I Was Wrong About That: More on NB and the Politics of Health

The People's Alliance of New Brunswick (PANB) has said that it will not support the government's controversial health care cuts. The NB government is planning to end over night ER services as six rural hospitals as well as a slew of other changes that include ending surgeries, ambulatory care, and acute care admissions. While I do not have this confirmed, Facebook groups that have popped up to oppose the cuts are suggesting that some medical staff have already been laid off or transferred or soon will be.

I stated that the PANB would likely go down with the ship on this and support the Higgs PC government to the end. I was wrong. They will not. I thought they would continue to support the PCs because of political calculations. As a third party, they had unusual influence over a government that needed their votes in the legislature to keep going.

In addition, one PC MLA (the former Deputy Premier) has resigned and left the PCs.  He will sit as an independent. Word is that the current Legislative speaker (right now a Liberal), will step down from his position in the near future and force the Tories to elect one of their own to that position. If all this happens, this is what it will mean. The Tories will be down to 20 votes in the House (and possibly 19 if another MLA breaks away as the Sussex MLA is hinting) (22 seats - 1 resigned MLA - 21 - 1 for speaker = 20. If the Sussex MLA voted against the government, too, this would mean that they'd be down to 19 votes in the Legislative Assembly, a position that is clearly untenable).

The combined opposition would now have 28 and possibly more votes: 21 Liberals + 1 independent former Tory + 3 Green + 3 PANB. If the Sussex MLA voted with them they would be up to 29. This would be a significant defeat, much greater than Gallant's after the last provincial election.

Why was I wrong in my assessment of the PANB? The simple answer is that my reasoning gambled that the PANB would trade influence and longevity for other folks health care. They didn't. Perhaps the issue resonated with their largely rural supporters. Perhaps they read the writing on the wall. As I explained in my last post, the Higgs government was likely going down anyway. I thought the math was close. I did not spell it out but  I was guessing that they could scrape together 23-4 votes depending ... on a range of factors. The Liberals and Greens would have 23-4 (depending on who was speaker) so a future non-confidence motion was not guaranteed.

The PANB might have done the same math and figured they did not want to end up carrying the Tories water. They might honestly and sincerely support rural health care and I am sure that a goodly part of their supporters do. But, they might also have recognized that the Tory ship was sinking and he little desire to go down with it.

What can the Tories do now? I don't know. They might get lucky and something else will distract attention or boost their fortunes, but I'd have to say that it does not look good for them. The Liberals have an election issue, they have a clear point of differentiation between them and the Tories, and so if one were PC, it does not look good.

I guess Higgs could try back tracking enough to keep the recalcitrant MLA in the fold. This strategy might allow him to split the opposition enough that he could stay in power. If he gave on the health care issue, this would allow the two Tories outside the fold to come back in and vote against a non-confidence motion on the grounds that they opposed health care cuts but other than that had no problems with the government.  Such a strategy might, likewise, work to re-secure PANB support. This would push Tory votes back up to 24 tying them with the Liberal/Green opposition and letting the now Tory speaker cast a vote in favour of the government.

I am not going to say that is the strategy Higgs will follow but it might be the only one open to him.

The Politics of Stupidity: ER Cuts and Public Life in NB

Elections are never decided on a single issue ... but someone remind me: wasn't it health care cuts to small communities that helped do in Bernard Lord's government?  In New Brunswick we have a minority Progressive Conservative (PC) government that is propped up by a small anti-bilingualism third party called the People's Alliance of New Brunswick (PANB). The result of the 2018 provincial general election was improbable. The Tories secured a slim plurality of seats (which allowed them to claim that they "won" the election) on the basis of less than 32% of the popular vote. The Liberals garnered 37.8% of the vote but the character and nature of its distribution as well as the success of the Green Party relegated them to second place in seats. The Liberals tried to hang on to government, but the legislature was against them, their government fell, and current Premier Higgs and his 32% Tories were asked to try to form a government. Since that date, Higgs has governed with the support of the PANB.

Around the time Higgs assumed government, I attended a panel discussion of the provincial election results. The general conclusion was that New Brunswickers would almost certainly be back at the polls inside of six months. That did not happen. Higgs managed to govern by trying to give the PANB what it could -- rejecting the report of the NB Commissioner of Official Languages, making more room for uni-lingual anglophone health care workers in francophone regions of the problem, promising the end of the immersion education for anglophone kids. While there was a large community of interest between the Tories largely rural anglophone vote and the PANB, the PANB was holding the reigns of power. The Higgs government gave them no reason to stop supporting the government and I actually don't think they will now. 

PANB support was not the only reason Higgs has stayed in government. A series of other factors came together to help him out. First, the concerns of the PANB were actually easy to address because the party is, more or less, single-issue. Despite having a platform there is no evidence that its supporters were particularly interested in issues other than languages politics. But, the PANB's position on, say, fracking was almost the same as the PCs so no modifications needed there and it had no significant views on lands and forests, fishing, school curricula, social welfare, policing, immigration and migration, other forms of energy. In retrospect this has made it remarkably easy for the PCs to find common cause with the PANB.

Second, for its own reasons, the PANB has come to have a vested interest in the Higgs government, which is why I think they will continue to support it despite the mess in which it currently finds itself over health care cuts. The PANB has every reason to want a continued minority PC government that depends on them for support. They are unlikely to increase their seat count in any future provincial election and, even if they could, they were never close to winning enough seats to even be the leading party in a minority government. Moreover, the polls show them going in the wrong direct. They are losing support. The most recent poll numbers (admittedly before the current ER room closing fiasco) suggest that potentially none or only one of their three seats are safe if there was another election. So ... why would the PANB do anything but try to keep the Tories in power which guarantees their influence on the issue that matters that most to them. From their perspective, not only would an election almost certainly carry negative consequences for their party, but if things went the other way and, say, the Liberals returned to power, they would have no influence and a party committed to reversing what Higgs has done would be in the driver's seat.

Third, the Liberals had no leader. Former Premier Gallant resigned in the wake of his government's collapse. Without a leader -- and with just about no one seemingly wanting the job -- the Liberals themselves did not want to force any issue. Their francophone and middle class base was concerned with what Higgs was doing but the Liberals seemed to have little desire to fight an election. For its part, outside of language, the Higgs government was doing as little as it could to upset anyone. I will confess, I was surprised by its moderation compared to, say, the Ford and Kenney governments. The Higgs government may or may not have wanted to go after civil servants and teachers, but it must have recognized that it needed to keep its powder dry. It might have wanted to dramatically cut government spending, but took very few steps in that direction.

This moderation seemed to be working: the polls (see previous link), showed the PCs running around 40%, perhaps dropping a bit in late 2019 and the Liberals in the 30% ballpark. It does not look like the Tories were taking Liberal votes and I don't think they were. I think the Liberal bleed was going to the Green Party (more on this below), but they were taking a bit and likely siphoning off PANB voters.  This did not necessarily do the Tories any good because taking PANB seats was not going to actually increase their overall legislative support. It was just going to re-arrange the chairs on the deck, as it were. But, it did show that Tory moderation deprived the Liberals of an issue that could animate an election campaign.

For their part -- and despite their opposition to just about everything the Higgs government was doing -- the Green Party did not want an election either. I don't think Green activists see themselves as a viable alternative government in NB, at least as of yet.  They did well in the 2018 election, but were exhausted by it. The Greens in NB are incredibly grass roots. Their supporters are devoted and enthusiastic and committed but they are by and large not a professional organization. That is an incredible strength and one of the reasons for their victories in 2018. But, it also carries with it a downside and that downside is that fund-raising is more difficult and organization tough and it can tire.  I also think that the Greens were not 100% certain of how solid their vote was.  They garnered 11.8% of the vote (less than the PANB), but was that support or the product of circumstances and popular local candidates and the collapse of the NDP?

Finally, the one issue that really might have been divisive was fracking but the energy glut took that off the agenda. Where fracking had been a wedge issue that drove votes away from the Tories in 2014, it is now absent because there is no reason to frack in 2019 and 2020. Even if the Tories wanted to frack -- and I think they do -- it has become a non-starter for industry.

So, you put all this together and the PCs were riding high. They had no particular reason to force an election themselves because they were already in power and needed time to increase their support.  They had easy PANB support; the other opposition parties didn't want an election. There was, in fact, no threat to them. They were in power, they were guiding the ship of state and there were no storms on the horizon .... until ...

Until the engaged in an act of unmitigated political stupidity. They returned to the issue that contributed to their demise in the past (was it Lord? Am I mis-remembering that?) as if they did not know their own party history. Whatever the particular merits of health policy in general, here is what the Tories did wrong with their recent announcement that they will scale back emergency services at six rural NB hospitals.

1. They picked an issue that will drive some of their core voters away. I drove by the protest in Sackville yesterday against the ER cuts and the protesters were an incredibly diverse lot. This has upset people who I've known as lifetime conservative voters. There were a lot of +50 people at the protest and those people vote. IOW, they did not upset, say, just young people (whose voting record is more checkered), but people who will vote and for whom this issue is important. IOW, they upset people who will *vote* on this issue. 
2. The issue resonates. The problem is not just the six communities that will lose emergency services, but that other communities and other voters will start to wonder about their health care services. It turns out that in Sackville, for instance, scaling back emergency services is just part of the changes being introduced, which include ending acute care hospitalization and the already modest ambulatory care that was available. The Sackville Memorial Hospital, it appears, is to be turned into a weigh station for seniors on their way to care facilities. 
3. The Higgs government does not seem to have briefed their own caucus on ER closures. Two Tory MLAs seem poised to vote against this measure and seemed, in fact, broad-sided by it. If one were going to do something controversial, a government should make sure its own members are in the loop. 
4. They handed the Liberals a key and easy to understand election issue. It took less than one day for Liberal social media to state clearly and unequivocally: if you elect a Liberal government, these hospitals will stay open.  It is clear, quick, and sets up a dichotomy that everyone can understand: vote Tory and lose your health care. Vote Liberal; keep it. 
5. The announcement was mistimed. It is rushed: implementation is to begin in early March, which looks really really bad. It looks like a government, whose claim to democratic legitimacy was already shaky, is trying to rush a policy through because it knows that it will be unpopular. It looks like they are saying "screw you" to rural communities and that is not a good optic. It is made worse, however, because the Liberals now have a leader, an anglophone with some name recognition. Will he be a good premier? Who knows? But, from a political perspective, that might be at least a bit beside the point. 
6. The Tories seem not to have recognized that times have changed in other ways. While the declining popular support of the PANB likely means they are not interested in an election and so will continue to support the PCs come what may, the Liberals are now not afraid of an election, Nor is the Green Party. The polls show its vote increasing and its strong showing in NB in the recent federal election also bodes well for it. Green Party leaders can read these numbers as easily as I can. 

Put all this together and the Tories are in trouble. Even if they withdraw the policy, they have created a wedge issue that will drive votes away from them. Even if they survive an impending non-confidence motion (and they could; the math is tight but they could survive), the issue will not go away. The protesters, in Sackville at least, are well organized, make effective use of social media, know the community supports of them. In Sussex, the news reports suggest real anger.  

This all makes me ask: why did Higgs do it? Is this really a response to health care problems in NB? I suspect that there was a political calculation. Four of the six hospitals affected are in Liberal or Green ridings. And, I do think there is another level of calculation here that relates to the unwinding of the Tories plans for economic rejuvenation in NB. I just think that they made the wrong calculation. 

The Netherworld of Public Universities: Free Tuition Redux

One of the arguments made against the free tuition programme in NB is that it does not include "private institutions." It includes only, say, its opponents "public institutions," like Mount Allison University, where I work. There are actually reasons for this. They might not be good reasons but there are reasons and those reasons do not include, as some of the policy's opponents suggest, an attack on religion. In my last post, I tried to address this issue with regard to Crandall University. I argued that Crandall was, in fact, the "author of its own misfortune" in this regard. One need not and one should not slag Crandall, insult its students or its faculty or even its mission. These are choices that the folks who run, work at, and attend Crandall have made and we don't have to like them to be polite.

It might however be a different matter to talk about "public" and "private" institutions because the language does not exactly fit the NB post-secondary educational system. This language of "public" and "private" is, from what I can tell, a language imported from the US where there is a distinction between private institutions and state-run university systems (like the University of California system, as an example).  I'm not at all certain that this language applies easily to Canada, although there might be examples of instances where it does. It does not fit the other universities in NB well at all and its use, particularly by those defending Crandall and its desire to obtain "free tuition" for its students, clouds the issue.

The truth of the matter is that so-called "public institutions" like Mount Allison University exist in a sort of netherworld between the state and private institutions. Crandall, as I noted in my last blog, is a "private institution" for its own reasons. It adopted this approach precisely to avoid the influence of the state on it. (That was, of course, their choice and they did nothing wrong in making it. My question is simply this: after making it, do they have to live with the implications of their own choices?) But, does this make Mount Allison, say as an example, a public institution?

In one sense, yes. Mount Allison is bound by the state.  The provincial government, for instance, can tell us how much we charge for tuition (in practice this takes the form of telling us how much we can increase tuition each year -- 2% this year; 0% last year).  While it does not do this -- and is bound by the law of contract (which all parties prefer) -- it can legislate my salary, that of administrators. We are certified by the MPHEC, which tells us what programmes we can offer and whether or not those programmes are up to snuff. Should they want, the provincial government can also tell us how to teach (specifying say, "deliverables" in terms of learning outcomes or something like that). Our budget is, likewise, dependent on the state and we are bound, as a result of this, by the Charter, the Citizenship Act, and human rights legislation. As a public institution, in this sense, we cannot set limits on who we hire (something the folks at Crandall want to do) in terms of diversity. I don't want to make this point too strongly. The hand of the state rests lightly on Mount Allison University. It is there and it imposes obligations (most of which I have no problems with) but it is not a heavy burden.

It differs from private institutions in a number of respects, most which I addressed in my last blog. One key respect, however, is that Mount Allison is not -- and cannot  be -- a for profit institution. It runs a balanced budget but it cannot run a profit. This is what makes it different from most private post-secondary educational programmes. They are in the for profit business. NBCC, of course, is also a state-run not-for-profit enterprise. Other institutions, however, are. They are in the educational game to educate but also to make money. Crandall is different. It is not a money making institution. It might make money. I don't know: I tried to find its budget online and couldn't, which doesn't say much since I won't claim to be good at searching. My point, of course, is that Crandall is private not because it wants to make money but because it allows it to avoid the obligations that affect Mount Allison and other universities (UNB, UdM, etc.) in NB. Is this category appropriate? Likely not and I'd suggest that it likely should be changed. But, it is the category that Crandall chose for itself.

Mount Allison, however, is also a private institution. The state regulates Mount A but does not own it, as it were. It contributes significantly to its budget but it does not provide its entire budget. Mount Allison has its own governors (Regents) who approve its budget and make financial policy. Its president goes to the legislature (actually, I think, a legislative committee) and answers questions about it, but its budget is determined by the Board of Regents, as opposed to the government. Its academic programmes are approved and certified by the MPHEC and the province can tell us what to do, but the University Senate approves individual courses, changes to majors or minors, and the like. There is, in other words, a substantial degree of self-regulation that goes on (in my gig we call this collegial government)-- including that done through MASU (the student union whereby students regulate themselves) -- and that makes Mount A something of a private institution as well.

For those who know it, Mount Allison's history is that it developed as a Methodist and then United Church institution, becoming increasingly connected to  the state for budget support after WW II. At the same time, it was involved in a process of slow secularization, as a result of a variety of factors. As an institution, Mount Allison confers its own degrees, makes its own decisions about building priorities, and sets its own agenda regarding its self-regulation and administration, among other things. This process of self-regulation does not always flow smoothly as those who witnessed or were part of the strike a couple of years ago know, but that is how it operates on a day to day basis.

This is important because some people -- particularly the belated and odd right wing proponents of free speech -- seem to feel that universities are the equivalent of the state and thus they can just go in book a room and give a public lecture that says whatever anyone happens to want to say. Universities are not branches of the state the way, say, the public schools are or community colleges or even public parks. They are also private institutions and, as a result, have the right to regulate who can rent rooms or speak on campus. Said differently, Mount A is not an open space -- akin to a town square -- and does retain autonomy and independence from the state.

Mount Allison is, thus, neither a branch of the state (in the manner of the public school system) nor fully independent of it. It is neither public nor private, retaining elements of each and existing in between ideal types. This is important because the state does not consult Mount A with regard to policy (because it is independent) even while it regulates Mount A (because it is not independent).  This situation seems contradictory and it may be. It is, however, to suggest that the stark distinction some people want to create between public and private universities in NB does not exist. The distinction is the product of choices different institutions have made and the degree to which they are willing to accept regulation.  This last point may be, in fact, the key difference between, say, Crandall and Mount A and that, it seems to me, is something different than saying one is public and one is private.

The same thing, btw, applies to Crandall. Its web site, for instance, tells students and potential benefactors about the tax implications of their tuition or gifts and that they can qualify for public bursaries and the like. I will confess that I am not familiar with these things because this is not something with which I have much interaction but I think you can see my point. Crandall is also dependent on the state for things like tax breaks for its students and benefactors or public bursaries in the same way that Mount A is.

Said differently, the supports of "free tuition" for Crandall are missing a significant point when they define Crandall as a private institution and fail to note the character and nature of what that means: it does not cut Crandall off from the state-sponsored economic benefits. It cuts them off from this one -- the low income free tuition policy -- but not others. Hence, the distinction that they are making between public and private as if it were black and white fails to acknowledge the gray quality of the distinction they are drawing. Crandall is not being treated markedly different from other institutions excepting to the degree that it has asked to be treated differently. Once we understand the netherworld of so-called "public" universities and the degree to which the state already supports "private" universities, the concerns being raised by those who claim that this policy is an attack on religion become even more difficult to understand.

The Implications of Our Choices: Free Tuition and Religious Education

Free tuition -- whatever that precisely means -- has become oddly controversial in New Brunswick. In previous blogs, I tried to address some of the controversies but I tended to focus on those who opposed free tuition in order to make the case that education was good and that improving access to it carried with it a series of positive effects for the wider society. I also tried to argue that using the educational system and guaranteeing access to it (allowing one meets certain standards) regardless of incomes is neither a new nor a radical idea. It is generally consistent with the mainstream of post-WW II equality ideals that have animated the Canadian polity and that are, in my view, widely supported by the vast majority of the Canadian electorate. In fact, they are so widely supported that I suspect that the vast majority of Canadians would be surprised that anyone would question that idea that expanding access to education is a good thing.

More recent controversies are not in the public eye as much but are interesting to note because they raise interesting questions about the scope of state support for post-secondary education. Here in NB there are several small Christian universities. The only one of any size -- and, hence, the one around which controversy swirls -- is Crandall, a "private" Baptist university in Moncton, NB. Crandall is one of those institutions that, if it did not exist, someone would have to invent it. Both its opponents and proponents seem to desperately need it. Its opponents -- and I've addressed some matters relating to Crandall in the past -- see it as a discriminatory institution that is duplicitous (at best) in the perpetuation of homophobia. It is discriminatory - in that it maintains a faith test - that eliminates non-practicing Christians or people from other religious groups (say, Muslims or Jews) - as well as member of the LGBTQ  communities and -- potentially -- those of us who support them -- from employment or education.

It proponents, of course, have a different view. They tend to argue that Crandall provides educational choice and that the state should not censor or limit educational choice. As I've tried to indicate before in this blog, I am not in favour of a religious means test as a condition of state support for such things as grants. I would not necessarily consider myself a proponent of Crandall University -- in fact, I've argued against their faith test and its theology in the past -- but I do feel that having the state impose religiously-based conditions for is support (that is, in the case of Crandall that it needs to support a specific religious point of view with regard to equality for gays and lesbians) is problematic and a matter of concern. I've also tried to argue that there might be far more ground than we generally believe to accommodate different religious views within the mainstream of Canadian institutions without, in any way, harming those institutions or lessening our commitments to equality (be it religious or with regard to LGBTQ).

This kind of discussion has been raised again regarding NB policies for free tuition because Crandall -- as a private institution -- is disqualified.  The free tuition programme is intended to support so-called "public" post-secondary institutions (NBCC, Mt A, etc.). Hence, students at Crandall, because it is a private institution, do not qualify for the low-income free tuition programme.  Crandall proponents -- including one of its administrators -- have expressed concern about this and tend to argue that this see this as discrimination. Crandall's students, they argue, should not be excluded from this programme simply because they are attending a Christian university. The Crandall spokespeople whose comments I have read have, in fact, approached this issue in a measured and balanced way.  They are, in my view, involved in a bit of spin but the comments that I have read have been measured, logical and reasoned.

Not so, some of Crandall's other supporters who have used much more extreme language. They have mocked the current government (particularly but not exclusively its decision to create a Ministry of Celtic Affairs), accused it of lying about tax policy, and suggested that this free tuition policy amounts to an attack on religious freedom. They have organized a petition, brought it to Baptist churches to sign, and suggested that further attacks on religious might be forthcoming. Indeed, political pressure needs to be brought to bear on this government -- one chap at my church said that we need to show the government that "Christian votes count" -- potentially to the point of campaigning against the government so as to have it defeated.

This is a different question and begs important questions that I write about here because, I think, they go to heart of key issues in contemporary Canadian public life. These include (but are not limited to):

• Should the state fund institutions that do practice discrimination if that discrimination is deeply believed, say for religious reasons? 
• Is religion -- and particularly Christianity -- under attack? 
• Should the state modify its position with regard to religion, say removing the tax free status of religious institutions? 
• Should private institutions be included in free tuition programmes? 

I can't -- and likely shouldn't! -- answer all these questions today but I really do want to address one. It is this: religion is *not* under attack in New Brunswick today. The failure of the current government in NB to *not* include Crandall in its "free tuition" programme has nothing to do with religion. In my next blog, I'll try to address the question of whether or not it should have included Crandall, a question that, I want to argue, is far trickier than either the proponents or opponents of Crandall seem to believe or want to concede. 

There could be any number of reasons for excluding private institutions from this legislation. The most obvious one is that the taxpayers of NB are going to put some cash on the line and it is very difficult to regular private institutions (I'll leave the merits of this to one side). It is far easier to regulate "public" institutions like Mount A. Although it *does not* do this, because Mount A is a semi-public institution, the government can relatively easily regulate it. If it wanted -- and it does not want -- it could legislate my pay, change the way in which Mount A is administered, tell us (and it does do this) what we can charge students for tuition. It could, if it wanted, even insist that we meet certain standards say regarding pedagogical objectives. Mount Allison (the institution at which I work and so I use it as a handy example) is, moreover, bound by the specific requirements of the Charter. I personally do not consider these a burden (and you'll see why I make this point in a minute) but they do require that we conform to equality and human rights legislation. Unlike Crandall, for instance, we cannot specify a faith test for employment or enrollment. Said differently, the more extreme Crandall proponents make it seem like institutions like Mount A have all the benefits that have been denied to Crandall by virtue of their status as "public institutions" but this is not actually the case. There are, in fact, a series of obligations -- to conform to the Charter (which, again, I support) -- and to accept state regulation from which Crandall is exempt.

And Crandall is exempt from these obligations by virtue of its own design. The government did not choose to make Crandall a "private" institution. Crandall did. And, it did this to precisely to avoid the obligations under which Mount A operates. In other words, and more specifically, it did not want to be committed to the equality provisions of the Charter. There are, no doubt, other reasons as well but for one reason or another, the LGBTQ issue has come to the fore in recent years. Crandall also looks to impose (and I don't think this imposition is, in fact, a heavy burden for its students or staff but it is an imposition) specific moral standards and modes of living  as well as promoting certain beliefs to be held in common. This, too, is something that Mount Allison (as an example) is simply not allowed to do. Thus, while I do not consider a commitment to equality, say, to be a burden, the folks at Crandall did and they defined themselves as a private institution precisely to avoid this burden. 

Fair enough. I'm not at all certain I agree, but at the time these decisions were made and when they were revisited (as I am sure they periodically are), Crandall was operating within the framework of post-secondary educational law in NB and within the framework of the federal Constitution. We may not like the decisions that the folks who run and support Crandall made but ... that was their decision to make and they did not step outside the law or the Constitution to do it. 

The question of whether or not a self-defined private institution that has made that decision -- to be "private" as opposed to "public" --  in order to avoid Constitutional and legal obligations imposed by the state should have the benefit of state support is a different matter. And this -- not the question of religious free or religion being under attack -- is the question that is actually at issue. To the best of my knowledge, no serious person, institution or government official questions freedom of conscience in Canada (including NB). I have never heard any serious person question it and where I have heard religious freedom questioned (from people who are best considered unusual or extremist) it has been regarding non-Christians groups, particularly but not exclusively Muslims. 

Said differently, the question that the proponents of Crandall would have us ask -- should we have freedom of religion? -- is not actually the question that is at issue. The issue is *not* the right of Crandall to exist; it is not the right of students to attend Crandall; or even the right of students graduating from Crandall with their BEds, say, to be certified as teaches. The question is actually this: can Crandall live with the implications of its own choices? 

There is more to this and I'll get to that in a while, but when asked in this way, we have a different question. After all, as I said, no one opposes religious freedom. But, whether or not a religious institution that does not have to conform to post-secondary obligations imposed on other institutions should also be allowed to take part in programmes designed for those institutions ... is a different question. Said differently, and perhaps far too simply, should Crandall have its cake and eat it too? 

Asked in this -- what I would argue is a more accurate -- way, the extremism of some of Crandall's supporters becomes difficult to stomach. It becomes, at best, misinformation that is produced by fuzzy thinking that clouds (as opposed to clarifies) an important issue that New Brunswick should be discussing. 

I'll break off here because this blog is already too long but I suspect my point is now clear: we need to discuss the issue of "free tuition" accurately if we are going to advance this policy. 

The (Sad) Politics of Free Tuition

I'll stop after this one and move on to another subject. I promise. I've written a number of blogs that try to make an argument about "free tuition" in NB in three parts:

1. Its hard to argue against education so those who oppose free tuition, don't. Instead, they use vague, imprecise arguments that raise questions about free tuition without coming out and saying they oppose it. This way they oppose it ... without sounding like idiots.

2. Education is good. It has a lot of benefits that include safer communities, greater civic engagement, and higher lifetime earnings.

3. Free education for poorer Canadians is ethically sound and, in fact, a continuation of a broader commitment to equality of opportunity.

Now, I am not arguing that this specific policy is a good policy. Like many people, I guess, I'll need more time to assess its specifics and need to see how the debate turns out and what amendments are made to it. My point is that free tuition is not just a "nice" thing the government can do for poorer New Brunswickers. It has the weight of evidence behind it. In fact, even if we were't interested in being nice -- if we were crassly self-interested -- we'd have to concede that there are appreciable merits behind "free tuition."

So ... who actually opposes it? That is, in part, not clear. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation opposes it because it involves government spending but ... the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is hardly a neutral body. Its a neo-liberal lobby group that is self-appointment (they actually aren't a federation of taxpayers; its just a name. If you doubt me ... did you ever get invited to a meeting or was your view of their policy ever solicited?). In other words, its not a group whose views should be seen as studied or considered. It begins from a particular perspective and simply articulates that perspective, rather than reviewing evidence and subjecting that evidence to critical thought. Thus, the first group that opposes free tuition are neo-liberals, or, more specifically, their mouth pieces. That might have been expected.

It might be easy to dismiss neo-liberal discourse as a been-there-done-that type of thing (neo-liberalism, of course, is not new. It dates as a discourse perhaps to the 1960s and was implemented in Canada in the mid-1980s. In fact, other than the brief Martin government -- which arguably didn't know what it was doing -- all Canadian governments since 1984 have been one-stripe or another of neo-liberalism. Hence, if you think "gee, these people have some new and fresh ideas ... you might want to brush up on history since their ideas are -- far from being new -- a generation or more old). But, what interests me about it, is the number of people I run into who are willing to at least play around with the idea. In my line of work, I meet people who periodically say things like "Mount A would be better off if it were private because then we could charge 15K+$ in tuition." Now, this is, of course, both true and crap. Mount A could, theoretically, charge whatever it wanted for tuition. The question is: would people pay? I've blogged on this before, but the assumption that Mount A's student body will remain constant if it increases tuition is a pretty shaky assumption.

(In point of fact, it flies in the face of capitalist economics because capitalist economics suggest that price influences demand and so I find it odd that the very people who claim to support capitalism proceed as if they market did not matter in the case of tuition at Mount A. I've blogged on this before, however, and so I won't continue.)

Neo-liberals used to try to make a series of arguments to support their opposition to state involvement in the economy (with things like "free tuition").  They used to say that cutting taxes will improve income, make the economy more efficient, lower unemployment, etc., etc. As time has gone by and those things have not happened -- again, its not new or untried, its been around for a generation -- these arguments have tended to drop away. Neo-liberals still make them but we all know that a 1% cut in the HST ain't gonna make any difference to anyone's income. As these arguments ring hollow, they have been replaced by another set of arguments which run something like this: its simply good for people to be paid less and for poorer people to have to scrimp and safe to stay in place socio-economically. Exactly why is it good? Well, supposedly, it does something for morality. It teaches people something that will equip them well for life (even if we cannot quite specify what that is or what benefits derive from it).  Said differently, there is here a principled opposition to such things as free tuition but its not at all clear what that principle is based on.

More troubling are some other views I read in CBC news comments as I tried to track down reasons why anyone would think increased accessibility to education was bad. Most of these views actually ignored the question of increased accessibility to education entirely and argued against "free tuition" on other grounds. I might say that these critics said something like "a free tuition policy is not about education" but they didn't actually even say that. Instead, they just ignored the subject and argued other points, including:

1. It is not fair to the middle class (perhaps, but that is an argument to modify the policy; not ditch it).

2. It is a conspiracy of francophones (I won't even say anything because a denial of conspiracy theories, of course, could simply be taken as evidence that I am part of the conspiracy)

3. It should be extended to private institutions (see point 1 ... although I am not 100% certain I agree here, I'd need to think about it)

4. Its good for people to not have money because if they get an education for free, they will not appreciate it.

Point 4 merits just a bit of attention. I say just a bit because the point is silly and contradicted every day in the public school system. The idea behind point 4 is that if you get something for nothing, there is no incentive to work ... but education is *not* overtime pay. The incentive is one's life. I've already commented on the grounds for assessing success or failure of this policy and tried to argue that success is *not* having everyone in university. Students work hard or not because they find education meaningful or they have specific objectives they want to accomplish or they simply take pride in their work, or they want to compete effectively in the job market, among a host of other reasons. My daughter, for instance, does not work less hard because she goes to high school for free. So, to say this -- people have to pay or they won't work hard -- is an odd logic because it seems to assume that there is no payoff to education and ... well ... I guess I simply don't know what to say to that that I have not already said (I should note that there will still be costs to be born by students, too, but we can leave that off and focus on what education is about).

To sum all this up: the arguments against "free tuition" are an odd mishmash of arguments that don't really have much going for them. Regardless of your particular view on "free tuition," I think you'd have to conclude that these arguments against it don't make a lot of sense and are speculative or are actually arguing for an extension of the program; not its elimination (if we followed the logic of the people articulating them).

The final word on free tuition, I think, will be this: the devil will be the details. I think this discussion is a step in the right direction because it is the first innovative idea we've had with regard to post-secondary education in a very long time.

The Politics of Free Tuition (Part II) or, Education, what's it good for?

In my last blog, I tried to argue that the arguments against free tuition -- or, at least some of the ones that we have seen so far -- are rather odd. They are, for instance, imprecise, implying that something bad will follow in train from a better educated society. This is an odd argument and one, I tried to say, that previous generations of Canadians would not have made. Indeed, in the past, previous generations of Canadians would have seen improved public education as a good thing, and they were right. Years and years ago I wrote an honours thesis (I won't claim it was any good) about school reform in nineteenth and early-twentieth century Halifax. One thing I remember from that research is that just about everyone thought improved access to education was good.

What would, then, prompt people to argue that it is bad? Well, they don't really argue that because, of course, they can't. Anyone arguing against education sounds idiotic and would be -- rightly -- called out as such. So, instead, contrary minded arguments are phrased vaguely as potentially serious but imprecise and unspecified problems. Governments, for instance, are not criticized for improving access to education but instead for misguided policies designed to do good but failing because of poor planning. This is a way of saying: "we support the idea but this policy is wrong." Likewise, governments that support free tuition are accused of making "political" decisions. What does this mean? Seriously, take a second and think about it. As I said in my last blog, do not all governments make political decisions? It means nothing, of course, but it sounds bad. It sounds like a government is making a decision in their best interests as opposed to the people they serve.

What lies behind this opposition to "free tuition"? Well, the first thing we should clear up is the idea that education could somehow be bad. It isn't. It is not just that people like education but that education is a good thing and the record is available for anyone to check. Now, I know we can have a debate about what education actually is and that is a good debate to have, too. But, for now, let's put that discussion on hold so that we can focus on the issue at hand. What good is education? Well, it does a number of good things. It lowers crime rates, improves political engagement (voting rates go up with education), increases volunteerism in the community (yes, higher levels of education correlate with higher levels of volunteerism), and improves equality of opportunity. There may be other benefits in terms of health and welfare that I don't know about for sure but which I suppose as well. Moreover, higher levels of formal education increase one's lifetime earnings. To say this in other words, on both an individual and a social level, it is very difficult -- nay, impossible -- to find negative things with regard to increased levels of formal education.

Before, then, you start to agree with someone who opposes "free tuition" (and, I'll get to the problems with it in a future blog) ask yourself this question: what bad happens from education? Seriously, ask yourself that question and ask yourself other ones. How many parents do you know who want their children to be uneducated? (I know, many parents -- myself included -- have problems with the way the school system operates but those parents -- at least the ones I know -- want better education for their children and more of it; not less). How many correlations can you find between education and negative social or economic indicators? Does a higher level of education cause the crime rate to go up? Does it promote inequality? Does it harm voting rates?  Does it make one unhealthier? Does it cause social disorder? Have you ever heard anyone make these arguments? Have you ever seen evidence that sustains them?

I ask these questions to illustrate a point: it is very difficult to argue against higher levels of formal education for society because there simply are not facts that allow one to make that argument. There is no empirical evidence -- and, please, correct me if I am wrong -- to show that education does bad things on an individual level or on a social level. The idea that increased levels of formal education could somehow be bad is counter-intuitive because it should be. It is, to say this again, impossible to make that argument.

Does that mean that education is for everyone? Of course not. To insert that view into what I have said would be a red herring. Does what I have said mean that there are no bad teachers? Again, of course not and that is not what I said. Does it mean that education could not be even better ... well, you get the point. The issue we are discussing is not "could education be better" but "is a higher level of formal education better or worse for the individual and for society?"  And, as I said, the opponents of "free tuition" know this and so they don't make that argument and, instead, use read herrings or imply vague unspecified bad things.

What we have, then, when we look at the evidence, are pretty solid reasons for wanting to improve access to public education. Is what the government of NB has proposed good enough? Likely not. But, is it the first real effort we have seen in this province (and, most of the rest of Canada) for a long time that is designed to try to meet that objective; that is: to create a better educated society. Could it be improved? ... sure could. Should we backtrack, however, because some unspecified bad things might happen? I don't know what different people think but I can tell you how I run my life. I rely on facts. I might like or dislike something on a personal level and most of the time that is good enough for me to make a decision because, after all, it is my life. I am not big on doing things I dislike. But, when I go to make some decisions I rely on facts. I select the bank for my mortgage not because I like the colour of their signs but because of their rates and terms. I vote for candidates not because of the colour of their suits but because of the policies they support. I don't drive a car with a flat tire because I happen to like the paint.

When we look at education as a matter of public policy this is the kind of analysis we need to use. We need to not think about what one person or another happens to prefer, but to think about what one person or another can empirically demonstrate. Here the question might be this: should we back away from a good idea because, say, the government in power might derive some political benefit from it, as the opponents of improved access to postsecondary education seem to suggest? Or, should we continue the discussion on the policy and potentially implement it because it make sense on an empirical level?

The Politics of Free Tuition

So ... New Brunswick is going to have free university tuition for some of its less well off citizens. Sort of .... It is not really the "free tuition" that we have heard people bandying about as a name but it could represent a very different approach to university education in NB and one of the more innovative ideas that we've seen in a generation with regard to post-secondary education. There are many reasons to like this idea. There are just as many -- from what I can tell -- to worry about its practise. But, there are some other interesting and potentially important things to note about the debate over "free tuition" as it has already unfolded and it is to those interesting things that I want to devote some attention.

My reason for doing so is not that I want to avoid a discussion of the merits of "free tuition." I don't. Indeed, I think this debate is long, long overdue. I've been arguing it -- not that you folks who happen to be reading this would notice because I don't have a high public profile, or, well ... any public profile -- for some time. Other countries in the world have adopted a "free tuition" model (which is, like the model proposed for NB, not free but the name kind of sticks). And, it seems to me that in more ways than one the secondary educational system of NB -- and perhaps many other jurisdictions in Canada -- is at a bit of an impasse. This impasse is historically conditioned. It is not the product simply of a bunch of individual bad decisions. There are, I think, good and bad ways out of the impasse. Said differently, there are better answers to solve our problems and worse answers.  There are no guarantees that answer X or policy Y will solve problems but there is good reason to presume that some answers will move a greater distance toward solving problems than others.

This is where the free tuition idea/discussion/debate enters into the question. Its politics are multifaceted. One of the things that has struck me about it, however, is the degree to which people are lining up in opposition to it. Indeed, it is a sign of the times, I suppose, that there are people ready willing and able to articulate views against the idea that increasing access to education is good. I cannot, in fact, imagine another time in Canadian history -- and, I am a historian -- where people would have argued such a thing publicly. After WW II, for instance, great efforts were made to expand post-secondary education; again in the 1960s the idea of making education more accessible was seen as a good thing. And, today, the Maple Spring in Quebec was about precisely this (among other things): accessibility. We are, therefore, in an interesting moment in time where for the first time that I am aware of when have come out against free tuition. There seem to be a range of reasons why this is the case but let's take one to start with, that offered by the self-appointed Canadian Taxpayer's Federation. I want to start with this argument because it is (a) one that will likely be repeated over and over again and (b) a pretty darned weak argument against "free tuition." In future blogs I'll look at other arguments against free tuition and what free tuition is all about.

The argument, as reported (cite is below), given by the Atlantic director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation runs like this:

“There’s nothing free in government,” says Kevin Lacey, Atlantic director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “This promise today is paid for with borrowed money. That money that’s borrowed today will mean higher taxes to the very students that are benefiting.”
Lacey says the Tuition Access Bursary (TAB) sounds like a positive step but it’s a bit misguided. (cite) 

I am citing the news story. So far, you might say, so good, pretty reasonable and looking like it might be balanced. But, then it gets silly:

“Investing in education is the right path for the province, it promotes business investment,” Lacey said. “But there’s no evidence to show that investing more money in lowering tuition payments will actually encourage more people to go to university. There’s much larger factors than just cost to why people go to school and why they don’t.”

And, here one might start to wonder about the arguments being made against free tuition. This argument is what is called a "truism." It is, more or less, the philosophical equivalent of saying "pain hurts" or "grass is green." The statement is true but it is also irrelevant because the point being made is so straightforward that it is the beginning of the an argument; not its end point. In this case, the idea that any one person makes a decision -- say, to go to university -- for a variety of reasons is the truism. We all knew that. In fact, no one pretended anything but. I'll rephrase my point just in case my language is preventing anyone from understanding it (and, apologies for that if it is the case): Lacey's position is silly. He states something we already knew and tries to mobilize it  as a reason to argue against free tuition.

But, and this is my point, his argument misses the mark. While we all know that parents, students, etc., make decisions for a range of reasons that does not mean that money is *not* one of those reasons and it does not mean that it is *not* an important one. For example, a student might choose to discontinue their university education and they might do so for a range of reasons. They might not like their major and want to  change it. They might be homesick. They might decide that they need skill upgrading. They might want to shift over to college. In other words, there could be a bunch of reasons but ... if you take a look at these reasons, they are all -- in one way or another -- related to money. The student who decides to drop out rather than change majors is making that decision because they don't have the cash to go back and start again in a new programme. The homesick kid makes that decision because they cannot afford to get home often enough. The student who decides to shift to college does that because they feel that they are more employable. In other words. while there are complicated reasons why student X or student Y makes a decision to go to -- or, to leave -- university, money is in there somewhere.

I work in a university and I hear this all the time. I frequently hear students (who are about to leave university without completing their degree) say "I'd love to keep going and get a good education, to know more about Canada [I work in Canadian Studies] but I can't afford it and so I'm going to get a trade." Said differently, the only way to pretend that money is *not* a key factor in decision making regarding post-secondary education is to not be familiar with the people who are attending post-secondary education and the way they think and look at the world.

Now, I want to hasten to add a couple of other points that I'll put out there in response to potential red herrings (you all know what a red herring is ... an argument that distracts from the discussion at hand). No one is saying that free tuition will ensure that everyone goes to university, at least everyone among those who make below a certain income level. It won't and the policy -- at least from what I can tell -- is not designed to that. The red herring here is that someone says "this policy did not work because some people, or a lot of people, or most people, still don't go to university." We don't have a command economy in Canada. We  can't just order people to go to university. Nor, of course, can the state solve all problems. Whether you, I, or the folks who run the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation like it or not -- and, for the record I do -- after a certain age each individual retains a freedom of choice with regard to their education.  Because people will make different decisions for different reasons, some will elect to go to university and some will not. Some will go to university and decide it is not for them. Others will go and decide that it is.

To say this differently, if this policy is implemented, its success or failure -- in some people's eyes -- will not be assessed on what it actually sets out to do, which is almost complicated and multifaceted. For some it will be  assessed against a standard that it never articulated. What we have, then, is an argument in which a key reason for making decisions is downplayed in favour of some unnamed complexity but little to no analysis actually done on how that complexity might relate to money or how different factors might be inter-related. Moreover, we have little conception of what the goals of the programme actually are. Instead, we are left to make assumptions because those details are not really addressed in the story. The key point here, we need to think about the objectives of "free tuition" before we start saying it will or it will not work.

As this news story goes on we are treated to more truisms that seem to line up in opposition to the idea that "free tuition" -- increased access to postsecondary education -- is a good thing. We are told, for instance, by other advocates of the private sector that the government made a "political decision." Be still my heart. I don't to make fun of this argument but I can't think of what else to do because it is so naively silly. Does anyone not think that governments make political decisions? Pause, for a second, and think about decisions made by other governments. Were those not political? Was, say, the federal Harper govt's energy plan for Canada somehow *not* political? Was Trudeau's support of feminism *not* political? Was the previous NB government's decision to *not* lower tuition somehow *not* political? Was the NS government's pandering to the middle class as it was creating a framework to drastically raise tuition in NS somehow not political? Seriously ... it is as if the person making this statement had not taken Politics 101 ... say, at university.

In the news story others expressed disappointment that government did not consult the private sector, but why should it? Does the private sector have some different privileged access to government than the rest of us? Why should it -- the government -- consult the private sector any more than it should consult educators? Or, say, universities? Or, parents or students or labour unions or churches? Somehow, the story implies (or, at least the person making this statement is implying) that something bad has gone on here: the government of NB tried to increase access to postsecondary education without consulting the business sector. But, as citizens we might ask: why should business get a say in whether or not my kids can or should go to university? Surely, in fact, in a democracy, they shouldn't or at least they should have no more say than any other interest and certainly should not have special access to government (they should have a say, to be sure, but as individuals and no more than you or I).

I've now gone on too long but you see the point I am making. We have here a group of people trying to make an argument that they know is not popular. They know that increased access to postsecondary education will be popular and popular with specific sectors of society. Thus, they resort to other arguments: it is misguided, the government is being "political" (that is, it is not behaving with good intentions but unnamed bad ones) and the issue is "complicated" (as if anyone said it was not). I suspect, as I said above, that conclusions will also be drawn on the basis of objectives that are not part of the actual goals of this policy so that some people can declare it a failure? Why and for what reason?

This is the odd thing, as I said above, access to education is good. Its democratic and it is good for society. Who opposes it? Well, right now it is pro-conservative  lobby groups and business interests and a few journalists, but there are others on social media articulating other views. Why are they opposed? Some are upset because they were not consulted -- that is, they did not get privileged access to government -- others because they think it will raise taxes (but they make this claim without, of course, providing any evidence). But there is also something else there as well. That is what I will address in my next blog ....

Fake Polling, Fraking and the NB Election

(Breaking from my blogs on the ethics of choice for a quick comment on the NB election.)

I got my first fake public opinion survey last night. We have all experienced, I am sure, those marketing or public opinion telephone survey that interrupts our evening. "Hi, I'm X calling on behalf of ABC research. We are hoping you can take the time to answer a brief survey." Sometimes they are about specific products. This one was about politics. They are not really surveys. They are designed to help businesses find a market for products or, in the case of the one I received last night, provide information for a political party in the midst of an election campaign. The person who called me did not know who paid for the survey, but the questions asked led me to strongly believe that it was the provincial PC Party. This led me to think about the election and what is going on. I find it disturbing and I've lost a fair amount of the respect I had for the current government. I don't agree with them, to be sure, on just about anything but I thought they were fair and honest. The way they are running this election campaign, however, has led me to re-assess this and not for the normal "politicians are basically dishonest" reasons that a lot of people give. Bear with me and I'll explain using this public opinion survey as one example.

Normally, I suspect like most of you, I politely refuse to participate in phone surveys. I try not to be rude to the caller because they are just doing their job and, in most cases, I'm pretty certain that they would take a different job if they could. Calling around to people who don't want to talk to you to ask a bunch of questions that they don't really want to answer, can't be much fun. Because I had a couple of free minutes and because the caller promised that the survey was very brief, I said "sure, I'll participate." After confirming that I was indeed a male older than eighteen, the first question asked me if I were employed by a political party or the media. Easier enough: "no." The second question asked me how I intended to vote. I make no secret of my voting intentions, but I thought "cool. Maybe this is actually a political science type poll and I am contributing to data that will be used to study this election."

The third question go me nervous. It ran something like: you selected a party other than the Progressive Conservative Party. What chance is there that you would change your mind and consider voting PC?" I had a four point scale that was not particularly accurate (fairly likely, etc.,"). After listening to my options, I gave the most honest answer I could "Is there anything lower than the lowest option you gave me?" "No ..." "Well," I said, "there is nothing that could get me to vote PC. To change my vote the Lord Jesus would have to come down and personally instruct me to vote Tory."

The fourth question began with an effort to frame the answer. In other words, it was not an effective or scholarly survey. It began by stating something to the effect of "some people don't think unemployment is high enough yet to justify fraking" ... at this point I ended the survey and hung up.

What was going on. This is clearly not a survey but an effort to do two things:

(a) to provide some sort of public opinion survey that could be spun in support of a faltering PC election campaign. You know what I'm talking about here "a new survey demonstrates that New Brunswickers are, indeed, likely to accept fracking .... " or "a new survey shows that New Brunswickers are concerned about unemployment and since fracking is a way to address this."

(b) to provide the PCs with some indication of how their one-issue election campaign is going. Since they are not doing well but are making some very, very modest gains ... they might want to know if they should broaden their message. If fracking isn't sticking to the wall ... might something else.

In either case, I had no desire to participate and the fact that this poll was disguised as a survey, rather than the relatively crass election tool it actually was got me thinking about this whole campaign and how it epitomizes the problems with democracy in Canada.  I'm pretty certain different candidates have strengths and weaknesses, but the merits of the PC campaign from the point of view of democracy are ... shockingly limited. How so. Three matters (in addition to fake polls) deserve attention.

1) Premier Alward began the campaign on a decidedly undemocratic note by stating that it was a referendum on hydrofracking (see the connection to the poll I mentioned above!). An election campaign can be many things but it is not a referendum on a single issue. To be sure, some issues dominate election campaigns more than others and periodically single issues gain a particular importance. Federally, the sponsorship scandal in Quebec (which at least had the merits of being about trustworthiness and manipulation) and the Free Trade election of 1988 stand out. But, election campaigns are not referenda because if the government -- a government he heads -- wanted to have a referendum on hydrofracking ... they could. It would be called ... a referendum. For the premier, then, the campaign began on a manipulative note.

Elections are about many things and should be about many things. One of the things that they are about, however, is governance. They are, in effect, a referendum but a referendum on the government: its policies, trustworthiness, effectiveness. Sitting governments need, of course, forward looking policies -- here is what we will do next -- but they also must defend their record: here is how we have behaved in government (promises kept; not kept; innovations, etc.). They are not about a single issue and to make them about a single issue -- or, to try to make them about a single issue -- distracts from what they actually should be about, particular in this case since an alternative was available to the Premier to his "referendum on fracking" idea.

2) Connected to point 1 above, by stating that the election is a referendum on a single issue, the premier can both avoid his own record (which, as I said, at least until recently had the merits of being honest) but he also avoid other issues. Fracking is not the only issue that NB needs to address. It is a way of focusing the campaign so that other issues are not given due time and, thus, what the Permier is doing, as my grandfather used to say, asking New Brunswickers to "buy a pig in a poke."  He is asking those who support fracking to buy the rest of his agenda without stating what it is. So, in addition to trying to make the record of a sitting government somehow unimportant in an election, he is also asking for a blank cheque on other issues.

3) By making the election about a single issue -- "vote for me and we will frack" -- the real issues related to fracking are also eclipsed. Let me be clear: I'm not a fan of fracking but in a democracy that is a policy issue we should debate and widely.  We have scientific  reports we can discuss, trade-offs about which we can argue, alternatives that we should consider (perhaps even ones that you or I have not thought of).  There are timeframes to consider, safety precautions, forward and backward economic linkages, communities abilities to determine what happens in their own neck of the woods, aboriginal rights, among other things. Simply voting for a government that supports fracking does not make the rest of these issues go away. It does not, suddenly, make the scientific reports on fracking less valid or the concerns of First Peoples disappear.

4) There are some sensible ideas on the table with regard to fracking, but unfortunately all these get lost and the Premier's discourse has done little to clarify them. For instance, the scientific panels investigating fracking have pointed out that determining its effects on the local ecology is difficult because of a lack of baseline studies. They conclude -- and I think intelligently -- that the problem we confront is that we cannot say for sure one way or the other about whether or not fracking is safe for the water table. What we need to do, the report concludes, is stop fracking (or, not start), let the water table settle, and then drill test wells to determine the effects. Now, here is a reasonably sound policy that has the great merit of saying "let us get the information we need to make an informed decision." Instead of engaging this perspective, the Premier says "they have fracked safely elsewhere" but he neglects to mention that the lack of baseline studies means that we don't know whether or not the results are safe.

There is a bigger point here and I don't want this to be a rant against the Premier. My concern is with democracy and how it is politically manipulated. From the point of view of crass politics, I can understand what the PCs are doing. I don't agree with it, but I can see the logic in it if all one is interested in doing is winning and election (and, if that were the be-all-and-end-all of Premier Alward's goals - if this is just about power for him --I am not at all certain I want him for Premier). Focusing on a single issue is a good way of detracting attention from a weak record which does contain some broken promises (I thought those broken promises were actually reasonable broken promises that should never have been made in the first place and I praised Alward for breaking them and explaining why. I thought -- and still do -- think that NBers were mature enough to say "gee, if that was a bad promise, we don't want to see it implemented because it will produce adverse results."), little innovation, and a lot of status quo, not much has changed. In other words, the PC government really has not done very much. I also thought it was a way of detracting from the fact that they don't seem to have much else to offer either. In other words, whatever else they are putting on the table will likely not win votes. And, it is clear that they are running fairly far behind in the polls. So, the political logic -- pretend to hold a referendum that is not a referendum while ignoring the fact that you *could* have held a referendum if you wanted and missing the chance to have a real policy debate in order to focus attention away from a weak record -- is clear. I suppose the problem I have is that not only does this approach create problems for democracy ... I expected better of Premier Alward.

Moral Standards

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.

Self-Sufficiency and Development

The New Brunswick Self-Sufficiency Task Force has reported and produced some interesting conclusions and suggestions. There is, however, good room to be concerned about what this Task Force is actually saying. Self-Sufficiency sounds like a good thing. The Task Force's goal (to find ways to transforming New Brunswick from a "have not" to a "have" province) can't be questioned as a good thing. What is of concern, it seems to me, is the way the Task Force has gone about framing its conception of what the future entails and the route to economic development. Three inter-related issues seem to me important to consider in this regard.

First, the discourse of self-sufficiency sounds both good and reasonable. It has old-fashioned connotations of autonomy: an individual who is able to make their own way in the world and who does not rely on others. This is clearly the way in which the Task Force conceptualized their work but self-sufficiency is not really what they mean. I'll be so bold as to venture an argument with little in the way of supporting evidence but is "self-sufficiency" a good thing? Economic development, it seems to me, in this modern (or post-modern) age is not about self-sufficiency. Its about inter-dependence. Economic development occurs through trade networks and exchange. The simple truth of the matter is that New Brunswick is not self-sufficient, nor should it be. Is there a modern economy that is? Take the US as an example. It is hardly self-sufficient but instead relies on trade with a host of nations around the world. Canada is even more trade dependent than the US. The production of wealth, we learn in intro economics, can occur in a variety of ways but one of the key modern ways is through specialization and trade. It is cheaper for me to make X and you to make Y. So instead of us both making X and Y (and entailing extra cost for so doing), I make a lot of X, you make a lot of Y and we trade with each other and we are both further ahead. If we wanted to be self-sufficient we would both make X and Y. We'd be poorer but we'd be self-sufficient. To create more wealth we specialize and trade. That specialization generates more wealth but that trade makes us dependent on each other. A lack of self-sufficiency (and concomitant dependence) actually succeeds in making each of us better off.

In this sense, the whole discourse of self-sufficiency is misplaced. I'll make another bold statement: self-sufficiency for NB, far from being the route to development would actually cause a contraction of the economy. What we are talking about then is wealth creation (development) and not self-sufficiency. Why am I concerned about this? Is it not just semantics? Perhaps but I think there is something else at work here. I think that the name self-sufficiency precisely because it sounds good disguises what is actually at stake and the recommendations the task force is actually making. If we think about some of their recommendations, they actually have nothing to do with self-sufficiency. They may have something to do with economic development but exactly how the task force is proposing to go about developing the NB economy is disguised by this discourse.

Second, at least in the speech I heard one of the chairs make, the recommendations of the task force are shrouded in an aura of inevitability. Changes are going to happen. Changes are going to happen fast. We have to get aboard the train because it is leaving. Those who miss the train (that is: don't accept the changes that are coming) will be left behind. Discourses of inevitability are problematic in themselves because no one knows what the future holds. By definition, the future is unknown, that is what makes it the future. In this sense, the task force's discourse of inevitability is not just misplaced; it is wrong. But, here is the really wild thing. At the same time that the task force promotes a discourse of inevitability, it tells us that we have to do thing to make this inevitable future happen. This is odd. If something is inevitable, it does not matter what you or I do. It will happen anyway. That is, after all, the definition of inevitability. What is inevitable? Mega-project oil refinery development in Saint John for one example. It is inevitable. It is good? The discourse of inevitability makes that question irrelevant but this is the very problem with the discourse: it does not ask the right question. It asks only what will happen; not what do we want to happen. An oil refinery in Saint John might be good. It might not. I don't know. I haven't studied the issue. To be honest, without having looked at the issue, I have qualms about it. I'd rather think about alternatives fuels and eco-friendly development strategies. But, as I said, I really don't know. What is important, however, is that I should know. Rather than telling us what is inevitable, we should be asking what is good? What do we, New Brunswickers, want? My second problem with the task force, then, is that its discourse frames the development issue incorrectly. And, it upholds this incorrect framework through a contradictory discourse that tells us that the inevitable future is coming so we better make it happen (or, otherwise, I suppose, the inevitable future might not happen). Instead of asking questions about what we want our future to look like, we get told what will happen.

Finally, the task force is enamoured with the idea of foreign capital investment, a matter of wider concern in Canada. Recently, of course, there has been a certain degree of concern about the "hollowing out" of corporate head offices as Canadian companies are bought out with their upper management moving to the US (or, elsewhere). A lead story in the Globe recently suggested that there should not be a lot of concern about this. The task force seems to agree. Foreign capital investment will strengthen the economy, the seem to be saying, so what do we care if the company owner lives in the US or Germany or wherever. As long as we have the jobs and the development occurs, as will be well. Will it?

The first thing we need to recognize in addressing this question is this: no one should have any illusions about the benevolence of Canadian capitalists. Canadian capitalists are capitalists. They are no better or worse than American capitalists. They will make decisions in their best business interests. That is, after all, what capitalists do. We should not expect Canadian capitalists to be any more environmentally friendly than foreign capitalists, or any more favourable to gender equality or any more favourable to workers' rights, etc. It would be naive, I think, to believe that nationalism will win out over business interests.

Even with this in mind, we need to take a clear look at what foreign investment will mean for the economy and the society. Sometimes, people who favour foreign investment like to dismiss concerns about it as just so much lefty political shmuck. I don't buy it because casting aside concerns before an analysis has taken place is a sure route to pre-mature decision making. We should not, of course, get caught up in political rhetoric. Little good is served by casting aspersions at "foreigners" just because they are foreigners (like I said, in my view, they are no better than Canadians). If this is the case, why be concerned about foreign investment? Because (1) foreign investment rests control of the economy outside of it. It is the anti-thesis of self-sufficiency and its not mutual dependency. it's a power relationship. Someone, somewhere else, makes decisions about employment, wage rates, political donations, pollution control, etc. Moreover, because they are somewhere else, they have a trump card to force governments in line: do what we say or we will leave. (2) profits are sent outside the country. Business costs/revenues break down into three categories: labour (the price of workers), rent (the price of resources) and profit (the price of capital). If you have foreign investment in control of your economy a portion of the revenue (profits over costs) is sent away. Wages stay in the province because workers live here and, for the sake of argument, let's assume that rent does too because we'll assume our company uses local resources. Profit, however, goes somewhere else. Some portion of money is sent away. If the company were locally owned, that revenue stays here. If not, it goes elsewhere. The effect of foreign ownership then is to take some portion of money out of the local area and send it somewhere else. That might be "inevitable" but it doesn't strike me as the surest and fastest way to promote development.

Overall, then, the task force has made their report and said some interesting things. I have not gone through the whole report. Google it (NB self-sufficiency) and you can have a look at it. From what I can tell, however, there are problems with significant aspects of what they are saying. All of this, of course, suggests that we need to think differently about economic development. It seems to me that one of the telling things about the task force's discourse is that it is old-fashioned. Its discourse of inevitable-ness, the merits of foreign capitalists, and the pull yourself up by your bootstraps seems more at home in the nineteenth century than the twenty first. Our discourse should be about something else. We should not be thinking about the inevitable development of fossil fuel industries but thinking differently about our economic future. Until we do this, I suspect the goal of development -- of becoming a "have" province -- will go unrealized.