A call to legalize marijuana will be met with a series of predictable responses. Here is how the Liberals should respond to each.
Potent Pot
Potent pot is more myth than reality. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2002/11/the_myth_of_potent_pot.html
However, even if one assumes that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Indeed, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 "chemically supercharged" joint, as various US attorneys like to say, versus x number of "dad's joints" would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School concurs, so does Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California and so does UCLA's Mark Kleiman.
That said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. After all, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it.
Finally, the attempt to scare parents that have grown up on marijuana by distinguishing between potent pot and “your dad's marijuana” is too clever by half. After all, it begs the following question. If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
Talking Points
1) Saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense.
2) If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
Gateway Drug
Researchers have rightly noted that people who have try marijuana are statistically more likely try other illicit drugs. This gave raise to the theory that there was something about marijuana that encouraged drug experimentation. Marijuana, it was alleged, is a gateway drug. This, in turn, was given as one more reason to keep the drug illegal. However, the gateway drug theory has until recently fallen on hard times for lack of an intelligible mechanism. The problem was that there was no coherent explanation for why marijuana would lead people to experiment with other drugs. Without this explanation doubt was cast relationship being more than mere correlation. That said, in recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana's pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana's illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged blackmarket relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway.
In this context it should be noted that when the Dutch partially legalized the sale of marijuana, heroin and cocaine use went down despite an initial increase in marijuana use. Dutch use of hard drugs remains well below the European average.
Talking Point
Every time someone goes to buy marijuana they come into contact with criminal elements with access to other hard drugs. This is your gateway. When Holland decriminalized consumption and made it available in coffee shops, heroin and cocaine use went down.
Schizophrenia and Marijuana
Epidemiological studies have consistently failed to show any kind of positive correlation between marijuana use and schizophrenia. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population and Oxford's Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. According to Columbia's Alan Brown, "If anything, the studies seem to show a possible decline in schizophrenia from the '40s and the ‘ 50,"
Talking Point
There has been an astronomical increase in the number of pot smokers since the 1950s and no increase in the rate of schizophrenia whatsoever.
The gangs will simply move on to other drugs
The market for marijuana positively dwarfs the market for all other drugs combined and marijuana is far and away gangs' biggest money maker. The notion that the gangs would simply shift focus and thereby maintain the same levels of profitability is absurd. Comparable demand for other kinds of drugs is simply not there. Moreover, such an argument rests upon a mistaken assumption. Namely, it assumes that the sure size and scope of the marijuana industry is limiting the distribution of other kinds of drugs. The reverse is true. Marijuana profits and sometimes even marijuana itself are providing the seed capital the gangs need to diversify operations (e.g., cocaine, heroin, human trafficking and guns) and to expand those other operations. This is one of the main reasons why we need to nip this in the bud.
Talking Point
It is not like the gangs have access to capital markets. Marijuana profits and sometimes even marijuana itself are providing the seed capital the gangs need to diversify operations (e.g., cocaine, heroin, human trafficking and guns) and to expand those other operations. This is one of the main reasons why we need to nip this, pardon the pun, in the bud.
The Black Market will live on
It is one thing to illegally sell a legally produced product and make a profit, e.g., black market cigarettes. It is quite another thing to illegally produce and sell a product (e.g., moonshine) in market where there is legal competitors. The reason is simple. The illegality of the product means that your production and distribution costs are significantly higher. Also demand for your product is always going to be less. People want to know what they buying and consuming. So when given the choice of buying an illegally produced product versus a legally produced product they are going to go with the later. (There is one notable exception and that is when an illegally produced product is successfully passed off as a legal one, e.g., fake brand name goods). That is why no matter how much Canadians drank during the time of American prohibition, I am sure that it never crossed the RCMP’s mind that American moonshine might become a competitor of Molson’s.
Talking point
Molson executives do not worry about moonshine eating into market share. Demand for illegal products is not what it is for legal ones.
The US will Never Let it happen
Canadians understand that the US, despite prohibition's crumbling foundation there, would not be pleased about legalization. As such, Harper's musings about legalizing marijuana causing trouble at the border seem reasonable enough. The problem is this does not make marijuana prohibition any more legitimate. Indeed, it is one thing to remain silent, for example, on American foreign policy for fear of damaging trade relations; it is quite another to send someone to jail for violating a law Canadians no longer think just in order to placate the US. Any perception that Canada is enforcing laws to met with illegitimate demands of a bullying third party, whoever that may be, is simply poisonous to the health of a functioning democracy.
Talking Points
1) We do not pass laws or keep others in place in order placate foreign governments. This goes especially for laws that would result in Canadians languishing in jail.
2) The US introduced Prohibition in 1919. Are you saying that Canada was wrong not to follow suit? Well then ..
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Appeals to Strategic voting work when there are rats on a Sinking Ship
Brain Topp
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/brian-topp/liberals-across-canada-are-being-hoist-with-their-own-petard/article2417189/ That might be true. However, there is little evidence that strategic voting played a role in 1997, 2000, and 2008 elections. 1993 and 2011 are a different matter. As the PC vote began to collapse in 1993, many traditional PC voters went in search of a new home and no doubt strategic considerations, certainly region ones, played a role for many. In Western Canada most followed the lead of the NDP voters, who had migrated over to the Reform party prior to the writ being dropped. (The NDP vote collapsed before the PC vote did in 1993. The PCs were tied with Libs going into the 1993 election. That was in marked constrast to the NDP. Going into the 1993 election the NDP were at 8% in the polls. They finished with 7% of the vote. In other words, the notion that NDP voters moved over to the Libs to block the Reform party is not there in 1993. As for 1997 and 2000, the regional makeup of Canadian politics, the unpopularlity of NDP governments in Ontario and BC and NDP support for the Charlottetown accord explain why the NDP vote did not return to normal until 2004. Strategic voting had nothing to do with it.) However, a sizable chunk of PC voters in Western Canada moved over to the Liberals. Most PC voters migrated to the Reform party in Ontario and in the Maritimes the PC vote moved over to the Liberals in NFLD and PEI and to the Reform party to lesser extent in NS and NB. Finally, in Quebec the PC vote moved over the Bloc.
Something similar happened in Ontario in 2011. As the NDP began to surge in Quebec, the Liberal vote in and around Toronto collapsed. Suburban Liberal voters moved in droves to the Conservatives and urban Liberal voters moved in droves to the NDP.
As for the 2004 election, two important things happened. One Ontario voters returned to the NDP after an 11 year hiatus. Between 1965 and 1993 the NDP vote in Ontario never diped below 19% and never topped 22%. The party's share of the vote was very predictable. However in 1993 the NDP took only 6% of the the vote and their share of the vote stayed low for the next two elections. They took 10% in 1997 and 8% in 2000. Then in 2004 they went up to 18%. They took 19.5 in 2006 and 18% in 2008. Something similar happened in BC. Two, the Conservative party vote in 2004 was 6 points lower than the combined PC and Reform vote in each of the three subsequent elections and 7 points lower than than PC vote share in 1988 and 1984 election. In 2006 the conservative vote returned to a historically normal level.
In sum, voters think about voting strategically, but as a rule thumb only when their preferred party's election fortunes collapse mid election. The party's core will go down with the ship, but a sizable number of other supporters, like rats on a sinking ship, will seek refuge with other parties.
For many years, Liberals have been eager advocates of “strategic voting” – the idea that it makes sense to vote for a party you don't support in order to avoid the election of a party your don't support even more.
A pitch to this effect has been part of the closing argument of every federal Liberal campaign since at least 1993.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/brian-topp/liberals-across-canada-are-being-hoist-with-their-own-petard/article2417189/ That might be true. However, there is little evidence that strategic voting played a role in 1997, 2000, and 2008 elections. 1993 and 2011 are a different matter. As the PC vote began to collapse in 1993, many traditional PC voters went in search of a new home and no doubt strategic considerations, certainly region ones, played a role for many. In Western Canada most followed the lead of the NDP voters, who had migrated over to the Reform party prior to the writ being dropped. (The NDP vote collapsed before the PC vote did in 1993. The PCs were tied with Libs going into the 1993 election. That was in marked constrast to the NDP. Going into the 1993 election the NDP were at 8% in the polls. They finished with 7% of the vote. In other words, the notion that NDP voters moved over to the Libs to block the Reform party is not there in 1993. As for 1997 and 2000, the regional makeup of Canadian politics, the unpopularlity of NDP governments in Ontario and BC and NDP support for the Charlottetown accord explain why the NDP vote did not return to normal until 2004. Strategic voting had nothing to do with it.) However, a sizable chunk of PC voters in Western Canada moved over to the Liberals. Most PC voters migrated to the Reform party in Ontario and in the Maritimes the PC vote moved over to the Liberals in NFLD and PEI and to the Reform party to lesser extent in NS and NB. Finally, in Quebec the PC vote moved over the Bloc.
Something similar happened in Ontario in 2011. As the NDP began to surge in Quebec, the Liberal vote in and around Toronto collapsed. Suburban Liberal voters moved in droves to the Conservatives and urban Liberal voters moved in droves to the NDP.
As for the 2004 election, two important things happened. One Ontario voters returned to the NDP after an 11 year hiatus. Between 1965 and 1993 the NDP vote in Ontario never diped below 19% and never topped 22%. The party's share of the vote was very predictable. However in 1993 the NDP took only 6% of the the vote and their share of the vote stayed low for the next two elections. They took 10% in 1997 and 8% in 2000. Then in 2004 they went up to 18%. They took 19.5 in 2006 and 18% in 2008. Something similar happened in BC. Two, the Conservative party vote in 2004 was 6 points lower than the combined PC and Reform vote in each of the three subsequent elections and 7 points lower than than PC vote share in 1988 and 1984 election. In 2006 the conservative vote returned to a historically normal level.
In sum, voters think about voting strategically, but as a rule thumb only when their preferred party's election fortunes collapse mid election. The party's core will go down with the ship, but a sizable number of other supporters, like rats on a sinking ship, will seek refuge with other parties.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Walkom: Ottawa’s low-wage immigration policy threatens turmoil
The Toronto Star's Thomas Walkom is one of Canada's best columnists. He is well informed, provides some good arguments and above all else tackles issues the rest of the media ignores. In yesterday's column he tackled something that has long irked me, viz., the huge numbers of temporary foreign workers that the Conservatives have allowed in. This is an issue the Liberals and NDP should be all over.
There is an implicit bargain in Canada regarding immigration. Canadians agree to welcome newcomers. In return, the government agrees not to use immigrants to drive down the wages of those already living here..http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1169568--walkom-ottawa-s-low-wage-immigration-policy-threatens-turmoil
While never formally acknowledged, it’s a bargain that’s been in place since at least World War II, one that has prevented the kind of anti-immigrant agitation now roiling Europe..
And it is a bargain that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are deliberately setting out to break..
Human Resources Minister Diane Finley made the break specific this week when she announced that Ottawa will now let employers pay temporary foreign workers less than Canadians..
The Conservatives talk a good game on immigration. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney speaks of rationalizing the complex system used to decide who comes to Canada and of bringing it in line with what he calls the needs of the economy..
In last month’s federal budget, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said employers would have to make every effort to hire unemployed Canadians before they’d be allowed to bring in temporary foreign workers..
But in reality, the federal Conservative government’s entire immigration policy is geared to just one goal: lowering wages. ...
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Mike Gillis did a Terrible job in 2011-12: He should be Fired
First some back ground. The season before Gillis had sent a a first round pick, Steve Bernier and Michael Grabner to Flordia for Keith Ballard, a player whose salary the Panthers were desperate to shed. The move left the Canucks with no cap space to sign Ehrhoff. Ehrhoff left for Buffalo in the off season. To pacify the faithful Gillis signed a washed up Marco Strum. In order to make room for Strum, Torres was not resigned.
To the surprise of no one, save Gillis, the Strum signing did not pan out. So Gillis traded Samuelsson and Strum to Florida for David Booth, a player whose salary the Panthers were desperate to shed. If you are sensing a trend, you are not alone. Go to capgeek.com and hit Panthers. This will allow you to see what players the Panthers might want to trade for salary cap reasons. They are sure to be on the Canucks wish list. Anyway, Samulesson finished with more points in fewer games than Booth. Booth meanwhile proved to be better at slowing down Kesler than any opposing center.
To the surprise of everyone Gillis traded Hodgson and Sulzer for guy with 7 NHL career points and a career minor league D man who was a healthy scratch for last 6 games in Buffalo. Gillis amazingly claimed that Kassian would give the Canucks back the toughness they lost when Torres signed with Phoenix and in so doing put the Canucks over the top. Gillis had equally high hopes for Steve Bernier a few years back and Kassian is dead ringer for Bernier. So it appears that the old Marxian maximum applies to hockey. Misguided trades for power forwards occur "so to speak, twice. ... the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." Kassian finished with 3 points in 17 games with the Canucks and Gragnani added 3 in 14. After being benched in 3rd period of both game 3 and game 4 of the playoffs, Kassian was not dressed for game 5. He went pointless in the 4 games he played. Meanwhile Gragnani never saw the ice. Hodgson added 8 points in 20 games for Sabres and Sulzer 8 in 15.
The season is now over and the Canucks biggest decision is what to do with Robert Luongo. There are enough teams in the market for a good goalie and Luongo is still that. However, the rub is this. Gillis signed him to a ridiculous long term contract with a no trade clause. So the Canucks will have their work cut out.
Now, I do not know about you, but I think it would be a bad idea to let the man who traded for Ballard rather than resigning Ehrhoff, who signed Strum instead of resigning Torres and who traded Hodgson for Steve Bernier's doppelganger try to peddle an albatross of a contract that he signed. Gillis should be Fired.
By the way, this is how the numbers breakdown
Torres 15 goals 11 helpers
Grabner 20 goals 12 helpers
Hodgson 19 goals 22 helpers
Samulesson 14 goals 18 helpers
Sulzer 3 goals and 6 helprs
Ehrhoff 5 goals 27 helpers
David Booth 16 goals and 14 helpers and 4.25 million a season for another 3 years
Ballard 1 goal 6 helpers and 4.2 million for another 3 years
Kassian 4 goals 6 helpers
Gragnani 2 goals and 13 helpers
Luongo (age 33) 10 more years at a cap hit of $5.33 million
To the surprise of no one, save Gillis, the Strum signing did not pan out. So Gillis traded Samuelsson and Strum to Florida for David Booth, a player whose salary the Panthers were desperate to shed. If you are sensing a trend, you are not alone. Go to capgeek.com and hit Panthers. This will allow you to see what players the Panthers might want to trade for salary cap reasons. They are sure to be on the Canucks wish list. Anyway, Samulesson finished with more points in fewer games than Booth. Booth meanwhile proved to be better at slowing down Kesler than any opposing center.
To the surprise of everyone Gillis traded Hodgson and Sulzer for guy with 7 NHL career points and a career minor league D man who was a healthy scratch for last 6 games in Buffalo. Gillis amazingly claimed that Kassian would give the Canucks back the toughness they lost when Torres signed with Phoenix and in so doing put the Canucks over the top. Gillis had equally high hopes for Steve Bernier a few years back and Kassian is dead ringer for Bernier. So it appears that the old Marxian maximum applies to hockey. Misguided trades for power forwards occur "so to speak, twice. ... the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." Kassian finished with 3 points in 17 games with the Canucks and Gragnani added 3 in 14. After being benched in 3rd period of both game 3 and game 4 of the playoffs, Kassian was not dressed for game 5. He went pointless in the 4 games he played. Meanwhile Gragnani never saw the ice. Hodgson added 8 points in 20 games for Sabres and Sulzer 8 in 15.
The season is now over and the Canucks biggest decision is what to do with Robert Luongo. There are enough teams in the market for a good goalie and Luongo is still that. However, the rub is this. Gillis signed him to a ridiculous long term contract with a no trade clause. So the Canucks will have their work cut out.
Now, I do not know about you, but I think it would be a bad idea to let the man who traded for Ballard rather than resigning Ehrhoff, who signed Strum instead of resigning Torres and who traded Hodgson for Steve Bernier's doppelganger try to peddle an albatross of a contract that he signed. Gillis should be Fired.
By the way, this is how the numbers breakdown
Torres 15 goals 11 helpers
Grabner 20 goals 12 helpers
Hodgson 19 goals 22 helpers
Samulesson 14 goals 18 helpers
Sulzer 3 goals and 6 helprs
Ehrhoff 5 goals 27 helpers
David Booth 16 goals and 14 helpers and 4.25 million a season for another 3 years
Ballard 1 goal 6 helpers and 4.2 million for another 3 years
Kassian 4 goals 6 helpers
Gragnani 2 goals and 13 helpers
Luongo (age 33) 10 more years at a cap hit of $5.33 million
Saturday, April 21, 2012
LEGALIZATION and DECRIMINALIZATION are different: The Liberals can not afford to Confuse the two
The Liberals passed a motion back in January that said marijuana should be LEGALIZED. Rae stated that he did not support the motion -- but accepts it. Not much more has been said since.
Enter Hedy Fry. She means well and I have no doubt that she supported the motion. However, she would not be my spokesperson of choice. Throughout the segment she used legalization and decriminalization interchangeably. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/04/20/pol-mulcair-position-on-marijuana-decriminalization.html There is a world of difference between the two. It is unforgivably sloppy to for any Liberal to confuse the two at this point in time. The Liberals support LEGALIZATION. The NDP supports DECRIMINALIZATION of possession. Get it right.
Two more points. One, keep the subject on marijuana and marijuana alone. Insite has nothing to do with wanting to legalize marijuana. Two, the Liberals need to change tactics. It is not enough to simply reference studies. The Liberals have to draw some conclusions and make arguments of their own. After all, take any subject you please; if there is a significant body of research about it, then it is stupidly easy to dig up dissenting opinion. It is asking way too much of your average to Canadian to have them dig up all the relevant body of work so that they can judge whether there is any consensus amongst the learned. They neither have the time or inclination.
The opponents of legalization have trotted out same lame arguments for years. Stomp on them. Do not leave it the experts to do so. The Liberals are entirely capable of makings such arguments and the public is entirely capable of understanding them. Liberals let me get you started. Here are some nice short sound bites.
Potent Point
1) Saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense.
2) If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
Schizophrenia
There is no causation without correlation. There has been an astronomical increase in the number of pot smokers since the 1950s and no increase in the rate of schizophrenia whatsoever.
Gateway drug
Every time someone goes to buy marijuana they come into contact with criminal elements with access to other hard drugs. This is your gateway. When Holland legalized consumption and made it available in stores, heroin and cocaine use went down.
Enter Hedy Fry. She means well and I have no doubt that she supported the motion. However, she would not be my spokesperson of choice. Throughout the segment she used legalization and decriminalization interchangeably. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/04/20/pol-mulcair-position-on-marijuana-decriminalization.html There is a world of difference between the two. It is unforgivably sloppy to for any Liberal to confuse the two at this point in time. The Liberals support LEGALIZATION. The NDP supports DECRIMINALIZATION of possession. Get it right.
Two more points. One, keep the subject on marijuana and marijuana alone. Insite has nothing to do with wanting to legalize marijuana. Two, the Liberals need to change tactics. It is not enough to simply reference studies. The Liberals have to draw some conclusions and make arguments of their own. After all, take any subject you please; if there is a significant body of research about it, then it is stupidly easy to dig up dissenting opinion. It is asking way too much of your average to Canadian to have them dig up all the relevant body of work so that they can judge whether there is any consensus amongst the learned. They neither have the time or inclination.
The opponents of legalization have trotted out same lame arguments for years. Stomp on them. Do not leave it the experts to do so. The Liberals are entirely capable of makings such arguments and the public is entirely capable of understanding them. Liberals let me get you started. Here are some nice short sound bites.
Potent Point
1) Saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense.
2) If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
Schizophrenia
There is no causation without correlation. There has been an astronomical increase in the number of pot smokers since the 1950s and no increase in the rate of schizophrenia whatsoever.
Gateway drug
Every time someone goes to buy marijuana they come into contact with criminal elements with access to other hard drugs. This is your gateway. When Holland legalized consumption and made it available in stores, heroin and cocaine use went down.
Mulcair and Marijuana
Steve V has a good post on how Muclair's call for a Royal Commission on marijuana is so 1969 and really only a thinly veiled attempt to push the issue out of the political spotlight. http://farnwide.blogspot.ca/2012/04/mulcair-exhales-hot-air-on-pot.html I should add that a call for such a commission is also extermely dishonest. He is calling for the wrong kind of commission. The years of debating the dangers of marijuana consumption both real and imagined have long since passed. The question before us now is how to go about legalizing it.
After all, it is not a matter of if marijuana will be legalized but when. I am betting that it will happen sooner rather than later. In a few short years, Latin America has gone from having former politicians musing about legalization to sitting presidents all but putting it onto the political agenda. Calderon is about to loose the Mexican election because of his hard line stance. This is turning out to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. In Latin America not only is the war on drugs a disaster from a policy viewpoint it is looking like it is becoming a political loser and politicians throughout the region are taking notice.
At the summit of Americas recently, Latin American leaders all but told Obama -- and Harper -- that the situation is so dire that years of the US being able to force Latin America into line through carrot and stick is rapidly coming to end. Their firm tone explains Harper's remarkable -- albeit momentary -- climbdown. "I think what everybody believes and agrees with, and to be frank myself, is that the current approach is not working, but it is not clear what we should do.”
In North America, a prohibitionist stance, is, of course, still a viable political stance. However, the legal legitimacy of those laws is rapidly being called into question in Canada. This is especially so in BC where the entire political establishment is quickly getting on board with legalization. Stateside, the success a referendum question coupled with the mushrooming industry connected to "medical" marijuana is sure to spell an end to prohibitionist era in the States.
However things rap up, the position of the NDP and Conservatives, insure that Canada will be woefully unprepared when it does happen.
After all, it is not a matter of if marijuana will be legalized but when. I am betting that it will happen sooner rather than later. In a few short years, Latin America has gone from having former politicians musing about legalization to sitting presidents all but putting it onto the political agenda. Calderon is about to loose the Mexican election because of his hard line stance. This is turning out to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. In Latin America not only is the war on drugs a disaster from a policy viewpoint it is looking like it is becoming a political loser and politicians throughout the region are taking notice.
At the summit of Americas recently, Latin American leaders all but told Obama -- and Harper -- that the situation is so dire that years of the US being able to force Latin America into line through carrot and stick is rapidly coming to end. Their firm tone explains Harper's remarkable -- albeit momentary -- climbdown. "I think what everybody believes and agrees with, and to be frank myself, is that the current approach is not working, but it is not clear what we should do.”
In North America, a prohibitionist stance, is, of course, still a viable political stance. However, the legal legitimacy of those laws is rapidly being called into question in Canada. This is especially so in BC where the entire political establishment is quickly getting on board with legalization. Stateside, the success a referendum question coupled with the mushrooming industry connected to "medical" marijuana is sure to spell an end to prohibitionist era in the States.
However things rap up, the position of the NDP and Conservatives, insure that Canada will be woefully unprepared when it does happen.
Friday, April 20, 2012
The Liberals at Death's Door
Prior to the 2008 election, the Liberal party was relatively competitive in every Western riding outside of Alberta. That began to change in 2008. Now, the Liberal party is completely irrelevant in great swaths of all four western provinces. (see examples below) What is true of the West is also true of Quebec. Where Quebec differs is that the phenomena first appeared in 2006. By 2011 the trend was so pronounced that the Liberal party is now completely irrelevant in most ridings outside of Montreal. Given current trends, we should start seeing the same phenomena appear in a large number of Ontario seats. The Liberal party is all is but dead. So, the question facing Liberals now is this. What path should the party take. These are the options.
1) Allow itself to swallowed by the NDP
2) Go out with a whimper in 2015
3) Justify its existence to a country all too ready to divide into two political camps by radically differentiating itself from both the NDP and Conservatives.
If three, I suggest that Bob Rae is not the man for the job. With the NDP headed right on economic and environmental issues there will simply be enough not space separating the NDP and Liberals. You will have a former provincial Liberal leading the Federal NDP and former provincial NDP premier leading the Federal Liberal party. To make matters worse, Charlottetown Bob is just as willing as Thomas Mulcair is to play footsies with Quebec nationalists.
Even the posture the Liberals are striking with Bob Rae is all wrong for the task ahead. The Liberals are still trying to be all things to all people and so end up being nothing everyone. They are still trying to be "centrist". Yes Rae can be cutting and quick witted and yes the Liberals claim to be the party of science, fact and evidence. However, the party continues to confuse compromise with nuance and being opinionated with being ideological. As for Rae, he wants to be liked. He is in no way an iconoclast the way Pierre Trudeau was and an iconoclast is exactly what the Liberals need right now.
BC
Pitt Meadows Maple Ridge Mission
2006 20.25%
2008 6.63%
2011 5.17%
KAMLOOPS--THOMPSON--CARIBOO
2006 25.22%
2008 9.84 %
2011 5.33%
CARIBOO--PRINCE GEORGE
2006 24.07%
2008 10.54%
2011 5.06%
Sask
PALLISER
2006 20.20%
2008 17.10%
2011 5.33%
PRINCE ALBERT
2006 19.38%
2008 7.99%
2011 3.46%
REGINA--QU'APPELLE
2006 23.05%
2008 10.35%
2011 4.71%
Manitoba
KILDONAN--ST. PAUL
2006 33.47%
2008 8.14%
2011 8.21%
BRANDON--SOURIS
2006 18.00%
2008 8.27%
2011 5.36%
PROVENCHER
2006 15.84%
2008 12.57%
2011 6.71%
Quebec
CHICOUTIMI--LE FJORD
2004 43. 43%
2006 29.19%
2008 13.45%
2011 5.60%
JONQUIÈRE--ALMA
2004 29.12%
2006 2.96%
2008 5.15%
2011 1.98%
ABITIBI--TÉMISCAMINGUE
2004 30. 98%
2006 13.81%
2008 20.73%
2011 5.91%
1) Allow itself to swallowed by the NDP
2) Go out with a whimper in 2015
3) Justify its existence to a country all too ready to divide into two political camps by radically differentiating itself from both the NDP and Conservatives.
If three, I suggest that Bob Rae is not the man for the job. With the NDP headed right on economic and environmental issues there will simply be enough not space separating the NDP and Liberals. You will have a former provincial Liberal leading the Federal NDP and former provincial NDP premier leading the Federal Liberal party. To make matters worse, Charlottetown Bob is just as willing as Thomas Mulcair is to play footsies with Quebec nationalists.
Even the posture the Liberals are striking with Bob Rae is all wrong for the task ahead. The Liberals are still trying to be all things to all people and so end up being nothing everyone. They are still trying to be "centrist". Yes Rae can be cutting and quick witted and yes the Liberals claim to be the party of science, fact and evidence. However, the party continues to confuse compromise with nuance and being opinionated with being ideological. As for Rae, he wants to be liked. He is in no way an iconoclast the way Pierre Trudeau was and an iconoclast is exactly what the Liberals need right now.
BC
Pitt Meadows Maple Ridge Mission
2006 20.25%
2008 6.63%
2011 5.17%
KAMLOOPS--THOMPSON--CARIBOO
2006 25.22%
2008 9.84 %
2011 5.33%
CARIBOO--PRINCE GEORGE
2006 24.07%
2008 10.54%
2011 5.06%
Sask
PALLISER
2006 20.20%
2008 17.10%
2011 5.33%
PRINCE ALBERT
2006 19.38%
2008 7.99%
2011 3.46%
REGINA--QU'APPELLE
2006 23.05%
2008 10.35%
2011 4.71%
Manitoba
KILDONAN--ST. PAUL
2006 33.47%
2008 8.14%
2011 8.21%
BRANDON--SOURIS
2006 18.00%
2008 8.27%
2011 5.36%
PROVENCHER
2006 15.84%
2008 12.57%
2011 6.71%
Quebec
CHICOUTIMI--LE FJORD
2004 43. 43%
2006 29.19%
2008 13.45%
2011 5.60%
JONQUIÈRE--ALMA
2004 29.12%
2006 2.96%
2008 5.15%
2011 1.98%
ABITIBI--TÉMISCAMINGUE
2004 30. 98%
2006 13.81%
2008 20.73%
2011 5.91%
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Matt Gurney Dead Wrong about the Marc Emery Case
Matt Gurney is a pretty good columnist, but he simply wrong about the Marc Emery case.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/19/matt-gurney-on-marc-emery-if-you-break-the-law-you-go-to-jail-this-isnt-hard/
Matt Gurney says that if you openly flaunt a controversial law expect the law to come crashing down. Thankfully this is not always the case. The police will not be arresting the tens of thousands of people smoking up for 4:20 tomorrow. Allowing for people to flaunt particular laws, if only temporally, is part of what it means to live in free society.
That being said, the problem with Marc Emery was not that the law came down on him when it should not have. It was that for 7 long years the police refused to arrest Marc Emery for repeatedly flaunting Canadian law and then all of sudden arrested him on behest of the American government to face charges. Now, under the terms of the extradition treaty, one can not be extradited if one is facing the same charge in one’s country of residence and one was arrested there. So, a BC marijuana activist tried to save Emery from being sent to the States by asking the crown to at long last charge Emery under Canadian law. His efforts were unsuccessful. Despite a mountain of evidence against him, Canadian authorities were unwilling to charge Emery under Canadian law. So, Emery is serving 5 years for a crime he was fined $200 for in Canada and which for 7 years was not been applied.
Matt Gurney says that if you openly flaunt a controversial law expect the law to come crashing down. Thankfully this is not always the case. The police will not be arresting the tens of thousands of people smoking up for 4:20 tomorrow. Allowing for people to flaunt particular laws, if only temporally, is part of what it means to live in free society.
That being said, the problem with Marc Emery was not that the law came down on him when it should not have. It was that for 7 long years the police refused to arrest Marc Emery for repeatedly flaunting Canadian law and then all of sudden arrested him on behest of the American government to face charges. Now, under the terms of the extradition treaty, one can not be extradited if one is facing the same charge in one’s country of residence and one was arrested there. So, a BC marijuana activist tried to save Emery from being sent to the States by asking the crown to at long last charge Emery under Canadian law. His efforts were unsuccessful. Despite a mountain of evidence against him, Canadian authorities were unwilling to charge Emery under Canadian law. So, Emery is serving 5 years for a crime he was fined $200 for in Canada and which for 7 years was not been applied.
Time to Bring an End to Equity
"Liberal Party to face up to the fact that neo-liberalism was an abject failure." Agreed. However, the party's left flank needs to shoulder much of the blame. In the face of Martin's cost cutting, they were far too willing given up the principle of universality for the sake of means tested social programs and are still very much of that mindset. By turning every social program on offer into a form of welfare, the ability of the Liberals to offer anything other than tax cuts during elections is very limited. Means tested social programs do not win elections; the populace is not going to get excited about paying for a service that only a small percentage of the public can use. On the flip side of things, the public does not get exercised about cutting back on the services only a small percentage of the public can use. That said, even on the tax cutting front the Liberals have failed to understand why a cut to a universal consumption tax might prove more popular targeted income tax cuts.
Of course, a turn to means tested social programs to the exclusion of universal ones was part of larger trend within liberalism itself away from universal to the particular. The Liberals have increasing focused increasingly on affirmative action policies under the rubric of equity. This has proved to be a disaster for the working class. Equity sows division within Canadian society and is an anachronism given Canada's rapidly changing demographic profile. The last 6 words from the following criminal code sub clause are a great case in point. "All available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances should be considered, with particular attention for aboriginal offenders." They formed the center piece of the wildly unpopular Gladue decision. Also, as it does nothing to address underlying causes of inequality, equity does little to advance equality. It only nibbles around the edges. A National daycare care system, for example, would do far more in a year for women's wage equality than 25 years of the Employment Equity Act has. The former addresses the underlying causes of the wage gap. The later hurts the cause of young white males because 50 something white males earn more than than their 50 something female colleges and it destroys the liberal ideal of a government built around merit. Hiring the "best" person for the job is a far cry from using the government as a counterpoint to perceived or actual deficiencies in the private sector employment. Worst of all, the focus on equity has meant that instead of trying to move the case of all workers forward, something that is desperately needed, liberals and progressives of all stripes have instead devoted virtually all their energies to shuffling the deck. Calls for a bigger share of the pie has been abandoned for sake of each of the ever smaller pieces having an equal amount of fruit.
Finally, the notion that the state should again adopt a paternalistic pose with regard to certain groups after a century of progressives seeking to reveal the oppressive nature of state sanctioned paternalism is indeed ironic. Residential schools and separate but equal may be part of an inglorious past, but "Afro-centric" schools are what is needed.
Of course, a turn to means tested social programs to the exclusion of universal ones was part of larger trend within liberalism itself away from universal to the particular. The Liberals have increasing focused increasingly on affirmative action policies under the rubric of equity. This has proved to be a disaster for the working class. Equity sows division within Canadian society and is an anachronism given Canada's rapidly changing demographic profile. The last 6 words from the following criminal code sub clause are a great case in point. "All available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances should be considered, with particular attention for aboriginal offenders." They formed the center piece of the wildly unpopular Gladue decision. Also, as it does nothing to address underlying causes of inequality, equity does little to advance equality. It only nibbles around the edges. A National daycare care system, for example, would do far more in a year for women's wage equality than 25 years of the Employment Equity Act has. The former addresses the underlying causes of the wage gap. The later hurts the cause of young white males because 50 something white males earn more than than their 50 something female colleges and it destroys the liberal ideal of a government built around merit. Hiring the "best" person for the job is a far cry from using the government as a counterpoint to perceived or actual deficiencies in the private sector employment. Worst of all, the focus on equity has meant that instead of trying to move the case of all workers forward, something that is desperately needed, liberals and progressives of all stripes have instead devoted virtually all their energies to shuffling the deck. Calls for a bigger share of the pie has been abandoned for sake of each of the ever smaller pieces having an equal amount of fruit.
Finally, the notion that the state should again adopt a paternalistic pose with regard to certain groups after a century of progressives seeking to reveal the oppressive nature of state sanctioned paternalism is indeed ironic. Residential schools and separate but equal may be part of an inglorious past, but "Afro-centric" schools are what is needed.
The center is not what the Liberals think it to be
The center of Canadian politics is not so much a place as a pose. How something is said is often more important than the substance of what is said. What the Liberals have failed realize is it also matters who is saying it. Striking the right pose is not enough. How centrist a party is deemed depends in no small measure on the party's chances of electoral success. In other words, the center often turns out to be no more than who is at the center of Canadian politics. The fact that millions more Canadians than ever before voted NDP confirmed for Canadians that the NDP has moved to the center. As with the Reform party after 1993, in the beginning the deed. Defined as such the Liberals have no hope of occupying the center. The party is no longer at the center of Canadian politics; the NDP and Conservatives occupy that spot.
So what do the Liberals to do? For starters the Liberals must accept just how dire their situation. Namely, the party will be lucky to survive the next election yet alone win it. Thomas Mulcair poses an existential threat to the party. Mulcair will hold onto Quebec and in so doing will recreate the same conditions that saw the Liberals wiped out in Ontario in 2011. With no prospect of the Liberals winning anything out West or in Quebec, suburban Toronto will again break for the Tories, and urban Toronto for the NDP. Only this time the situation will be worse. The same thing could happen in Montreal and into the Maritimes. If the 2011 election proved anything, it was that the Canadian population feels no loyalty to the "natural governing party" whatsoever.
The only chance the Liberals have avoiding the fate of the Progressive Conservative party is not as Andrew Coyne has said being "more Conservative than the Conservatives on some issues, more NDP than the NDP on others." http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/18/andrew-coyne-liberals-fail-to-grasp-direness-of-their-situation-nearly-a-year-after-collapse/ No, the party must aim to blow up the status quo. It must strike a revolutionary pose and not a "centrist" one. The party must seek out confrontation not consensus. Let the bleeding hearts bleed. It should no longer concern itself with what is politically possible, constitutionally possible or what the Americans might say. Let the chips fall where they may. Sacred cows need to be slayed. Only then will the party stand the chance of attracting enough loyal followers to fight further elections.
Needless to say, Charlottetown Bob is not the man for the job.
So what do the Liberals to do? For starters the Liberals must accept just how dire their situation. Namely, the party will be lucky to survive the next election yet alone win it. Thomas Mulcair poses an existential threat to the party. Mulcair will hold onto Quebec and in so doing will recreate the same conditions that saw the Liberals wiped out in Ontario in 2011. With no prospect of the Liberals winning anything out West or in Quebec, suburban Toronto will again break for the Tories, and urban Toronto for the NDP. Only this time the situation will be worse. The same thing could happen in Montreal and into the Maritimes. If the 2011 election proved anything, it was that the Canadian population feels no loyalty to the "natural governing party" whatsoever.
The only chance the Liberals have avoiding the fate of the Progressive Conservative party is not as Andrew Coyne has said being "more Conservative than the Conservatives on some issues, more NDP than the NDP on others." http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/18/andrew-coyne-liberals-fail-to-grasp-direness-of-their-situation-nearly-a-year-after-collapse/ No, the party must aim to blow up the status quo. It must strike a revolutionary pose and not a "centrist" one. The party must seek out confrontation not consensus. Let the bleeding hearts bleed. It should no longer concern itself with what is politically possible, constitutionally possible or what the Americans might say. Let the chips fall where they may. Sacred cows need to be slayed. Only then will the party stand the chance of attracting enough loyal followers to fight further elections.
Needless to say, Charlottetown Bob is not the man for the job.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Constitution Act of 1982 bad for Canada worse for the Liberal Party
Save section 25 and few subsections, we are better off for having the Charter. However, the Charter's benefits have been vastly overstated and pale in comparison to the damage done by the rest of the Constitution Act. Section 35 comes first to mind, but the damage does not stop there. For all his talk of a strong central government, Trudeau did far more to weaken its powers than any other prime minister. Most notably, the Act gave over to the provinces complete control over natural resources. One reason he has escaped criticism on this score is that Meech Lake and Charlottetown were several magnitudes worse and Trudeau came out solidly against both. (It is hard to fathom the provinces collecting less royalties. This is especially so, as report after report has pointed out, of the oil industry. Canada produces 3.3 million barrels of crude a day, most of it in Alberta. Norway produces 2.8 million a day. The Norwegians started a sovereign wealth fund in 1990 that was valued at $600 billion last year. Meanwhile, Albertans are divided over weather a $300 stipend to each Albertan is too lucrative.)
Of course, however bad the Constitution Act has been for the country it has been even worse for the Liberal party. A provincial government headed by René Lévesque and dedicated to the break up of the country was never going to negotiate in good in faith to secure Quebec's place within Canada. Yet Trudeau decided to plow ahead anyway. In a stroke Trudeau dealt his party a blow they have never truly recovered from. The reason the Liberal party came to be known as the natural governing party of Canada was because of the party's dominance in Quebec. The Kitchen Accord brought an end to that dominance. Until now the magnitude of that injury has been masked by what happened in the wake of the failure of Mulroney's unfathomably stupid Charlottetown Accord. The death of its historic foe made the Liberals appear far more vigorous than they actually were. If the 2015 election proves to be the Liberal party's swan song, no post mortem will be complete without the authors of such a document spending a long time in the Kitchen.
Of course, however bad the Constitution Act has been for the country it has been even worse for the Liberal party. A provincial government headed by René Lévesque and dedicated to the break up of the country was never going to negotiate in good in faith to secure Quebec's place within Canada. Yet Trudeau decided to plow ahead anyway. In a stroke Trudeau dealt his party a blow they have never truly recovered from. The reason the Liberal party came to be known as the natural governing party of Canada was because of the party's dominance in Quebec. The Kitchen Accord brought an end to that dominance. Until now the magnitude of that injury has been masked by what happened in the wake of the failure of Mulroney's unfathomably stupid Charlottetown Accord. The death of its historic foe made the Liberals appear far more vigorous than they actually were. If the 2015 election proves to be the Liberal party's swan song, no post mortem will be complete without the authors of such a document spending a long time in the Kitchen.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Native Rights need to Abolished and Reserves Privatized
The long and troubled relationship between First Nation peoples and the Crown has blinded many to patent absurdity of the current situation. It has blinded them to the fact that Attawapiskat is a natural consequence of an economic and legal relationship built around Native rights, the reserve system, the Indian Act and Native Self government. In any other context this would be self evident. Indeed, imagine if the government happened to, oh, legally define what it means to be Chinese, created a department of Chinese affairs, created Chinese rights, reserved land for Chinese so defined and exempted Chinese living on reserve land from paying property taxes and sales taxes and in some cases taxes of any kind. No one would doubt that is a recipe for disastrous social relations. So, why would anyone doubt the same about Native Affairs, native rights and native reserves?
Of course the situation is even worse than just described. Not only has Canada set up hundreds of tax havens for Status Indians to take advantage of, it also provides incentives for Status Indians to stay on them or move to them. Specifically, the feds hold out the promise of free housing, a promise to pay for upkeep and the promise of never imposing not only no property tax or sales tax, but also in some cases no income tax. The federal government will pay for any needed infrastructure. Realizing, the patent absurdity of its ironclad guarantee, the government drags its feet, provides the bare minimum level of funding for housing, upkeep and infrastructure and to, add insult to injury, proceeds in less than timely matter. In other words, the government has every reason to create living conditions that repel even as its moronic promises attract.
In practice government foot dragging does not always work so well. Some of these tax havens are so isolated and so utterly economically unviable that the government is dammed no matter what it does. If it builds up these communities too much it runs the risk of attracting more people to them. However if it does too little, the very scarcity of jobs in these places ties people living there to land all the more. The less assets, work experience and education a person has the more attractive the prospect of obtaining free housing, however squalid, becomes. There is a long waiting list of people wanting housing in Attawapiskat. A bird in the hand is better than two in bush as it were; a dilapidated house in the hand is better than the dim prospects of a better house elsewhere.
The only possible way out this mess, viz., abolishing native rights, abolishing the Indian Act and privatizing reserve lands, has been forever blocked by section 35 of the Constitution -- a decision, by the way, that renders Trudeau's time in office an abject failure. The best the government can do is to amend the Indian Act to allow for the creation of fee simple lands, thereby switching the financial burden of maintaining and upgrading housing from the federal government to individual home owners, and empowering bands to impose property taxes. This will give the people living in Attawapiskat and like communities additional economic incentives to leave. Namely, either property taxes and the cost of upkeep will drive people away in the absence of a job, or the prospect of using the capital from the sale of one's house and land will.
That said, introducing fee simple opens a whole host of other problems. For example, as the idiocy of native self government is maintained in all cases, non natives purchasing native lands would have no right to take part in band elections. There would be taxation but no representation. Such a situation would greatly depress real estate values on reserves -- especially on remote reserves. Band councils must be transformed into municipal councils. The notion of a government built around a legally defined race is not only economically problematic, it is ideologically putrid. Moving to a fee simple model also does not eliminate such lands as tax havens.
The reserve system, premised as it is on the notion of native rights, is a bureaucratic, fiscal, jurisdictional, legal, intellectual and sociological abortion that does nothing save waste mountains of money, breed corruption, black marketeering and poverty, encourage tax evasion (e.g., cigarettes), instill in the native community a vile sense of identity based on “blood” and breed racism in the Canadian society at large. If politicians and the media want to accept this as Canada's historical cross to bear, so be it. However, it is high time both acknowledge that the problem is intractable so long as the only possible solution, viz., the abolition of native rights and Indian Act and privatization of reserve lands, remains legally untenable.
Of course the situation is even worse than just described. Not only has Canada set up hundreds of tax havens for Status Indians to take advantage of, it also provides incentives for Status Indians to stay on them or move to them. Specifically, the feds hold out the promise of free housing, a promise to pay for upkeep and the promise of never imposing not only no property tax or sales tax, but also in some cases no income tax. The federal government will pay for any needed infrastructure. Realizing, the patent absurdity of its ironclad guarantee, the government drags its feet, provides the bare minimum level of funding for housing, upkeep and infrastructure and to, add insult to injury, proceeds in less than timely matter. In other words, the government has every reason to create living conditions that repel even as its moronic promises attract.
In practice government foot dragging does not always work so well. Some of these tax havens are so isolated and so utterly economically unviable that the government is dammed no matter what it does. If it builds up these communities too much it runs the risk of attracting more people to them. However if it does too little, the very scarcity of jobs in these places ties people living there to land all the more. The less assets, work experience and education a person has the more attractive the prospect of obtaining free housing, however squalid, becomes. There is a long waiting list of people wanting housing in Attawapiskat. A bird in the hand is better than two in bush as it were; a dilapidated house in the hand is better than the dim prospects of a better house elsewhere.
The only possible way out this mess, viz., abolishing native rights, abolishing the Indian Act and privatizing reserve lands, has been forever blocked by section 35 of the Constitution -- a decision, by the way, that renders Trudeau's time in office an abject failure. The best the government can do is to amend the Indian Act to allow for the creation of fee simple lands, thereby switching the financial burden of maintaining and upgrading housing from the federal government to individual home owners, and empowering bands to impose property taxes. This will give the people living in Attawapiskat and like communities additional economic incentives to leave. Namely, either property taxes and the cost of upkeep will drive people away in the absence of a job, or the prospect of using the capital from the sale of one's house and land will.
That said, introducing fee simple opens a whole host of other problems. For example, as the idiocy of native self government is maintained in all cases, non natives purchasing native lands would have no right to take part in band elections. There would be taxation but no representation. Such a situation would greatly depress real estate values on reserves -- especially on remote reserves. Band councils must be transformed into municipal councils. The notion of a government built around a legally defined race is not only economically problematic, it is ideologically putrid. Moving to a fee simple model also does not eliminate such lands as tax havens.
The reserve system, premised as it is on the notion of native rights, is a bureaucratic, fiscal, jurisdictional, legal, intellectual and sociological abortion that does nothing save waste mountains of money, breed corruption, black marketeering and poverty, encourage tax evasion (e.g., cigarettes), instill in the native community a vile sense of identity based on “blood” and breed racism in the Canadian society at large. If politicians and the media want to accept this as Canada's historical cross to bear, so be it. However, it is high time both acknowledge that the problem is intractable so long as the only possible solution, viz., the abolition of native rights and Indian Act and privatization of reserve lands, remains legally untenable.
Mulcair poses an existential threat to the Liberals: what needs to be done
Bob Rae is a good debater, charismatic, well spoken, and funny. Hence, a common lament is that if not for his record as premier of Ontario, he would make a great leader.
This is not an opinion I share. I do not like him for other reasons. Philosophically Bob Rae and I are worlds apart. I do not believe in collective rights. Rae does. I do not believe in affirmative action. Rae does. I do not believe in asymmetrical federalism. Rae does. I generally do not believe in means tested social policy. Rae does. Rae remains a strong backer of the Charlottetown Accord; I believe that any remaining copies should be used as toilet paper. Rae is a status quo Liberal. I am not. I believe that the Liberal party's problems run far deeper than leadership and an absurdly decentralized organizational structure. The party needs to redefine itself in ways it has not done since Trudeau was leader. Rae is not going to do that.
Although it has not become apparent yet the NDP's selection of Thomas Mulcair as leader poises an existential threat to the Liberals -- and all but guarantees the disappearance of the Bloc. Mulcair will hold onto Quebec and in so doing will recreate the same conditions that saw the Liberals wiped out in Ontario in 2011. With no prospect of the Liberals winning anything out West or in Quebec, suburban Toronto will again break for the Tories, and urban Toronto for the NDP. Only this time the situation will be worse. The same thing could happen in Montreal.
The only thing that will forestall such a collapse is if the Liberals are able to recreate an attractive political brand. If the 2011 election proved anything, it was that the Canadian population feels no loyalty to the "natural governing party" whatsoever. After years of trying to convince the public that there was only ever two real choices, it is increasingly looking like the Canadian public agrees; either one votes NDP or one votes Conservative. In large chunks of the country the Liberals are fighting it out with the Greens for 4th spot.
The first step in recreating a successful Liberal brand is to recognize that what made it so successful under Pearson and Trudeau was the Liberals commitment to universality . The creation of Universal health Care, CPP and a commitment to universal rights embedded in the charter of rights and freedoms have been the backbone of the Liberal party for the last 50 years. Unfortunately under Martin and Chretien the Liberals abandoned universality in favor of means tested programs. This pleased Stephen Harper. "Universality has been severely reduced: it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy… These achievements are due in part to the Reform Party" Dion and Ignatieff continued in this vein and Bob Rae also does. By turning every social program on offer into a form of welfare, the ability of the Liberals to offer anything other than tax cuts is very limited. It goes without saying that means tested social programs do not win elections; the populace is not going to get excited about paying for a service that only a small percentage of the public can use. Without returning to the concept of the universality the Liberals are destined to become virtually indistinguishable from the Conservatives on all but social issues and Ignatieff was hell bent on changing that last election. The Liberals need to again embrace universality.
Of course, a turn to means tested social programs to the exclusion of universal ones was part of trend within liberalism itself away from universal to the particular. The Liberals also adopted affirmative action policies under the rubric of equity. This proved to been a disaster for the working class. Equity sows division within Canadian society and is an anachronism given Canada's rapidly changing demographic profile. Also, as it does nothing to address underlying causes of inequality, equity does little to advance equality. A National daycare care system, for example, would do far more in a year for women's wage equality than 25 years of the putrid Employment Equity Act has. The former addresses the underlying causes of the wage gap, the later hurts the cause of young white males because 50 something white males earn more than than their 50 something female colleges. Worst of all, the focus on equity has meant that instead of trying to move the case of all workers forward, something that is desperately needed, liberals and progressives of all stripes have instead devoted virtually all their energies to shuffling the deck. Calls for a bigger share of the pie has been abandoned for sake of each of the ever smaller pieces having an equal amount of fruit.
Support for equity has also proved to be mistake politically. For starters, a commitment to equity destroyed the liberal ideal of a government built around merit. Hiring the "best" person for the job is a far cry from using the government as a counterpoint to perceived or actual deficiencies in the private sector employment. Government can not be seen or indeed be an affirmative action program. Government exists to further the public good and it furthers the public good not by who it hires but by what functions it carries out. So long as the philosophy of equity rules, Canadians will not have any faith that government is actually committed to that end and conservatives will have an easy time claiming that government hurts, as little more than a make work project for disadvantaged groups, more than it helps.
Luckily for the Liberals they were not the only ones to fall for the equity swan song. The NDP's support for these principles have long rankled many traditional working class voters. Most moved to the Reform party in 1990s and stayed on with the Conservatives, but others have slowly started to migrate back to the NDP. The Liberals need to rip open those scabs. They need to attack NDP's right flank by abandoning their support for equity and coming out against it.
Next the Liberals need to fully absorb what happened to Liberal level of support in Western Canada following the 1974 election. Some blamed the NEP and others have even claimed the gun registry played a part. The latter claim is ridiculous. The gun registry had no impact on the Liberals share of the popular vote or their seat totals. Most important of all it was passed 16 years after the Liberals first showed a significant decline in their level of support. As for the former, the chronology is also wrong. It was the fact that the Liberal vote collapsed in Western Canada in 1979 that paved the way for the NEP politically and not the other way around. The NEP was introduced after the 1980 election. The Liberals took 1 seat in the three most western provinces in 1979 election and 0 in 1980.
The source of the collapse was the more emphasis Trudeau placed on individual rights and a commitment to linguistic equality the more the rest of the country, particularly the West, resented the Liberals' inability to put a stop to bill 178 and and 101 and its willingness to make special accommodations for Quebec. Quebec's Official Language Act spelled doom for the Liberals in Western Canada from the mid 70s until collapse of the Progressive Conservatives in 1993. Ironically, it was the Mulroney's willingness to go even further in pandering to Quebec, particularly the Charlottetown Accord, that gave the Liberals some life again. 60.2% Albertans voted against the Charlottetown Accord, and 68.3% of British Colombians did. The later figure was by far the highest in country and the voter turn out in BC was second only to Quebec. Subsequently, the Torries went from 54 seats West of Ontario, Western Canada being their traditional base of support, in 1984 to 0 in the 1993 election.
Let the "coalition" be a warning to the Liberals; these feelings are still deeply felt in "Western" Canada. For the good of the party and the country, the Liberals need to learn from history and stay clear asymmetrical federalism and collective rights.
Finally, the Liberals need to drive a wedge between libertarians and theo cons by championing social liberalism in way that the Liberal party has not done since Trudeau introduced his omnibus bill. At least the media will support them if they do.
This is not an opinion I share. I do not like him for other reasons. Philosophically Bob Rae and I are worlds apart. I do not believe in collective rights. Rae does. I do not believe in affirmative action. Rae does. I do not believe in asymmetrical federalism. Rae does. I generally do not believe in means tested social policy. Rae does. Rae remains a strong backer of the Charlottetown Accord; I believe that any remaining copies should be used as toilet paper. Rae is a status quo Liberal. I am not. I believe that the Liberal party's problems run far deeper than leadership and an absurdly decentralized organizational structure. The party needs to redefine itself in ways it has not done since Trudeau was leader. Rae is not going to do that.
Although it has not become apparent yet the NDP's selection of Thomas Mulcair as leader poises an existential threat to the Liberals -- and all but guarantees the disappearance of the Bloc. Mulcair will hold onto Quebec and in so doing will recreate the same conditions that saw the Liberals wiped out in Ontario in 2011. With no prospect of the Liberals winning anything out West or in Quebec, suburban Toronto will again break for the Tories, and urban Toronto for the NDP. Only this time the situation will be worse. The same thing could happen in Montreal.
The only thing that will forestall such a collapse is if the Liberals are able to recreate an attractive political brand. If the 2011 election proved anything, it was that the Canadian population feels no loyalty to the "natural governing party" whatsoever. After years of trying to convince the public that there was only ever two real choices, it is increasingly looking like the Canadian public agrees; either one votes NDP or one votes Conservative. In large chunks of the country the Liberals are fighting it out with the Greens for 4th spot.
The first step in recreating a successful Liberal brand is to recognize that what made it so successful under Pearson and Trudeau was the Liberals commitment to universality . The creation of Universal health Care, CPP and a commitment to universal rights embedded in the charter of rights and freedoms have been the backbone of the Liberal party for the last 50 years. Unfortunately under Martin and Chretien the Liberals abandoned universality in favor of means tested programs. This pleased Stephen Harper. "Universality has been severely reduced: it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy… These achievements are due in part to the Reform Party" Dion and Ignatieff continued in this vein and Bob Rae also does. By turning every social program on offer into a form of welfare, the ability of the Liberals to offer anything other than tax cuts is very limited. It goes without saying that means tested social programs do not win elections; the populace is not going to get excited about paying for a service that only a small percentage of the public can use. Without returning to the concept of the universality the Liberals are destined to become virtually indistinguishable from the Conservatives on all but social issues and Ignatieff was hell bent on changing that last election. The Liberals need to again embrace universality.
Of course, a turn to means tested social programs to the exclusion of universal ones was part of trend within liberalism itself away from universal to the particular. The Liberals also adopted affirmative action policies under the rubric of equity. This proved to been a disaster for the working class. Equity sows division within Canadian society and is an anachronism given Canada's rapidly changing demographic profile. Also, as it does nothing to address underlying causes of inequality, equity does little to advance equality. A National daycare care system, for example, would do far more in a year for women's wage equality than 25 years of the putrid Employment Equity Act has. The former addresses the underlying causes of the wage gap, the later hurts the cause of young white males because 50 something white males earn more than than their 50 something female colleges. Worst of all, the focus on equity has meant that instead of trying to move the case of all workers forward, something that is desperately needed, liberals and progressives of all stripes have instead devoted virtually all their energies to shuffling the deck. Calls for a bigger share of the pie has been abandoned for sake of each of the ever smaller pieces having an equal amount of fruit.
Support for equity has also proved to be mistake politically. For starters, a commitment to equity destroyed the liberal ideal of a government built around merit. Hiring the "best" person for the job is a far cry from using the government as a counterpoint to perceived or actual deficiencies in the private sector employment. Government can not be seen or indeed be an affirmative action program. Government exists to further the public good and it furthers the public good not by who it hires but by what functions it carries out. So long as the philosophy of equity rules, Canadians will not have any faith that government is actually committed to that end and conservatives will have an easy time claiming that government hurts, as little more than a make work project for disadvantaged groups, more than it helps.
Luckily for the Liberals they were not the only ones to fall for the equity swan song. The NDP's support for these principles have long rankled many traditional working class voters. Most moved to the Reform party in 1990s and stayed on with the Conservatives, but others have slowly started to migrate back to the NDP. The Liberals need to rip open those scabs. They need to attack NDP's right flank by abandoning their support for equity and coming out against it.
Next the Liberals need to fully absorb what happened to Liberal level of support in Western Canada following the 1974 election. Some blamed the NEP and others have even claimed the gun registry played a part. The latter claim is ridiculous. The gun registry had no impact on the Liberals share of the popular vote or their seat totals. Most important of all it was passed 16 years after the Liberals first showed a significant decline in their level of support. As for the former, the chronology is also wrong. It was the fact that the Liberal vote collapsed in Western Canada in 1979 that paved the way for the NEP politically and not the other way around. The NEP was introduced after the 1980 election. The Liberals took 1 seat in the three most western provinces in 1979 election and 0 in 1980.
The source of the collapse was the more emphasis Trudeau placed on individual rights and a commitment to linguistic equality the more the rest of the country, particularly the West, resented the Liberals' inability to put a stop to bill 178 and and 101 and its willingness to make special accommodations for Quebec. Quebec's Official Language Act spelled doom for the Liberals in Western Canada from the mid 70s until collapse of the Progressive Conservatives in 1993. Ironically, it was the Mulroney's willingness to go even further in pandering to Quebec, particularly the Charlottetown Accord, that gave the Liberals some life again. 60.2% Albertans voted against the Charlottetown Accord, and 68.3% of British Colombians did. The later figure was by far the highest in country and the voter turn out in BC was second only to Quebec. Subsequently, the Torries went from 54 seats West of Ontario, Western Canada being their traditional base of support, in 1984 to 0 in the 1993 election.
Let the "coalition" be a warning to the Liberals; these feelings are still deeply felt in "Western" Canada. For the good of the party and the country, the Liberals need to learn from history and stay clear asymmetrical federalism and collective rights.
Finally, the Liberals need to drive a wedge between libertarians and theo cons by championing social liberalism in way that the Liberal party has not done since Trudeau introduced his omnibus bill. At least the media will support them if they do.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
It is time for Mike Gillis to Go
In the summer of 2008 Mike Gillis offered Sundin 20 million for two seasons. It was good thing that Sundin said no and only agreed to a half a year deal in the second half season. The Canucks would have had to blow up their team in order to get under the salary cap had he signed on for two.
Yesterday Gillis did something just as rash. Gillis traded away one of the finalists for rookie of the year for a guy that has done nothing at the NHL level and a D man who has been a healthy scratch for last 6 games. To say this is strange move for a team looking to win this year would be an understatement. The notion that guy with 7 nhl points in 28 NHL games is somehow going to put them over the top is ridiculous. Equally silly is the notion that Paulson can somehow fill Hodgson's shoes. Pahlsson is well past it. With the deal, the Canucks went from having 3 solid lines to having 2. Any line centred by any one of Pahlsson, Malhotra, and Lapierre is going to be limited offensively.
Yes, Gillis has made some good moves. Samuelsson and Hamhuis signing were good moves and Ehrhoff trade was a stroke of genius. He has also did well to lock up Kelser, Sedin and Burrows for what could said be less than market value. However, the Canucks are in large measure a team built by Nonis and Burke and whatever positives Gillis has done need to be weighed against the stupidity of the Sundin offer, the Ballard trade, the Luongo contract and now the Hodgson trade. It time for Gillis to go.
Yesterday Gillis did something just as rash. Gillis traded away one of the finalists for rookie of the year for a guy that has done nothing at the NHL level and a D man who has been a healthy scratch for last 6 games. To say this is strange move for a team looking to win this year would be an understatement. The notion that guy with 7 nhl points in 28 NHL games is somehow going to put them over the top is ridiculous. Equally silly is the notion that Paulson can somehow fill Hodgson's shoes. Pahlsson is well past it. With the deal, the Canucks went from having 3 solid lines to having 2. Any line centred by any one of Pahlsson, Malhotra, and Lapierre is going to be limited offensively.
Yes, Gillis has made some good moves. Samuelsson and Hamhuis signing were good moves and Ehrhoff trade was a stroke of genius. He has also did well to lock up Kelser, Sedin and Burrows for what could said be less than market value. However, the Canucks are in large measure a team built by Nonis and Burke and whatever positives Gillis has done need to be weighed against the stupidity of the Sundin offer, the Ballard trade, the Luongo contract and now the Hodgson trade. It time for Gillis to go.
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Social Conservatives have a choice: Contraception or Abortion
The evidence is overwhelming. By far the most effective way of reducing the number of abortions is provide women with contraception.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/Sedgh-Lancet-2012-01.pdf
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/Sedgh-Lancet-2012-01.pdf
Thursday, February 02, 2012
"Life Affirming Weed": How not to distance oneself
There are ways of distancing oneself from the live affirming weed crowd. For example, some within the pro legalization movement haved tried to strike a more serious note right off the bat by conceding that marijuana can dangerous, but argue that it is only by legalizing the drug that many of negative effects of marijuana can be minimized. This seems to be the tone the former Vancouver majors struck in their letter.
I do not find such an approach terribly helpful. First of all, it is associated with a rather dubious argument. The proponents of such an approach almost always argue that marijuana's illegal status make it easy for teenagers to get a hold of pot and if marijuana was legalized "young people" would only have limited access to the drug. The problem is this. Yes there are far more strangers willing to sell "young people" marijuana than there are strangers willing to sell them alcohol and no doubt legalizing marijuana would close that gap. However, far more "young people" drink than smoke marijuana for one very good reason. They know people who have legally bought the former and they get it off them. They steal alcohol from their parents' liquor cabinet. They ask their older brother to pick up a 6 pack for them etc etc. There are simply not that many teenagers brave enough to go buy illegal drugs. This fact limits the number of teens trying marijuana and it certainly limits the amounts consumed. If marijuana was legalized, they might find it harder to obtain on the street, but it is bound to be more readily available at home.
A more fruitful line of attack would be to say that legalization of marijuana could reduce the use of hard drugs among "young people". As researchers have long noted, people who have try marijuana are statistically more likely try other illicit drugs. This gave raise to the theory that there was something about marijuana that encouraged drug experimentation. Marijuana, it was alleged, is a gateway drug. This, in turn, was given as one more reason to keep the drug illegal. However, the gateway drug theory has until recently fallen on hard times for lack of an intelligible mechanism. The problem was that there was no coherent explanation for why marijuana would lead people to experiment with other drugs. Without this explanation doubt was cast relationship being more than mere correlation. That said, in recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana's pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana's illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged black market relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. In this context it should be noted that when the Dutch partially legalized the sale of marijuana, heroin and cocaine use went down despite an initial increase in marijuana use. Dutch use of hard drugs remains well below the European average.
Reduced to bite sized talking point the above reads as follows: Every time someone goes to buy marijuana they come into contact with criminal elements with access to other hard drugs. This is your gateway. When Holland legalized consumption and made it available in stores, heroin and cocaine use went down.
Another problem with such an approach is that it concedes far too much ground. Marijuana when stacked up against alochol is simply not that dangerous. To remain silent on the main refer madness myths is to lend them a legitimacy that they simply do not have. They will also remain an elephant in the living room until they addressed. The debate about the dangerous of marijuana have been raging for decades. One can not hope to restart the debate a new. The notion that marijuana causes schizophrenia must be attacked head on. Same hold true for supposed dangerous of potent pot.
This is actually easy enough. After all, epidemiological studies have consistently failed to show a positive correlation between marijuana use and schizophrenia and there is no causation without correlation. Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population and Oxford's Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. According to Dr. Alan Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University, "If anything, the studies seem to show a possible decline in schizophrenia from the '40s and the ‘ 50".
As for potent pot, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 "chemically supercharged" joint, as Bush administration liked to say, versus x number of "dad's joints" would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high.
The attempt to scare parents that have grown up on marijuana by distinguishing between potent pot and “your dad's marijuana” is also too clever by half. After all, it begs the following question. If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
Both can be reduced nicely to bit sized talking points too. To wit:
1) There is no causation without correlation. There has been an astronomical increase in the number of pot smokers since the 1950s and no increase in the rate of schizophrenia whatsoever.
2 a) Saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense.
2 b) If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
I do not find such an approach terribly helpful. First of all, it is associated with a rather dubious argument. The proponents of such an approach almost always argue that marijuana's illegal status make it easy for teenagers to get a hold of pot and if marijuana was legalized "young people" would only have limited access to the drug. The problem is this. Yes there are far more strangers willing to sell "young people" marijuana than there are strangers willing to sell them alcohol and no doubt legalizing marijuana would close that gap. However, far more "young people" drink than smoke marijuana for one very good reason. They know people who have legally bought the former and they get it off them. They steal alcohol from their parents' liquor cabinet. They ask their older brother to pick up a 6 pack for them etc etc. There are simply not that many teenagers brave enough to go buy illegal drugs. This fact limits the number of teens trying marijuana and it certainly limits the amounts consumed. If marijuana was legalized, they might find it harder to obtain on the street, but it is bound to be more readily available at home.
A more fruitful line of attack would be to say that legalization of marijuana could reduce the use of hard drugs among "young people". As researchers have long noted, people who have try marijuana are statistically more likely try other illicit drugs. This gave raise to the theory that there was something about marijuana that encouraged drug experimentation. Marijuana, it was alleged, is a gateway drug. This, in turn, was given as one more reason to keep the drug illegal. However, the gateway drug theory has until recently fallen on hard times for lack of an intelligible mechanism. The problem was that there was no coherent explanation for why marijuana would lead people to experiment with other drugs. Without this explanation doubt was cast relationship being more than mere correlation. That said, in recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana's pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana's illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged black market relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. In this context it should be noted that when the Dutch partially legalized the sale of marijuana, heroin and cocaine use went down despite an initial increase in marijuana use. Dutch use of hard drugs remains well below the European average.
Reduced to bite sized talking point the above reads as follows: Every time someone goes to buy marijuana they come into contact with criminal elements with access to other hard drugs. This is your gateway. When Holland legalized consumption and made it available in stores, heroin and cocaine use went down.
Another problem with such an approach is that it concedes far too much ground. Marijuana when stacked up against alochol is simply not that dangerous. To remain silent on the main refer madness myths is to lend them a legitimacy that they simply do not have. They will also remain an elephant in the living room until they addressed. The debate about the dangerous of marijuana have been raging for decades. One can not hope to restart the debate a new. The notion that marijuana causes schizophrenia must be attacked head on. Same hold true for supposed dangerous of potent pot.
This is actually easy enough. After all, epidemiological studies have consistently failed to show a positive correlation between marijuana use and schizophrenia and there is no causation without correlation. Specifically, should there be a causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia, there should be a positive correlation between marijuana consumption and schizophrenia, but such a correlation is conspicuous by its absence. Despite a massive increase in the number of Australians consuming the drug since the 1960s, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland found no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia in Australia. Mitch Earleywine of the University of Southern California similarly found the same with regard to the US population and Oxford's Leslie Iversen found the same regard to the population in the UK. According to Dr. Alan Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University, "If anything, the studies seem to show a possible decline in schizophrenia from the '40s and the ‘ 50".
As for potent pot, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 "chemically supercharged" joint, as Bush administration liked to say, versus x number of "dad's joints" would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high.
The attempt to scare parents that have grown up on marijuana by distinguishing between potent pot and “your dad's marijuana” is also too clever by half. After all, it begs the following question. If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
Both can be reduced nicely to bit sized talking points too. To wit:
1) There is no causation without correlation. There has been an astronomical increase in the number of pot smokers since the 1950s and no increase in the rate of schizophrenia whatsoever.
2 a) Saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense.
2 b) If today's marijuana is truly different in kind from "dads marijuana", would it be ok to legalize "dad's marijuana", i.e., low potency pot?
Are Stoners a barrier to Marijuana Legalization?
For many, the biggest political barrier to legalization is not the Americans. Ironically, it is some of the most ardent proponents of pot legalization. Stoners are a political liability. The narrated video of Dana Larson's driving a car while on LSD arguably set the legalization movement back some years and it certainly scared the bejesus out of legalization proponents inside the NDP.
The problem, however, is not as intractable as it might first seem. The SSM debate offers a way of rethinking the issue. Not that any one would dry admit, but it was not so long ago that prospect of same sex marriage being put on the political agenda was weighed down by concerns about how images of drag queens, dikes on bikes and even images of same sex couples kissing might weigh down a political party. However, once SSM was put on the political agenda the ability of opposition groups to use such images effectively quickly evaporated. Now, granted there was a human element to same sex marriage that is simply lacking with regard to pot. Nevertheless the same thing is likely to happen. The moment marijuana legalization is put on the political agenda all the voices that have held their powder for a lack of a proper forum are all of sudden going to have an opportunity to speak and I can assure you that the public will have far more interest in what they have to say than they will in hearing about another stoner.
The problem, however, is not as intractable as it might first seem. The SSM debate offers a way of rethinking the issue. Not that any one would dry admit, but it was not so long ago that prospect of same sex marriage being put on the political agenda was weighed down by concerns about how images of drag queens, dikes on bikes and even images of same sex couples kissing might weigh down a political party. However, once SSM was put on the political agenda the ability of opposition groups to use such images effectively quickly evaporated. Now, granted there was a human element to same sex marriage that is simply lacking with regard to pot. Nevertheless the same thing is likely to happen. The moment marijuana legalization is put on the political agenda all the voices that have held their powder for a lack of a proper forum are all of sudden going to have an opportunity to speak and I can assure you that the public will have far more interest in what they have to say than they will in hearing about another stoner.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Charlottetown Bob spewing Nonsense Again
It amazes me just how often Bob Rae favorably references the Charlottetown Accord. Senate Reform: well, Charlottetown Reform dealt with it and John Turner and I supported it. Native Self government: the Charlottetown dealt with that too. (Just an aside, whenever Bob Rae speaks about Native issues he turns off his brain and lets his heart bleed. Saturday was fine example of such a blood letting.)
The reason I find it surprising is that Charlottetown Accord was rejected by the Canadian people, was hugely unpopular in the western most provinces, it ruined the Progressive Conservative party, and, above all else, it was breathtaking in its stupidity. The document would have enshrined some of the very worst ideas in Canadian politics into law. One such idea, senate reform, I have spoken about before. http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2012/01/fantastically-stupid-idea-of-senate.html What I have not mentioned before is some of the clauses dealing with Native Self government and Native rights.
Perhaps the most outrageous clause also concerned the senate. According to section 9 a number of Senate seats be set aside for Aboriginals. Aboriginal Senate seats would have been additional to provincial and territorial seats and not drawn from any province or territory's allocation of Senate seats. Implicit was the notion that -- as in New Zealand -- only aboriginal peoples would be able to vote for those standing for aboriginal Senate seats. In other words, aboriginal peoples would be able to vote for senators standing for election in the province or territory in which they lived and they would be able to vote for aboriginal senators standing for aboriginal senate seats. This would have meant that aboriginal Canadians living in one of the Territories, for example, would have at least three times as many Senate votes as their non aboriginal territorial brethren!
The reason I find it surprising is that Charlottetown Accord was rejected by the Canadian people, was hugely unpopular in the western most provinces, it ruined the Progressive Conservative party, and, above all else, it was breathtaking in its stupidity. The document would have enshrined some of the very worst ideas in Canadian politics into law. One such idea, senate reform, I have spoken about before. http://themaplethree.blogspot.com/2012/01/fantastically-stupid-idea-of-senate.html What I have not mentioned before is some of the clauses dealing with Native Self government and Native rights.
Perhaps the most outrageous clause also concerned the senate. According to section 9 a number of Senate seats be set aside for Aboriginals. Aboriginal Senate seats would have been additional to provincial and territorial seats and not drawn from any province or territory's allocation of Senate seats. Implicit was the notion that -- as in New Zealand -- only aboriginal peoples would be able to vote for those standing for aboriginal Senate seats. In other words, aboriginal peoples would be able to vote for senators standing for election in the province or territory in which they lived and they would be able to vote for aboriginal senators standing for aboriginal senate seats. This would have meant that aboriginal Canadians living in one of the Territories, for example, would have at least three times as many Senate votes as their non aboriginal territorial brethren!
Canada works: it can work for Native Canadians too
Imagine if the government happened to, oh, legally define what it means to be Chinese, created a department of Chinese affairs, created Chinese rights, reserved land for Chinese so defined and exempted Chinese living on reserve land from paying property taxes and sales taxes and in some cases taxes of any kind. No one would doubt that this a recipe for disastrous social relations. It also goes without saying that no one would believe that allowing individual groups of Chinese to govern themselves would in anyway remedy the situation. So, why would anyone doubt the same about Native Affairs, native rights, native reserves and native self government?
Yes current laws have helped foster a strong Native identity (legally defining a group as other always does), but on a human level, and surely that is what counts, they have produced nothing but misery. The reserve system, premised as it is on the notion of native rights, is a bureaucratic, fiscal, jurisdictional, legal, intellectual and sociological abortion that does nothing save waste mountains of money, breed corruption, black marketeering and poverty, encourage tax evasion (e.g., cigarettes), instill in the native community a vile sense of identity based on “blood” and breed racism in the Canadian society at large.
The solution to third world property seen on many reserves is staring everyone in the face. Canada works for every other ethnic group and there have been plenty of other minority groups that have overcome racism and economic disadvantage. Canada needs to do the following.
1) Abolish native rights
2) Abolish the Indian Act
3) Divide reserve land equally among status Indians. Give individual Status Indians fee simple title to the land. (Do this and 10s of thousands would suddenly be worth millions.)
4) Turn Band councils into municipal governments.
5) Make the provinces responsible for services that fall under provincial jurisdiction.
Of course, thanks to the idiocy of the 1982, none of this is ever going to happen.
Yes current laws have helped foster a strong Native identity (legally defining a group as other always does), but on a human level, and surely that is what counts, they have produced nothing but misery. The reserve system, premised as it is on the notion of native rights, is a bureaucratic, fiscal, jurisdictional, legal, intellectual and sociological abortion that does nothing save waste mountains of money, breed corruption, black marketeering and poverty, encourage tax evasion (e.g., cigarettes), instill in the native community a vile sense of identity based on “blood” and breed racism in the Canadian society at large.
The solution to third world property seen on many reserves is staring everyone in the face. Canada works for every other ethnic group and there have been plenty of other minority groups that have overcome racism and economic disadvantage. Canada needs to do the following.
1) Abolish native rights
2) Abolish the Indian Act
3) Divide reserve land equally among status Indians. Give individual Status Indians fee simple title to the land. (Do this and 10s of thousands would suddenly be worth millions.)
4) Turn Band councils into municipal governments.
5) Make the provinces responsible for services that fall under provincial jurisdiction.
Of course, thanks to the idiocy of the 1982, none of this is ever going to happen.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Fantastically stupid idea of Senate reform just will not die
Many Liberals, like many Canadians, are of the view that either the Senate should be abolished or it should be elected. This only goes to show that many Liberals have not given the matter much thought. It also shows just how abysmally bad the media coverage of the issue has been and that the media have focused almost entirely on the feasibility of changing the senate.
Canada is already a de facto unicameral state -- just ask the supporters of a Triple E senate. After all, one can not argue on the one hand that the current senate is undemocratic and so contributes to the "democratic deficit" and on the other hand argue that the senate is “ineffective”. A body that adds nothing to the genuinely "effective" process can not take away anything either.
Constitutionally senators have all kinds of power and every once in a blue moon the Senate has stalled major pieces of legislation (e.g., free trade and the GST). However the aforementioned instances of stalling are so rare they are the exceptions that prove just how "ineffective" the senate truly is. Moreover, no senate I can think of has pursued a legislative agenda of its own accord; opposing legislation is one thing; purposing legislation is quite another. The reason the senate is not an "effective" body is that senators are not elected and as such lack legitimacy. Furthermore, senators are members of legitimate federal political parties and the parties that they belong to are loath to have their unelected members exercise real authority least their actions undermine the party. Finally, the fact that it is the ruling federal party and not, say, provincial governments that appoint senators defines a clear pecking order, with the Senate answerable to the House.
The difference between electing senators and abolishing the senate is thus huge. It is the difference between abolishing an expensive debating society and transforming that debating society into a intellectual and democratic abortion.
The problem with an elected senate starts with implementation. Being unable to reform the Senate in one fell swoop, Harper has proposed electing Senators piece meal. Under the Conservative plan, new senators would be elected and would be limited to serving out a 8 year term. The elephant in the living room is that if the senate's lack of effective powers flows from the senate's lack of legitimacy, then electing senators might provide the senate with a degree of legitimacy it currently does not hold. One problem with proceeding thusly is that current senators are free to serve until the age of 75. As a result, Harper's actions could either transform an unelected political body with no real power into a largely unelected political body with real political power or commit Canadians to the farcical and expensive act of electing people to office who hold no real power. Always content to play the Tin Man and Lion to Conservatives scarecrow, the Liberals, with the notable exception of Stephane Dion, remain largely mum on the subject.
Of course the problems with an elected senate go far beyond problems with how to implement it.
First arguments for regional representation rests on a false contrast; seats in the House of Commons are supposed to be assigned on basis of population, but in actuality that is not the case. Consider the 905. There are currently 4 plus million living in the 905 and there are currently 32 seats for an average of just over 127,000 people per riding. There are 6 ridings with over a 140,000 people in the 905, Bramalea - Gore - Malton (152,698) Brampton West (170,422) Halton (151,943), Mississauga - Erindale (143,361) Oak Ridges - Markham (169,642) and Vaughan (154,206). By contrast there are 4.5 million people in Sask, Man, NWT, Nuv, Yuk, PEI, NS, NFLD, and NB and there are 62 seats for an average of 72,000 people per riding. Moreover, there is but one riding in the 9, Selkirk Interlake (90,807), with over 90,000 people. Given current growth trends, the 2011 census might show there to be more people in the 905 than the aforementioned provinces and territories. Given population growth, Harper would have to give Ontario alone another 70 seats to make things half way equal. Of course, the problems do not stop there. Not only are the smaller provinces grossely overrepresented so too are rural areas in most provinces. For example, the riding of has Labrador has 26,364 people as compared to the riding of St John's East which has 88,002, Kenora has 64,291 and suburban riding of Oak Ridges - Markham 169,642, Miramichi has 53,844 and Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe 89,334, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing 77,961 and Vanughn 154,206.
Second, simply by virtue of having provincial jurisdiction and provincial representation people living in Canada’s less populated provinces already have a means of leveraging far more attention and support from the Federal government than their numbers warrant. Danny Williams had the government's attention in ways that the mayors of Surrey, Red Deer, Brant, Fredericton and Churchill did not even though we are talking about equal number of seats in both cases. There is more. There is also the asinine Canadian tradition of handing out cabinet posts based not on talent but region.
The third reason is that while one person one vote is bedrock principle of any democracy, one province one senate vote is something else entirely. People, not provinces, deserve equal representation. A province is no more or less than the people that make up that province. Giving the 135,851 in PEI the power to determine everything under provincial jurisdiction, provincial representation and 4 MPs well all the while giving the 170, 422 residents of Brampton West one MP is bad enough as it is. Piling on and giving the 135,851 people in PEI the same number of “effective” senators, as per the American Triple E Senate model, as 12,160,282 Ontarians is beyond stupid and grossly undemocratic. Equally silly is having one "effective" Senator for every 72,997 New Brunswick residents (10 senators in total) versus one Senator for every 685, 581 BC residents (6 senators in total). And that is what the current configuration gives us.
Four, as Benjamin Franklin put it, having two equally matched houses makes as much sense as tying two equally matched horses to either end of a buggy and having them both pull. Having two houses is not only a lobbyist's dream, it is a recipe for political gridlock and pork barrel politics. The only thing that would be worse is if one needed 60% of the votes in the senate to overcome a filibuster.
Canada is already a de facto unicameral state -- just ask the supporters of a Triple E senate. After all, one can not argue on the one hand that the current senate is undemocratic and so contributes to the "democratic deficit" and on the other hand argue that the senate is “ineffective”. A body that adds nothing to the genuinely "effective" process can not take away anything either.
Constitutionally senators have all kinds of power and every once in a blue moon the Senate has stalled major pieces of legislation (e.g., free trade and the GST). However the aforementioned instances of stalling are so rare they are the exceptions that prove just how "ineffective" the senate truly is. Moreover, no senate I can think of has pursued a legislative agenda of its own accord; opposing legislation is one thing; purposing legislation is quite another. The reason the senate is not an "effective" body is that senators are not elected and as such lack legitimacy. Furthermore, senators are members of legitimate federal political parties and the parties that they belong to are loath to have their unelected members exercise real authority least their actions undermine the party. Finally, the fact that it is the ruling federal party and not, say, provincial governments that appoint senators defines a clear pecking order, with the Senate answerable to the House.
The difference between electing senators and abolishing the senate is thus huge. It is the difference between abolishing an expensive debating society and transforming that debating society into a intellectual and democratic abortion.
The problem with an elected senate starts with implementation. Being unable to reform the Senate in one fell swoop, Harper has proposed electing Senators piece meal. Under the Conservative plan, new senators would be elected and would be limited to serving out a 8 year term. The elephant in the living room is that if the senate's lack of effective powers flows from the senate's lack of legitimacy, then electing senators might provide the senate with a degree of legitimacy it currently does not hold. One problem with proceeding thusly is that current senators are free to serve until the age of 75. As a result, Harper's actions could either transform an unelected political body with no real power into a largely unelected political body with real political power or commit Canadians to the farcical and expensive act of electing people to office who hold no real power. Always content to play the Tin Man and Lion to Conservatives scarecrow, the Liberals, with the notable exception of Stephane Dion, remain largely mum on the subject.
Of course the problems with an elected senate go far beyond problems with how to implement it.
First arguments for regional representation rests on a false contrast; seats in the House of Commons are supposed to be assigned on basis of population, but in actuality that is not the case. Consider the 905. There are currently 4 plus million living in the 905 and there are currently 32 seats for an average of just over 127,000 people per riding. There are 6 ridings with over a 140,000 people in the 905, Bramalea - Gore - Malton (152,698) Brampton West (170,422) Halton (151,943), Mississauga - Erindale (143,361) Oak Ridges - Markham (169,642) and Vaughan (154,206). By contrast there are 4.5 million people in Sask, Man, NWT, Nuv, Yuk, PEI, NS, NFLD, and NB and there are 62 seats for an average of 72,000 people per riding. Moreover, there is but one riding in the 9, Selkirk Interlake (90,807), with over 90,000 people. Given current growth trends, the 2011 census might show there to be more people in the 905 than the aforementioned provinces and territories. Given population growth, Harper would have to give Ontario alone another 70 seats to make things half way equal. Of course, the problems do not stop there. Not only are the smaller provinces grossely overrepresented so too are rural areas in most provinces. For example, the riding of has Labrador has 26,364 people as compared to the riding of St John's East which has 88,002, Kenora has 64,291 and suburban riding of Oak Ridges - Markham 169,642, Miramichi has 53,844 and Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe 89,334, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing 77,961 and Vanughn 154,206.
Second, simply by virtue of having provincial jurisdiction and provincial representation people living in Canada’s less populated provinces already have a means of leveraging far more attention and support from the Federal government than their numbers warrant. Danny Williams had the government's attention in ways that the mayors of Surrey, Red Deer, Brant, Fredericton and Churchill did not even though we are talking about equal number of seats in both cases. There is more. There is also the asinine Canadian tradition of handing out cabinet posts based not on talent but region.
The third reason is that while one person one vote is bedrock principle of any democracy, one province one senate vote is something else entirely. People, not provinces, deserve equal representation. A province is no more or less than the people that make up that province. Giving the 135,851 in PEI the power to determine everything under provincial jurisdiction, provincial representation and 4 MPs well all the while giving the 170, 422 residents of Brampton West one MP is bad enough as it is. Piling on and giving the 135,851 people in PEI the same number of “effective” senators, as per the American Triple E Senate model, as 12,160,282 Ontarians is beyond stupid and grossly undemocratic. Equally silly is having one "effective" Senator for every 72,997 New Brunswick residents (10 senators in total) versus one Senator for every 685, 581 BC residents (6 senators in total). And that is what the current configuration gives us.
Four, as Benjamin Franklin put it, having two equally matched houses makes as much sense as tying two equally matched horses to either end of a buggy and having them both pull. Having two houses is not only a lobbyist's dream, it is a recipe for political gridlock and pork barrel politics. The only thing that would be worse is if one needed 60% of the votes in the senate to overcome a filibuster.
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