April 2019 - Loonie Politics

Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report that looked into the costs of federal carbon price backstop, and the rebates that Canadians would be receiving. It should not have been unexpected that he found that hey, the federal government has actually been pretty accurate in how they've described the system, and for those provinces subject to the federal carbon price because their provincial governments haven't instituted an equivalent carbon price of their own that the rebates they will be getting through their tax returns will be worth more than the majority of them will be paying into the system. A lot of time and careful planning went into the federal system. But as credible as the PBO's analysis has been, it hasn't stopped the lies about said carbon price from its opponents.

Within hours of the report being released, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer was already shitposting over Twitter that the report "confirmed" that families and small businesses will be paying the brunt of the price, citing the figure that 92 percent of the carbon tax revenue comes from people (insert Solent Green "it's people!" wail here), while only 8 percent comes from "Canada's worst polluters." And sure, the report says this, but it also talks about the Output Based Pricing System that large companies are subjected to (which is a separate carbon pricing system that deals with benchmarks), and it most especially excludes the rebates going back to households. Scheer can insist that he's not lying, but he's certainly not telling the truth by omitting all of the relevant facts that put his claim into context.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, meanwhile, insisted that the report was obviously wrong because it didn't deal with the indirect costs of the carbon price how much it will affect things like groceries or merchandise that gets trucked around, and so on. Err, except the PBO did look at that, and used Statistics Canada data to look at input and output costs, and figured out how those incremental costs would increase and lo, 80 percent of Canadian households still came out better ahead with the tax and rebate, and the PBO, Yves Giroux, clapped back at Moe over Twitter that Moe obviously hadn't read the report.

But with both Scheer and Moe's reactions to the report and many a Conservative were all over Twitter making the same false argument as Moe the truth almost doesn't matter because they're in the business of selling a narrative. That narrative is part of the populist construction that the government is putting "real people" (as Scheer's shitpost so clearly demonstrates) as those being put upon, while the elites (which include oil company CEOs who advocate for carbon pricing) don't care because they can afford these increases. Even when confronted with facts proper economic analysis from a non-partisan Officer of Parliament they simply ignore the conclusion and cherry pick the one or two lines that support their position, no matter that they were actually disproven, but they can still insist that the PBO said those cherry-picked lines, so therefore it's true.

Why we need to be especially on guard for this kind of narrative construction is to look at what happened in the Alberta election, where a diet of lies and snake oil had an angry population put its trust into promises that Jason Kenney has no hope of being able to deliver on, only for him to start playing statesman and putting on the air of sounding reasonable the moment he won the election. He'll never be able to deliver on his threat to "turn off the taps" to BC, because it's blatantly unconstitutional for him to do so, and if he legislates that the oil companies all curtail their production for that purpose alone (though good luck trying to legislate a curtailment that only affects a single pipeline), he'll find the industry ready to revolt after they are already sore from the curtailment that Notley instituted in order to get the massive price differential to narrow.

That we are less than six months away from the next federal election has me particularly concerned that Scheer will try and adopt Kenney's tactics make people angry, particularly through the lies and false constructions, and then sell them on snake oil promises that he can't actually deliver on. Not to say that the Liberals are perfect or indeed blameless their singular inability to manage issues or to communicate their way out of a wet paper bag has left them extremely vulnerable to someone who has abandoned all scruples when it comes to using the truth. But in paying attention to some the things that Scheer has been saying and promising lately, one gets that sense that he is taking from the playbooks of Kenney, and to a lesser extent the Trump campaign (though your mileage may vary on trying to look at how the differences present themselves). It started with the insistence that Scheer could somehow have gotten a better deal on the New NAFTA from Trump and gotten him to lift those steel and aluminium tariffs when everyone else failed, to promises that he'll totally have a better environmental plan that won't cost people anything (never mind that hidden costs are still costs), to this week's insistence that he could be tough in the face of Chinese aggression in Canada. It's laughable on the face of it, but people will believe it in spite of facts to the contrary.

All of this leaves the public in a particularly vulnerable place. The media did a fairly terrible job of explaining or framing the PBO's report, just as they have tended to let Scheer get away with his lies by simply employing the both-sides construction rather than calling out falsehoods for what they are. When you saw them repeating Kenney's claims in the Alberta election as being plausible when they weren't (for example, that the federal government didn't invoke Section 92(10)(c) of the Constitution was treated as though it was a Thing and not a magic wand that doesn't actually exist), they give weight to the lies. And unless the media at large shapes up its coverage in this election, we're going to have a real problem in sorting fact from fiction, and what promises are snake oil from those that are legitimate.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.

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Those who do not study history are doomed to have Santayana's aphorism quoted at them constantly. So maybe they'll crack a book just to make it stop. For instance "100 Ways to Recognize an Aggressive Totalitarian State: Chinese edition".

In case you haven't read it, because I just made it up, let me cite a few key ones. The weird yelling guy with a moustache thing has rather gone out of favour since 1953. But the weird yelling has not. What effect they expect it to have on us is not clear, though a mixture of amusement and alarm would be appropriate. Whether the perpetrators think they have to rave theatrically to persuade their colleagues that they have not gone soft or seen through the tissue of lies, or whether they have gone so hard they think they're winning friends and influencing people, is unclear. But you could ask the Chinese Politburo.

See, last week U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a public statement in favour of due process for two Canadians arrested in China, and rejecting any link between their cases and Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, arrested in Canada and awaiting extradition to the United States. "These are fundamentally different matters than the Canadian decision to use their due process and the rule of law to behave in a way that's deeply consistent with the way decent nations work," he said. "They [the Chinese government] want to talk about these two as if they are equivalent, as if they were morally similar, which they fundamentally are not."

You might agree or, I suppose, disagree. But his comments were clearly delivered in English, literally and figuratively: They obeyed not just the rules of grammar and vocabulary, but of rational persuasive discourse.

Now here is the response the Chinese tyrants "fired back", as the National Post put it. According to an English-language transcript posted on line, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said "The U. S. and Canada are singing a duet aimed at confusing right and wrong in a political farce."

Misfired back might be more exact. This outburst recalls Radio Moscow in what passed for its heyday, prose so purple you can't tell if it's parody by secret dissidents or sincere ideological dementia. And you certainly can't parody it. The "duet" business was bad enough. But the master touch, or final descent into absurdity, was stuffing in the "political farce", mixing the metaphor and overloading the camel.

No matter how angry they get, say when Charles de Gaulle kicked NATO out of France in 1966, democratic politicians don't speak in this hallucinatory style. Not even Donald Trump unsupervised on Twitter. But the Nazis and Soviets churned it out as though it was a key Five Year Plan production target. (OK, the Nazis didn't have a Five Year Plan. They had a Four Year Plan. But then a key slogan of the first Soviet Five-Year Plan was 2+2=5, another obvious warning sign. Like the German plan not ending after four years.) And the Chinese government talks this way by choice also.

Another related warning sign is the telling of blatant lies with a blank look. Here, clearly, the intent is not to deceive. On the contrary, it is to force you to lick their boots and praise the flavour. Which again involves forcing language to do the opposite of the purpose for which it was created, with a demented indifference to the process or effect.

Take Huaweiâ€¦ please. It is frankly incredible that we are even considering allowing it to worm its way into the backbone of Canada's next-generation 5G communications infrastructure, and ominous that the PM has apparently delayed the decision past the next election. But we are debating it, as open societies do, including a recent written exchange between Brian Lee Crowley of the Macdonald Laurier Institute and former Canadian Alliance leader and Alberta Treasurer Stockwell Day in the Toronto Star, followed by an online poll. Which Brian's argument was winning quite handily until Huawei mobilized its online support internationally and votes came flooding in for the "No" side. It's petty. But revealingly petty. And cynical, manipulative, shallow, bullying and obnoxious.

Then there's a surreal episode involving the Confucius Institute, a tentacle of the Chinese state masquerading as this nicey-nicey organization that promotes Chinese language, culture and cultural understanding abroad. It's increasingly being removed from educational systems because of what it really is. And thus New Brunswick's education minister recently had a visit from the Chinese consul-general in Montreal, China's top diplomat in eastern Canada, telling him insistently and incoherently that as the Institute was unrelated to the Chinese government, an agent of that government was barging in to threaten that if it were booted from the provincial school system, that government would make bad things happen to the province's trade with China.

To its credit, the New Brunswick government gave the Institute the shoe leather escort anyway. And Huawei should get the same. It's not just that it's an alarming tool of Chinese geopolitical ambition with an opaque ownership structure that leads back to the Politburo as everything does in China. It's that it's an alarming symptom of Chinese geopolitical ambition, because we're all meant to pretend we don't know what it really is. And when they say "Open wide, you running dogs" and try to stuff down some lies then extract a smile, or sing farcical duets of Orwellian prose, you know what you're facing.

Or at least you should. So open your eyes not your mouths, people. Don't make me quote Santayana again.

Photo Credit: Jeff Burney, Loonie Politics

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University of Ottawa political theorist and must-follow #cdnpoli tweeter David Moscrop is worried. He's worried democracy is fragile, that human beings are overburdened by unbridled and massive information exchanges in our modern digital world, and that shadowy forces are ready to prey on our cognitive overload.

But he's also confident, in a way, that the threats we face are ones we can overcome, if we engage in some good, old-fashioned participatory democracy.

Moscrop wants to know why we make bad decisions â€” and how we can do better. In his book Too Dumb for Democracy: Why We Make Bad Political Decisions and How We Can Make Better Ones, he suggests a few culprits, not least of which is our own evolution and brain capacity. Put simply, he suggests, "our expectations [on citizens in a democracy] have outpaced our cognitive evolution".

In a book that is equal parts jeremiad, prescription for democratic reform and a survey of the intersection of political science, communications theory and our understanding of our cognitive abilities, Moscrop starts with some generosity towards our species. He argues, "It's not that we lack the capacity to make good political decisions but rather that we do not have the incentives, skills, resources, or opportunities to do so."

Social media, cable news and the rapid, unstoppable flow of information is all more than our brains have really evolved to handle, and we certainly struggle to make rational, informed decisions that follow a sensible process to reach a defendable, explainable conclusion.

Relying on our understanding of the human brain â€” particularly with reference to the ideas in Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, which suggests our brain has two systems, the fast, instinctive and emotional and the slow, deliberative and rational â€” Moscrop suggests we are prone to make knee-jerk, instinctive and emotional decisions in politics, relying on our biases and fears rather than our more rational modes of thinking, simply because we do not give ourselves enough time to process all the information we're bombarded by, and instead rely on heuristics.

Our heuristics can lead to poor outcomes, which Moscrop defines by arguing, "A bad political decision is one driven by bias, poor or incorrect information, or hidden motives. It is a decision that is often made on instinct, without research or reflection". He further concludes, "A bad decision-making process leads to bad outcomes". We engage in such bad processes when we do not allow ourselves the time needed to more rationally and reflectively make political decisions.

In contrast, "A good political decision is rational (informed, coherent, and consistent) and autonomous (the person knows they made it and can explain their reasoning to you)". We can explain why we made a good political decision because we've taken the time to reason, to realise why we think what we think; rationalising our way to a decision is not only the means by which we make a decision, but it is also the way in which we guard against being manipulated.

Indeed, Moscrop is particularly concerned with the forces manipulating us to make bad decisions such as President Donald Trump's narrow Electoral College win, aided by Russian troll farms and disinformation campaigns, and the Brexit referendum, which we are now learning had the same shady elements behind it. He writes, "When that ability [to think for ourselves] is taken away, we are no longer agents or subjects or citizens â€” we become the tool of others or some shadowy force. We become objects".

His solution is simple: "To preserve ourselves, we must preserve democracy. To preserve democracy, we must make it just, inclusive and participatory" and "we should double down on democracy and get ourselves out of this mess. That process starts with knowing ourselves."

Whether through more forms of civic engagement such as citizens' assemblies or participatory budgeting debates or even town halls, he asserts "To resist democratic decline and collapse, we need to take a greater role in self-government". He's not wrong â€” but it's easier said than done.

But, we have to try, because there are "cracks in the foundation of liberal democracy", he argues, and "if trust continues to decline, if citizens continue to ignore their democratic duty, and if a crisis or series of crises suddenly strikes â€” mass migration due to climate change, weather disasters, an epidemic, a massive war, a nuclear event â€” democratic systems could soon find themselves disintegrating".

The conscious effort to make better political decisions is itself a part of the solution, as it focuses our minds onto a good process, one that inherently guards us against being manipulated and allows for not only a better form of individual, deliberate citizenship but of a stronger, closer civic community itself. We owe it to ourselves to try.

And try we must, for we face an unprecedented set of "growing threats to democracy [which] remind us that history is not linear and progress is neither inevitable nor irreversible". It may seem simple, but it will take work, and we should take Moscrop's words to heart: "the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy".

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Ooooh, look at me! I'm a Canadian social media influencer who fights white supremacy and all of the phobias by tweeting a lot! Here I am cheering on the swarming of a CityTV reporter! Here I am telling Jason Kenney to perform a vaguely sexual act on me! Here I am using a dead child as a shield against criticism!

Do I actually do anything to help the victims of white supremacy besides podcasting and empty fauxtivist gestures and signal boosts? Naaaaah! That kind of stuff's for losers who don't know how to look good in an Instagram photo. Because that's what this is about: LOOKING GOOD. I must LOOK GOOD because in order to BE good, you must also LOOK good. That's why I endorse punching Nazis even though I'd never actually do it myself, because has anyone in the history of time ever looked their best while smashing someone else in the face?

You know who doesn't look good? White supremacists! I mean, really- tiki torches and polo shirts? Or just have a look at President Cheeto over there! The man is orange and has small hands and a stupid combover and his tie's too long! Let's all point and laugh at him and call it "fighting white supremacy" and feel good about ourselves and call it a day. Let's mock Doug Ford for his weight! Let's talk about how bland-looking Andrew Scheer is! Hey, remember the time Harper hired a personal stylist and we all fell about the place laughing? Don't you know that this is a fashion show, not actual real-life politics where decisions have consequences?

Honestly, I can't for the life of me figure out why conservatives keep walking away with elections in this country. Not while people are announcing to the world, with literally no prompting, that they are unfollowing Rebel Media contributors! It must be the fault of the right wing mobs! Sure, that's it!

Those right wing mobs have been spreading all kinds of disinformation about me, saying that my Twitter posturing is all about covering up for my own insecurity and self-hatred. Total fake news! I want everyone to know is that there is a world of difference between me and those centrists who don't endorse direct action and the vapid, image-obsessed, quick-to-resort-to-violence moron running this country that they support. I totally hate Justin Trudeau, guys! That guy's politics are totally superficial and shallow, unlike my own! I hate him so much that I'm going to seriously think about not voting "strategically" for him in the next election.

Hey, I know what I'm going to do: I'm going to mock someone much more famous and influential than me until his/her supporters react. Then I'm going to act like I don't know why they're getting so defensive. Don't these people believe in freedom of speech?

Then, after my latest nigh-incomprehensible ramble in Canada's newspaper of record fails to trend, I'm going to hang out in the mentions of my favourite Chapo Trap House host, tagging them every so often and hoping they'll look upon my offering favourably. Dear Chapo, you still ain't called or wrote, hope you had the chance.

I have to say, if I were someone in Canada who was actually affected by white supremacy a REAL disadvantaged person instead of someone who just plays one on Twitter and I needed an influencer like me to use their privilege for good, I would feel so much better knowing that the guy who named his black cat "Stockily" (after the leader of the Black Panthers, in case you didn't get that super edgy reference) has my back.

And if they don't appreciate the amazing job I'm doing, well, then they must be white nationalists and white supremacists too! They must be totally bad and everything they say must be in bad faith, because I am totally good and not a completely talentless and jealous hack! I absolutely do not spin conspiracy theories about corporations for the same reasons that white nationalists spin theories about "the Jews!" I don't need to just read "12 Rules For Life" and call it a day! I am good! They are bad! I am good! They are bad!

Written by Josh Lieblein

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"The Blue Wave continues!"

Those are the words Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer proudly declared after his Progressive Conservative provincial cousins won a minority government victory in Prince Edward Island's recent election.

And yes, it's an excellent rallying cry, conveying as it does the notion that Canadian conservatism has now achieved something akin to an unstoppable electoral momentum.

But at the risk of spoiling the Conservative fun, I have to ask, is there really a "blue wave" washing across the country?

OK, I know that seems like an odd question to pose given how conservative or conservative-leaning provincial parties are on a crazy hot streak right now, as they've recently taken power in New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and now, it looks like, in PEI.

Yet, for all that success, it could be argued that voters in those provinces are not so much voting for conservatives or for conservatism, as they are simply voting against the Liberals.

In other words, maybe voters are rejecting Liberalism rather than embracing Conservatism.

And I'd include Alberta in that category too since, even though technically it was the NDP which was recently ousted from power, I suspect many Albertans viewed Premier Rachel Notley as nothing more than a minion for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government.

Now you might be asking yourself, does it actually matter from Andrew Scheer's perspective if voters are essentially expressing negativity towards the Liberals rather than positivity towards the Conservatives, since, after all, the end result is still the same?

The answer is yes, it does matter.

In fact, it actually matters a lot because voter attitudes should form the basis for the Conservative Party's communication strategy in the upcoming federal election.

If, for instance, the Conservative Party's internal polling indicates voters don't like Trudeau, and that they're also not exactly crazy about Scheer, then its strategy is obvious: it must do everything it can to reinforce and increase the voter aversion against Trudeau.

And yes, I'm talking here about running what the media likes to call "negative" ad campaigns.

Essentially, rather than promoting his own persona, or pushing his own policies, Scheer will have to relentlessly and ruthlessly degrade Trudeau's brand.

In short, he must attack, attack, attack.

Will the media denounce Scheer for such a strategy? Will they call him "divisive" or "mean-spirited?"

Yes, of course they will, because the media always denounces aggressive media campaigns, especially when conservatives are behind them. Maybe even some nervous-nelly Conservatives will be unhappy with Scheer running a tonally negative message.

Yet if the Canadian public is unhappy with both leaders, then Scheer will have no choice but to get into a brawling mode.

That's because if voters are indeed in a negative state of mind, you better believe Trudeau and his strategists will do everything in their power to shift that negativity unto Scheer.

And by the way, according to a just released Leger poll, Scheer has a big lead right now, but that lead is also soft, because a lot of voters who currently say they support the NDP or Greens could still be convinced to jump over to the Liberals.

So essentially, if Trudeau can polarize the race and make it a contest solely between him and Scheer, theoretically he'd be in pretty good shape.

Hence, the main Liberal message in the next federal election will be something along the lines of, "Hey, I know lots of you progressives out there don't like Trudeau very much, but guess what, you should hate or fear Scheer even more. And Trudeau's the only guy who can stop him and save Canada from turning into the Fourth Reich! So hold your noses and vote Liberal."

As a matter of fact, we're already seeing that scenario play out right now as Liberal attacks on Scheer are getting progressively more vicious.

Originally, Trudeau's plan was to equate Scheer with former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but now, in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, which has caused a Liberal drop in the polls, he's basically comparing Scheer to Adolf Hitler.

Who knows how fierce and nasty the Liberal attacks will become by the time the next election rolls around?

Desperate politicians, do desperate things.

And in the next few months, Trudeau might be extremely desperate.

This is why Scheer will have to fight negative fire with negative fire.

He needs to define Trudeau as a weak, incompetent and bush-league leader, before Trudeau defines him as a neo-Nazi, planet-hating, fascist.

Otherwise come the October election, the vaunted "Blue Wave" might turn into a blue trickle.

Photo Credit: CBC News

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Last month, Premier Doug Ford mocked the media as "far-left" and that it's like "the cheese slipped off the cracker with these guys," (whatever that means). Although there's truth in his assessment of the press, Ford himself is in no position to call others far-left.

Sure, compared to the media and majority of the electorate who are now screaming bloody murder â€” for what amounts to very modest cuts â€” like they are spoiled rotten teenagers with credit cards that never maxed out being finally told there is a limit, Ford isn't that far-left. Yet, at the same event where Ford trashed the media he also praised his government's propaganda arm, Ontario News Now, and how much reach it had, bypassing the traditional media. He bragged that the videos of his former campaign press secretary pretending to be a journalist rack up more views online than the traditional media. Cuba, North Korea, China and their ilk would be proud.

(And for all his bluster that he would cut the far-left CBC's government funding (even though that's federal jurisdiction) on the campaign trail, Ford has done nothing to cut funding of the provincial equivalent, TVO, once in office.)

Not long after calling the media far-left, Ford unveiled his first budget that left a lot to be desired when it comes to finding his so-called efficiencies, which were supposed to pull this debt-addled province from further excess spending, and even start lopping off the monstrous principal. Instead, Ford let it be known his government was going to continue to overspend throughout his first term, running consecutive deficits and letting the insane interest payments continue to rob the province of billions of dollars each year.

But like a true communist leader, Ford seems to know the power of giving the people booze to wash away their sorrows. Not only legalizing drinking in public and tailgating, his government is prepared to rip up an ironclad (stupid Liberal-signed) contract with the beer cartel, which will only add hundreds of millions more dollars in red ink from penalties that this province cannot afford. As Ford tries to satiate the plebs, he also has no problem blowing millions of dollars brainwashing them with ads and mandatory stickers at gas stations in order to make them think that the federal carbon tax is the real enemy against their prosperity.

Then there are Ford's nepotistic government appointments, another telltale sign of any far-left government. Ditto extravagant spending on hobby horses of the wealthy, more equal hogs at the trough, getting their fairer treatment from the government's generous spending on horse track racing.

All in all the Ford government looks not too dissimilar from the government before it, overspending, under-delivering for the average Ontarian. Of course, like all far-left governments, it claims the very opposite. The slogan "For the people" rings hollow when all your core principles you espoused on the campaign trail fall by the wayside less than a year into office.

The only hope in this ongoing tragicomedy is that the decimated Ontario Liberals can be reborn as the fiscally responsible party like the Chretien Liberals. Otherwise the first-world problem whinging from the media and electorate will be hit with a stark reality check of just what severe societal problems actually look like once a far-left government has fiscally and morally ransacked a place.

Written by Graeme C. Gordon

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As we run out of time in the current Parliament, the Senate continues to remain mired in the Order Paper crisis of its own making. With a lot of government bills still to get through (though they have come to an agreement on timelines for many of them), there has been a certain amount of consternation about a number of private members' bills that will die if they don't pass before the Senate rises for the summer and indeed, for the election call. We've seen a few bouts of performative outrage over this, from Rona Ambrose's media offensive in defence of her (very flawed) bill, to the House of Commons itself issuing a statement that they want Romeo Saganash's bill to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) passed but it's entirely for show, and Senators need to remind themselves that sometimes, it's not only okay to let these bills die, but that it's their job to do so.

A few things to remember first that the Senate has to prioritize government business, of which they still have a lot to get through. This is especially true in Senate committees, which is where some of the current consternation is coming from, because these bills are languishing on the committee agendas. While the Leader of the Government in the Senate err, "government representative," Senator Peter Harder, does have the ability to invoke time allocation on government bills (on one stage of one bill per motion), he has no ability to do so for private members' business which is as it should be. When they were in power, the Conservatives were contemplating rule changes to the Senate that would give them the ability to also time allocate private members' business, but this was vigorously opposed by the Liberals in the Senate, because they also could see that the Conservatives were using private members' bills to get through certain agenda items under the guise of it being private members' business. Two such bills had to do with restricting unions (which the Liberals quickly repealed once in power), but they were done with the full blessing of the Conservative leadership. Giving governments the power to bully these bills through is bad for democracy.

The other thing to remember is that a lot of private members' bills are actually really bad, but they get passed with shockingly little scrutiny because of cheap sentiment and it's a problem that keeps happening over and over again. Backbench MPs have particular policy hobbyhorses that they want to get traction on, or they want to look like they're acting on an issue that is complex or difficult, and so they draft these bills in order to look like they're acting. Sometimes they are useless like bills demanding national strategies because it's an area of provincial jurisdiction and sometimes they're actually harmful, but get passed anyway because it looks like they're doing something Michael Chong's Reform Act is a very good example of this. The bill was democratic poison, and yet everyone mouthed support for it at the time because it looked like they were "fixing democracy" (even though none of them planned to implement the changes, nor did they at the start of the current parliament).

We have examples of both of these in the current batch of private members bills that there are demands to pass currently. For example, Saganash's Bill C-262 on implementing UNDRIP, has been pointed out by legal experts as being drafted so poorly that it would not actually implement anything, and even Senator Murray Sinclair has stated that it simply calls on the government to do an analysis of existing legislation that it conforms to the principles of UNDRIP which is probably why the government ended up supporting it after they initially resisted. It's a bill that trades on sentiment without much effect, but you wouldn't know that from the rhetoric that is being used around it, and the demands that it be passed (never mind that there is no mechanism by which it could be expedited).

Ambrose's Bill C-337 on demanding that potential judges get mandatory sexual assault training before they be appointed to the bench is another bill that is hugely problematic, but it too trades on sentiment rather than fact. Ambrose will point out that the bill passed the House of Commons unanimously, but it also didn't get proper committee scrutiny it was sent to the Status of Women committee rather than the Justice committee because they felt it would go faster, and thus wasn't actually given proper vetting particularly because it was given overly sympathetic treatment (who would be against sexual assault training?) and not enough scrutiny as to the issues it presents to conflicts of interest, judicial independence, or even simple logistics of ensuring that rural lawyers can get access to the same training before applying to the bench as urban ones do. And lo, when it reached the Senate and these issues were raised, Ambrose has steadfastly ignored the concerns and insists that it would need a mere hour at committee to pass, even though the problems being raised are very fundamental and even constitutional, if you think of the judicial independence aspects of it. And as was reported in the Hill Times this week, there are senators agitating to get the full chamber to pass a motion to demand that the Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee put this ahead of government bills to pass it because they mistakenly think it will only take an hour to rubber stamp. This should be concerning.

Senators need to remember that their job is sober second thought, which means staring down some of the sentimentality that saw these bills pass with little or no scrutiny, and if that means letting them die on the Order Paper, then so be it. If the government felt these bills were important, they can reintroduce them as government bills in the next parliament, where they can be subjected to proper scrutiny in proper committees. Just because they passed the Commons is not reason enough for them to pass unchallenged. And when you have bills as badly flawed as C-337, letting them die should be a mercy, even if Rona Ambrose is mean to you in the media as a result. That's why senators have institutional independence so that tough calls can be made.

Photo Credit: Ottawa Citizen

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Say you will about the ideas emerging from the candidate pool for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination: At least they're big ideas. Free post-secondary education for all. A comprehensive plan to battle climate change. Reparations for slavery. An end to the Electoral College. As is typically the case during primary season, the women and men seeking to remake the Democrats in their own images make Canadian party heads look ever more like the lords of small matters.

Within this ever-expanding pool, one of the more intriguing swimmers is Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, IN, one of those rare eccentrics who is both good-natured and qualified enough to do anything but politics yet does it anyway. Initially dismissed as an unpronounceable upstart, Buttigieg is now coming in third in some key polls, capturing the hearts of the media and the public with his aw-shucks adorableness. But behind his sudden fame is an exemplary approach to reimagining a community once defined entirely by a single industry an approach that one Canadian party head would do well to study.

In December 1963, the closure of auto manufacturer Studebaker's South Bend operation threw 7,000 employees out of work. By 2000, the manufacturing sector represented only 16 percent of the local economy, down from over half in the early 1950s, and the population had declined by 30,000. A 2011 Newsweek article listed South Bend as one of America's "dying cities," in the same company as Cleveland, OH and Flint, MI. Today, the Studebaker plant is the Ignition Park technology hub, the population has begun growing again, and downtown South Bend has become more attractive accessible. Though crime and racial inequality persist, residents and officials agree that Buttigieg deserves much of the credit for what has been fixed.

What makes this exemplary is not what Buttigieg did: civic boosterism, infill development, pedestrianization, beautification. Any good mayor knows the value of these measures. It's what he didn't do that matters. He did not treat manufacturing as the only sector that would suit South Bend. He did not pretend that global economic trends could be reversed. He did not tell his residents that their critics were their enemies. He did not sit around waiting for the state or federal government to make a favourable decision. He remained optimistic that South Bend could thrive again but only if everyone acknowledged that the past was past. As he often says, "You can't have honest politics that revolves around the word 'again.’"

Contrast this with Alberta Premier-designate Jason Kenney, the angry man chosen to head an angry province. "Dying" is a strong word to describe the Alberta economy, but "struggling" is fair, with Calgary office space remaining vacant and thousands of job losses risk. Despite some signs of a coming turnaround, voters want Kenney to confront Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the premiers of B.C. and Quebec, environmental activists, media critics anyone who has stood in the way of restoring the glory days of the oil patch. Kenney has signaled that he will take on all of them and more: Even former oilsands financiers, preferring to invest in lower-carbon projects, are on his "dead to us" list.

His rhetoric is not 100 percent negative, nor is his platform. His United Conservative Party has a 375-point plan for Alberta, including lowering corporate tax rates, encouraging labour mobility, and improving government operations with the use of artificial intelligence. It would not be difficult or off-brand for him to abandon his garrison mentality and encourage Albertans to channel their hardworking and entrepreneurial natures into diversifying the economy from the bottom up. Yet he has chosen to stoke the fury already present instead of trying to temper it.

The danger in this is that there is only so much Kenney can solve. After Calgary-based Toronto Star contributor Gillian Steward wrote of his promise to restore "the day when a high-school dropout could earn $100,000 a year driving a truck for an oilseeds giant," she faced enraged accusations of calling Albertan workers dumb. Laureen Harper, wife of Stephen, indignantly pointed out that the trucks now being driven in the oilpatch need "programmers and highly educated people to run." But that's just it. The jobs of the leaner, increasingly automated oilpatch are fewer in number and have more prerequisites. In this respect, the industry will likely never be as it was. Pipelines promise more revenue; foreign investment promises continued employment. Short of doing what he can to make those happen, as far as oil and gas are concerned, Kenney is doomed to leave some demands unsatisfied.

This is the truth that Kenney should be telling Alberta. He is the last person who should wait for a miracle in an industry dependent on global commodity prices, ideal regulatory regimes, and constant supply. He is about to become the first person who can inspire provincial reinvention. Otherwise, he may find himself vulnerable to a more upbeat competitor or, in the worst case, an even angrier one.

Photo Credit: Forbes

Written by Jess Morgan

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According to G.K. Chesterton "The river of human nonsense flows on forever." And it's especially true when those who follow and practice public affairs open their jaws and opine on it. Take the PEI electionâ€¦ please.

First, that was some victory by the Greens, reported well ahead of time. Afterward there should have been a few red faces since the Progressive Conservatives won a plurality of seats. Maybe "news" should consist more of what did happen and less of what journalists wish was going to.

Had the Greens received a majority in PEI, or even a plurality, one might have expected their leader Peter Bevan-Baker to say something like "Welcome to a new day in Prince Edward Island! Welcome to a new era of Island politics. Welcome to the tremendous honour and the tremendous responsibility of governing." Instead the Tories got the most seats and their leader Dennis King saidâ€¦ exactly what I just quoted.

How exactly giving power back to the party that has alternated with the Liberals in the province since the invention of the secret ballot meant a new era was unclear. As for a new day, well, we get one every 24 hours and always have.

Worse, King's whole assumption that he just got elected premier is wrong. His party got 12 seats out of 27, the Greens 8 and the Liberals 6 (with one to be decided in a byelection because of the death of the Green candidate and his son during the campaign). Since you need 14 for a majority in PEI it's entirely possible the actual result will be a Red-Green coalition with the Tories as Official Opposition.

In Canada we do not elect premiers or prime ministers, something the people aspiring to those jobs seem remarkably unaware of. We elect legislatures, and ministries hold office only so long as they command the confidence of a majority of legislators. (For the same reason the CBC and others are quite wrong to say the Greens "became the official Opposition". They might, if there's a Tory-Liberal coalition or the Tories go it alone. Otherwise, no.)

King wasn't done spewing fatuities either, of course. He is a politician. He said the result "shows that Prince Edward Island wants the parties to put partisanship behind them â€¦ to do what's best for Prince Edward Island."

Prince Edward Island is a place. It doesn't want anything. Or vote. Individual people who live there vote. And they don't want any one thing â€¦ except probably free money, like voters everywhere nowadays.

Different voters want different specific things. Some wanted the Tory platform or at least enough of it to hold their noses and vote Tory. Some wanted the Liberal platform or at least bits of it, though fewer noses were held. Some wanted the Green platform or at least enough of it to vote Green. And a straggling few wanted the NDP platform.

How can any sane person say voters who all went out and voted for specific political parties wanted to "put partisanship behind them"? Or wanted the parties to do so? Parties are all about partisanship. When's the last time you asked your doctor to put medicine behind him?

To be sure, partisanship has an evil reputation it has worked hard to earn. But it's not because different parties put forward different programs. It's because they do it so nastily and mindlessly. If the point is to put partisanship behind you, why have an election with parties putting forward competing platforms and asking voters to choose? Oh right. Because the alternative is Stalin winning 99.9%. Dang.

Likewise, the blather about doing "what's best for Prince Edward Island" misses the whole point about parties, that they exist because there is lively disagreement about what is best for Prince Edward Island, Canada, Botswana, or wherever you live. It's exactly why every real election features groups with different ideas about governing putting out competing platforms. How do politicians not know that?

The usual suspects, aka Andrew Coyne, are already saying with PR it wouldn't be this way. But in PEI it would, because the vote split 37% Tory, 31% Green and 29% Liberal which would under pure PR give them 10.5, 8.3 and 7.8 seats respectively (the NDP with a feeble 3% gets the remaining .4 of a seat). Same ranking, same coalition possibilities. No new day.

As for the novel Green perspective, Bevan-Baker reacted to the result with "I'm a strong believer in the capacity of minority government to create a collaborative environment where competing parties can put the interests of constituents and Islanders first." He and the Tory leader are channeling one another, and through both channels the river of nonsense flows.

Frankly I've long been perplexed by the Green party. Not by their having daffy beliefs. By their claiming to have a radically different vision of the world leading to radically different policies, organizational structures and political style then trotting out tediously familiar positions in tediously familiar language.

To be fair not much differentiates most parties in the twilight of the welfare state, even if the PCs did promise beer and wine in convenience stores. You can hardly say oh well if the Greens had won we'd finally have had concern for the environment given Justin Trudeau's carbon tax and endless chatter about it.

Speaking of Trudeau, not about to be outdone in the "you can't seriously be that vacuous" department, he greeted the ouster of yet another provincial Liberal administration with this pablum: "Islanders have chosen to elect a minority government led by the Progressive Conservative Party of Prince Edward Islandâ€¦. Known for its red beaches and rich farmland and fisheries, Prince Edward Island has a long and proud heritageâ€¦ I look forward to working with the provincial government through the Atlantic Growth Strategy to create jobs for middle class Canadians and more opportunities for young people. Together, we will continue to foster stable and long term growth, while protecting the environment and combatting climate change."

Brushing aside the red beaches as a red herring and the proud heritage as greasy flattery, I object first that "Islanders" didn't choose to elect a minority government. Not one person voted for that option, let alone a majority or all of them. Second, he looks forward to working with the government on his tiresome talking points about the middle class and climate change exactly as if people who just, for the most part, rejected his party had just elected it. Terrible.

In PEI voters tried in vain to detect important differences between the candidates put before them and split pretty evenly. And the river of nonsense flowed serenely on, with the great Green breakthrough just giving its muddy waters a slightly different tint.

Photo Credit: National Observer