conflict and isolated on the world stage. Canadians -- and the rest of the world -- are better off with a US administration that is committed to progressive reform, which open, committed to inclusion, and is concerned about the human dynamics of life then one animated by New American Century realpolitik and a belief that force is a primary and effective means of accomplishing goals.

So ... how will Obama pan out? The short answer is that no one knows. Nine years ago, few people imagined the mess the Bush administration would get itself into. In retrospect, of course, the signs were there and historians will be able to trace the trajectories of thought and policy that led to the US to this point: a refusal to pay attention to the warning signs in financial markets, a commitment to a "New American Century", the increasing marginalization of moderates in the Republican party, a mean/ends Rovesque political rationale, among others. What about Obama and his administration? Can we see similar trajectories in his government?

The good news is no. While one might wonder about the intelligence and scruples of some of Obama's appointees, the discourse they bring to government is markedly different than that Bush brought in. From what I can tell none of Obama's key appointees are tied to realpolitik practices and, from what I can tell, the Democrats have attempted to build a winning political coalition in a way differently then did the Republicans. Instead of trying to get out their core vote, for example, the Democrats have attempted to appeal to those who don't vote. Instead of emphasizing an exlusivist morality supposedly ratified by God, the Democrats have appealed to traditional liberal-democratic values. The real tests will be whether or not the Democrats are willing to break with American tradition and engage the international community in a way that puts global issues first. On the domestic front, the test will be whether or not, or to what degree, they are willing to reign in capitalism and subject it to popular discipline through the state.

Despite Canadians love of Obama and despite the good warning signs, I am, however, skeptical. I think Obama will be a good president. Having someone talk about justice and hopes and dreams and American being better than it is, is not a bad thing. Those who have criticized Obama (mainly Republicans) for not doing enough fast enough to address economic problems are missing the importance of discourse. For the first time in a while, the US is led by a person who is not forever talking about threats from others and is instead talking about putting the domestic house in order. I like all of this. My skepticism relates to none of this. Instead, it relates to the sheer scope of the problems Obama confronts.

Let's take foreign policy as one example. A "surge" in Afghanistan combined with support for an internal move against terrorists in Pakistan might or might not be a good military strategy. By itself, however, it can do nothing to lessen the concern of Muslims about the course of American policy. Instead, the US government needs to bite the bullet and support programmes and policies that address the human concerns of Muslims "on the ground." This means support for democracy in Pakistan regardless of who is elected. Efforts to encourage increased democratization in Arab countries. A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and increased anti-poverty activism in a range of countries. It also means a sincere and deep commitment to anti-racism at home and freedom of religion. I recognize that this is easy to say and hard to do. Hence, my skepticism.

I'm also not convinced that the problems with the US economy admit easy solutions. Even if there are recoveries, the need to find a mechanism that provides effective regulation of capital markets, the need to address income disparities, the need to address basic health care concerns, the need to address skewed economic success rates for ethnic minorities, will all still be there and this is what really needs to be addressed. Capital markets are indeed a serious problem but they become an even more serious problem if poverty rates are already too high, if ordinary people cannot afford basic health care, and if gross income disparities breed contempt and anger.

In my view, the best Obama can do is set the US on the right course to address these problems. He can do this by: developing a real anti-poverty strategy, by introducing socialized medicine, by taking the advise of allies seriously and, potentially, not acting against it, by signing on to international agreements, and by pressuring allies to make democratic reforms at home. I think Obama wants to do these things. I also think that the complexity of the American political system will slow him down and potentially detract from his objectives. And, Obama faces fairly formidable political foes at home. While they increasingly appear as an embattled and shrinking minority, they are also entrenched and well financed. Expect Fox News alone to settle into a long-term on-going campaign that will blame Obama for everything from the problems Bush created to the mis-designation of Pluto as a planet.

What this amounts to is this: the problems of America are so deep and so entrenched that it will take some time to rectify them and there were be a loud chorus continually singing another tune (perhaps even bringing out Bush nostalgia!). Progress will be slow. Let's hope it stays on track.