Harper May Have his Coalition but he doesn’t have Canada

Stephen Harper keeps support of ‘coalition’ of voters: poll

“Among the findings in the Dec. 7-12 Ipsos Reid poll:

 * 44 per cent of Canadians think Harper’s majority government is “working well,” while 56 per cent don’t think it is.
 * 45 per cent like the way Harper is “handling his job as prime minister,” while 55 per cent don’t.
 * 44 per cent share Harper’s “values” on where Canada should be headed, compared to 56 per who don’t.
 * 48 per cent think Harper’s “approach to politics” has been good for Canada, while 52 per cent don’t think so.
 * 44 per cent think Harper’s approach to politics has been good for Parliament, while 56 per cent don’t think so.
* 43 per cent think Harper should run for office again in the next election, set for 2015, while 57 per cent think he should quit.”

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Stephen Harper keeps support of ‘coalition’ of voters: poll Yes, he has his coalition of old white men living in rural Canada, much of the immigrant “market” of suburbia, and the #BigOil country of Western Canada. But, as the poll makes clear, he still hasn’t got the majority of Canadians – which means he does not really have a fundamentally democratic mandate. He rules only because of flawed electoral and riding systems. See my post on this issue elsewhere on this blog: The Agonizing Challenge of Voting in 2015

a tiny glimpse into the ways our government serves the corporate and financial world, not the people of Canada

Some Key Areas Where Neoliberal Policy Undermines both the Industrial Economy and Canadian Democracy

Under the Harper Regime, the investor class is constantly being protected at the expense of the real industrial economy, for just about all policy decisions privilege both the financial sector, with its market-driven initiatives and debt-driven growth strategies, and of course corporations - in particular resource corporations in oil, gas, and mining, all of which combined have a heavily weighted presence on the TSX and, in fact, together with financials drive the TSX index. The obsession with deficit reduction and austerity are part of this process in order to maintain socalled  “market confidence,” played off ironically, as they always are around the world, against sustainable growth. And do I need to mention successive corporate tax cuts presumably designed to attract investment, but the success of which no economist has ever measured accurately? Much if not all of the financial sector is, of course, composed of corporations.

Foreign worker policy is designed both to drive wages down with differential pay scales, and targeted immigrant recruitment is designed to enhance a neoliberal policy of economic growth in the sectors the Regime favours as being in “Canada’s national interest.”

Anti-labour, anti-union, policies and back-to-work legislation are obviously designed to suppress wages and erode workers’  benefits. Throw the newly proposed changes in EI into the mix here too, and it’s a war on  the majority of Canada’s very own citizenry.

Reducing in effect government financial participation, pension reforms clearly favour the financial class because of the profit possibilities of the  Pooled Registered Pension Plan proposal, as do the OAS changes that will force many to seek private pension arrangements if they can afford it or otherwise to stay in the workforce for longer than planned.  Add the corporate management shift to defined contribution plans, which also obviously aid corporate bottom lines and, in turn,  shareholders and the investor class, and we see another neoliberal triumph.

Gutting of a myriad of regulations and other laws and policies wherever and whenever possible to allow corporations to exploit both people and the planet at will for profit is now commonplace for the Regime. The legislative assault on long-standing environmental regulations is only the latest, but countless not-so-subtle manoeuvres in foreign policy, whereby Foreign Affair diplomats become sales people, so-called shifts in foreign aid such as the new CEDA relationship with mining companies, and the assault on charities  through the CRA also come readily to mind.

All the free trade agreements negotiated by the Regime serve a neo-liberal agenda, as they did, to be fair, under Liberal rule as well.  Even as we can’t change NAFTA through parliamentary process, we will not be able to change any of these other, more recent international trade agreements, including CETA, simply because they’re international. We lack the power nationally in law to do so, though there are costly international mechanisms we could avail ourselves of but, it would seem,  never do.

 Gutting expenditures and a host of smaller programs  for Social Services, including limited Health transfers to the provinces, wherever possible is de rigueur in such neoliberal driven government such as ours.

This is a mere but, alas, sad glimpse into some of the ways our government serves the corporate and financial world, not the people of Canada.

Are Canadians resigned to the current repressive methods of the Harper Regime?

“Fascism creeps; and one of its hallmarks is that by the time you realize you're in it, it's too late to do anything about it.” We see where things are going, but it’s like watching a train wreck -- “that slow-motion horror in your head, the disbelief, the sense that nobody can hear you screaming, and the sickening knowledge that there's nothing you can do to stop what you know is coming.” (Sara Robinson )

There’s a considerable degree of credibility in this scenario since, given the utter failure of our representative political system, the now absolute division between power and politics in that system, we have become completely powerless to change things in time. Our government  clearly serves corporate Canada, in particular the financial sector and big oil, not the people of Canada. (This abject condition  is merely a watered down, subtler version of the U.S. government’s relation to corporate America.*)  Despite all our protests, letters to the editor, petitions, teach-ins, marches, tweets, blog posts, sit-ins, and occupy efforts, we remain powerless since our only  real leverage in such a tyranny is the ballot box.  But by the time the next election rolls around, even if we mange to engage the mainstream in a recognition of the danger, the utter destruction of both democracy and the environment  in Canada may be irreversible.

* I would argue that we are significantly more powerless than the Americans because parliamentary procedure has allowed the Regime to exercise pathological, serial abusive power on bill after bill - most obviously with omnibus bills and closure. Congress, as dysfunctional as it is, gives more power in its discursive formats to individual representatives than our whipped MPs, and dissenting voices are frequently heard on both the left and the right.

Well-educated Cardiologists Don't Know Everything about the Occupy Movement

Had a debate with a well-educated cardiologist this morning who said the occupy movement is missing a political opportunity because it doesn't have a single focused message.  How many times have I heard that, and how many times have I answered that the occupy movement is not a conventional protest movement.  It's sloppy democracy in motion -  slow, jagged, uneven, a little bit here, a little bit there a month later, a tiny bit a week later, everybody talking to everybody about everything. So I argued once again that it has many messages and that he just isn't hearing those messages because of his liberal expectations of a conventional demand protest. As Naomi Klein has said, this isn't a negotiation. If he listens hard, however, this is what he might hear: it's okay to utter the word capitalism in public, and it's okay to say it's irrational and dysfunctional.  It's okay to say we need to change the economic-political system, which is undermining real democracy.  It's okay to say there's an appalling income disparity in the U.S. and Canada and that clearly the financial sector is largely responsible.  It is at "heart," I tried to tell him,  a fundamental recognition of the weaknesses of neoclassical economic theory and the ideology of neoliberalism driving governments that support it. It's simple, my dear cardiologist:  the reality of the unjustly disadvantaged  99% resonates with people. Democratic discourse and political awareness:  we have not been able to say such things for forty years. 

In the meantime, some U.S. groups are occupying a different kind of political space, pumping up the discourse by confronting the current U.S. system head on.  Check out these two videos.

Hundreds 'occupy' US Congressional offices 

Labor Activists "Occupy Congress"

Simulation of Ontario Vote Suggests Proportional Representation Has Merit

                                        Voting system affects outcome, simulation finds - Ottawa - CBC News


This experiment is fascinating. What I find most intriguing are the hypothetical outcomes in terms of both a percentage of the popular vote and seat distribution based on the actual results of out first past the post Ontario election:

                                                    Actual FPTP Election Outcome and Weighted AV and PR Vote Results

	FPTP (Actual election outcome)	AV (first preferences)	PR
Liberal	37.6 %	33.6%	32.1%
PC	35.4%	32.7%	28.4%
NDP	22.7	24.6	26.2
Green	2.9%	6.5%	7.2%
Other	1.3%	2.6%	6.2%

                                                    Actual FPTP seat distribution and estimated PR seat distribution

	FPTP (actual election outcome)	PR
Liberal	53	36
PC	37	31
NDP	17	31
Green	0	8
Other	0	1

Notice how radically different, in particular, the distribution of seats would be under an actualized PR system and how much of the power shifts to both the ONDP and the GPO away from the OLP and PCPO.

There is little doubt that PR is a more fundamentally democratic system of voting for the simple reason that it is more representative of actual voter participation and presumed intention. It does lead to an entirely different kind of governing structure involving much negotiation and many  trade-offs, true, but it is representational government at its most core level - which is why so many around the world use it as their voting system despite the challenges.

And our voting system of FPTP is certainly one but not the only reason for such profound voter indifference and apathy, especially from young and less educated voters, who feel  -  given that they think at all about an election - that  were they to take the time to vote, their vote would almost always be wasted unless they voted for the FPTP winner:  you vote for candidate x, but you don't see that vote reflected in the results in any way.  With a PR system, no matter for whom you voted, you do. It seems to me that this potential for real political participation is a very good reason to begin a serious public conversation about our voting system.

A Memo to David Akin

On the Hill: Memo to Brigette: There are no shortcuts in politics. It takes long, dull, dreary work http://bit.ly/mC2SsL


Everything you argue is based on the premise that political activity should take place within the system, with established institutions and its rules of law, and you're arguing that this is the only method of moving forward if one wants to enact change - with a little hard work, of course. But, as anyone who has ever been involved in wide grassroots political movements - protest or otherwise - knows, one is not obliged, on any grounds, to work within the system. In fact, it's very difficult to hollow things out from within because one is always bound by the structures of the system and its institutions. One can and might have to work against the system, and, as the 60's remind us, sometimes civil disobedience is necessary --even for its own sake without an immediately achievable goal. Sometimes disruption is a good thing.

Obviously DePape chose the latter on her recognition - shared by even those who do work within the system - that our system and its institutions aren't as democratic as they could be, especially in terms of the democratic principle of representation, a principle that some see as the very bedrock of democracy. We are, as many have noted, one of the four western countries which continue to believe in the illusion that a first-past-the-post electoral system is really democratic, whereas in fact the most one can say about such a electoral process is that it's somewhat but not competely democratic in the representational results it yields.

In the end, with your respect for the system and its institutions, you're not much different in your perspective than May or Rae, and I'm sure you work just as hard.

Our So-called Concern for Democracy

This election was driven, as so many have been, by excessive media concentration and financial resources on the leaders of the parties, not by broad reporting on constituencies, selective or otherwise, across the country or by even significant discussions, with very few exceptions, of party policies. Most stories began with “what are the leaders up to today” leads. Both the contempt issue and the environment disappeared off the radar quickly, for example, except when Iggy brought up the former, and not even Elizabeth May, focused as she was on winning her riding, brought up the latter except incidentally. And it isn't just the media who should be blamed: the parties themselves are responsible for this distortion in our public discourse, for they have all concentrated both air and ground resources on their leaders, and those leaders have incrementally over forty years or so undermined democracy both subtlely and overtly both inside Parliament, as Peter Miliken has implied, and structurally in their Party organizations by creating power hierarchies whereby you do what the leader's brain trust says or you're out. Add to that the well-established illusion that the grassroots has real input power, for most policy conventions are like carnival day for the workers in the field: give them a day of fun and games and they'll go back to work content. And, apparently, even ordinary MPs have little input. An ordinary MP, according to Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis, can't just walk in and have a chat with his or her leader; an appointment has to be made, and of course backbenchers have really never had any significant power.

There is much transformational work that needs to happen for genuine parliamentary democracy to be reinstated and even more to shift the public discourse to broad-based constituency considerations across the county. How likely is change? Given Harper's majority, and the powerlessness all opposition parties in Parliament, not much, and the media, of necessity, will still concentrate coverage on the leaders with the odd side-road story now and them. Enjoy the next four years.

Stable Majority Goverments and Electoral Reform | rabble.ca

Since day one of the campaign, Harper and his gang have been consistently spining the message that a majority goverment for his party is good for us because it will provide stability.  Let’s take a closer look at that highly dubious proposition.

First off, is a majority government in and of itself, no matter what party, necessarily a good thing?  Despite our parliamentary traditions, I think not.  Under our first past the post system, it obviously concentrates power  undemocratically in the hands of one party which may or may not  necessarily represent the full spectrum of Canadian citizenship. Discounting those who did not vote at all in the last election, for whatever reason, and given that three out of four people who did vote in the last election did not do so for the Harperites, Harper’s goverment, it would seem clear, did not represent the majority of Canadian citizens or necessarily their value when it assumed power in 2008.  That’s a very significant exclusion of direct representation for a large number of people -- and that’s not taking into consideration how many who did not vote might not have been supportive of the Harperites, a perspective about which we can only speculate.  So in and of itself a majority isn’t axiomatically a better form of goverment or a better form of democratic representation.

A similar question can be asked about stability.  Does a stable government in and of itself automatically yield “better” goverment - whatever that might be - or a more democratically responsive goverment?  One could argue that a stable goverment provides the ground  of power to get things done, to move legislation and implement policy.  But what if, say, two-thirds to three-quarters of Canadians disapprove of those policies and their legislative forms? Other than grass roots protests and political activism outside the system and perhaps, in limited ways, through the proxy of opposition parties can any sort of poltical objection be mounted.  The problem is, however, that these forms of democratic action, as self-satisfying  and sometimes effective as they might be, lack the efficacy that a voice in parliament would yield.

Democracy is, as many have said, a very messy business.  We should rejoice in  that fact, not bemoan it,  as so many in the main line parties seem to do.  Real democracy involves real participatory work that needs to be embraced by us all.  From what I can see, the only formal remedy to speed up that full embrace is electoral reform based on proportional representation -- a form of broadbased democratic goverment well established around the world,  the only exceptions in the western world being  -- surprise, surprise -- the U.S., Canada, and Britain, this  last, however, gearing up for a move towards real proportioal representation soon.   Isn’t it about time that we begin gearing up too?

Take a look at what  Fair Vote Canada is trying to do: Fair vote Canada.

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Here are some suggestions for gearing up:

1) Establish a network of all the grassroots organizations across the country who have or would support proportional representation -- a sort of ACTION NETWORK focused on democratic reform.

2) Seek resources and - judiciously - support internationally.

3) Work the media assiduously in an effort to create a wide public discourse  about the issue.

4) Begin serious lobbying of the main line parties that might benefit from proportional representation.  (After this election, that may number two, not one.)

5) Lobby provincial parties that would benefit from proportional representation in their jurisdiction to bring them on board the NETWORK.

5) Consider legal options if necessary and possible.

We should all probably have a good conversation about mandatory voting and the notion of a preferential ballot first.  The latter is very attractive as a fall-back position to proportional representation.  When one votes, one chooses a preferential order of candidates.  Political parties use this system, but it too has its problems.  Proportional still seems the fairest, most democratic method even if the results are messy and involve agreements and negotiations.  That's what democracy is all about, one could argue

via Stable Majority Goverments and Electoral Reform | rabble.ca.

Postscript May 8, 2011 3:09 PM : Of course, AV was overwhelming defeated on May 5 in the U.K. I'm not reading much into this since there was such massive propaganda from everyone apparently during the referendum campaign, not to mention that AV is very problematic. But a question remains: was the vote a rejection of AV or an endorsement of FPTP?

I should add India to the list of countries still on FPTP.

Suburban Voters and Voter Suppression | rabble.ca

I hate to admit this but John Ivison in his piece in The Post on Saturday could have a point: “There is anger in the herbivore community about Stephen Harper’s failings — some of it is even justified. But the evidence on the doorsteps suggests it does not extend beyond the politically engaged into the suburbs, where people have to get up in the morning.” Two questions: does the apparently large turnout on Friday at the advance polls suggest a newly engaged voter constituency or was that the already committed who showed up? Will the votemob constituency have any real voting power now that the University year is coming to an end?

The answer to the first question is we simply don’t know whether these are newly engaged voters or what their voter preference might be, but if they are they could potentially  make a difference for any of the parties.  As for university students. there are 3 million elegible votes under 25, and pollling suggests that their voting preferences would probalby favour the Liberals, NDP, or Greens over the Harperites. But did they vote on Friday in their campus ridings, and if not, will they vote today?  If they do vote over this holiday weekend on campus, what percentage of support would there be for each of the three favoured parties, and how split would that vote be? And will their votes make a difference?

There does not appear to be much room for optimism.  Now that through the not so subtle voter-supression tatics of the Harperites to shut down special voting polls on university campuses has occurred, students would have had to remain on campus this holiday weekend to vote in their university riding in the advance polls, but most univerisites are in the process of wrapping up the semester, and preliminary estimates of students who did remain are that one-third of  the student body have remained on campus. How many of those plan on voting, and even if all did so, how much of a difference is there in effect between one-third and a full student body? For those who did not remain on campus and still wished to vote, their  only option is to vote in their home riding today or on May 2 where their vote,  because unconcentrated and spread as it would be across many ridings, would count for much less.

It remains to seen how all this plays out.  but one thing is certain:  the shutting down of the special voting stations on campus by elections Canada in complicity with the Harperites might turn out to be far more significan than first thought.

via Suburban Voters and Voter Suppression | rabble.ca.

Earth Day is April 22. Will its Celebration Change Anything? | rabble.ca

A recent Ipsos Reid poll for Postmedia News reveals that only 5% of Canadians think of the environment as a key issue that our federal parties should be discussing, and even poll figures from Day 22 of the campaign from Nik Nanos rank it well below heathcare and jobs/economy at 4.3%, a drop from 5.1% on April 16.   These are shocking numbers for a variety of reasons, among them that respondents to the polls are apparently unable to see a connection between health and the economy, on the one hand, and the “health" and “the economy" of the planet, on the other. So who can blame the four federal parties for ignoring this issue? To them, obsessed with trying to win as many seats as possible, it’s just one of many issues in a long list.  Political expediency, as is so often the case,  trumps both principle and, in this context, reality.  The  absence, in varying degrees,  of a meaningful strategic policy initiative in  three of the four federal parties and in all four the recessing of serious discussion on the most pressing issue our world has ever faced  during this federal campaign is a direct result of such ordinary Canadians’ apparent indifference to it.

I write of course about the crisis in our biosphere — the rapid and now, it would seem, inevitable  movement towards the total destruction of our planet and everything in it through the unconscionable industrialization of the planet over the past century and a half that manifests itself in countless ways, not just in the global warming phenomenon.  Unfettered industrialization and indiscriminate economic development have led to global warming and, in turn,  the climate change phenomenon.  But the environment is not just some “natural” realm external to ourselves, as David Suzuki continues to remind us with greater urgency every day.  It’s everything, and we –plants, animals, humans, water, land, air — are in this together.

To name only a few disturbing trends in which we now find ourselves in 2011:

• Unsustainable population growth throughout the world from roughly 3 billion in 1960  to approximately 7 billion in 2010 (Malthus haunts us: while the rate of growth is declining, the absolute numbers are increasing unsustainably)
• Corporate and other forms of industrialized farming with the widespread use of toxic chemicals  (Where have all the bees gone?) and,  as so many economists have been telling us for months now, a massive food shortage looming throughout the world and, as a result,  rising food prices
• The commoditization of water ( Jean Chrétien had the audacity to talk about that possibility two weeks ago.)
• The massive destruction of wildlife habitats and the extinction of countless species
• The irresponsible clear-cutting and destruction of forests that still happens through the world
• Our very own Canadian embarrassment: the tars sands operation and  its out-of-control carbon emissions and now scientifically proven  toxic waste leaching into the  land and water around it  (Despite aggressive Canadian lobbying, we learned very recently the EU is about to slap a “dirty fuel” label on the tar sands.)

What continues to astound and appall me is the total absence of a focused discussion about the erosion of our biosphere from any of the federal parties.  Even the Green Party, which does indeed have a comprehensive and meaningful policy on a sustainable planet, is not talking about it much, though it does form the ground of its platform.  Hard to fault the Greens given the politics of exclusion exercised against them by Big TV’s federal debates consortium.  They have a good excuse. But it would seem that, in general,  politics takes precedence over the destruction of the world during this federal election.   Everyone wants  political  power -- some because they think they may accomplished policy with it; others, alas, for its own sake.   Who can blame them?

Well I, my children, and my grandchildren can. This is the pre-eminent issue of our day. For  job growth, health care, pensions, education, tax credits, the ethical behaviour of politicians — these mean nothing as issues of concern  if we are on the way to self-extinction.  Many scientists have been arguing with increasing frequency that we may already be beyond the tipping point, that the process of self-destruction cannot be reversed but only inhibited.

We are currently spewing 388ppm (parts per million)  of CO2 in the biosphere, a disturbing notch on an escalating  trending pattern of 2ppm a year, way past the tipping point of 350ppm that scientists maintain is the real tipping point.   This is what James Hansen of America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the first scientist to warn about global warming over two decades ago, wrote recently:  ”If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”   In other words, this is our last chance: if we don’t reverse that trend in the next ten years, we’re done.

via Earth Day is April 22. Will its Celebration Change Anything? | rabble.ca.

P.S.World Environment Day, June 5: http://bit.ly/iiu0pu http://bit.ly/jqz9VY
CO2 emissions reach a record high in 2010; 80% of projected 2020 emissions from the power sector are already locked in: these bleak findings from the International Energy Agency in a recent report suggests the crisis is even more intense than we have imagined.