Imported Solutions

One of the fantastic things about stealing another country’s system of government wholesale is that we can also take their op-eds and apply them to our own situation.

In the Guardian,  Jonathan Freedland writes about that most perennial of issues in both Canada and the UK: reforming the Upper House of Parliament. It’s on the agenda in the UK for next week.

The House of Commons will be debating, as if it were a matter of controversy, a principle which most other democracies accepted a long time ago – a principle which we send our armies half way across the globe to impose on others by force. It is the principle that people should elect those who govern them.

…

Still, holding out for full election could mean no election. That’s what happened last time, when too many pro-reform MPs let the best become the enemy of the better: they voted down some election in favour of more election, until they had nothing. (A fully elected house and an 80% elected house both fell by an agonising three votes.) MPs can remedy that next week by voting yes more than once, to all of the three options that would create a mainly elected upper house.

There is a lesson here for us Canadians. Though our problems are more between provinces and parties, rather than MPs, the British experience can still be applied here. If everyone holds out for their ideal reforms, we will get no reform at all.

The NDP wants to abolish the Senate alltogether, the Conservatives want elections and probably a redistribution of seats, and as far as I can tell the Liberals are happy enough to continue exploiting the system as it stands today. Obviously, the can’t all have their way. Before anything else can happen, the parties in the Commons will have to find some points to agree on. Hopefully, they will eventually be able to agree that there needs to be an election in some form.

The other barrier to Senate reform is the provinces. Unlike in Britain, there are ten provinces in Canada who have a say in any changes to the constitution. And many of these provinces would like, if there have to be any changes at all, equal representation of provinces in the Senate, regardless of population.

At least the NDP plan to abolish the Senate eventually achieves the goal of an entirely democratic government, albeit by a difficult and unlikely path. Compare this with the provinces’ wishes for equal representation. If we are making these reforms for the sake of democracy, equal representation actually perpetuates the unrepresentative quality of the body. It may represent the regions, but this isn’t a democracy of regions, it is a democracy of people.

The first-past-the-post system in the Commons is bad enough, but turning the Senate into a chamber that even more poorly responds to the will of Canadians is a move in the wrong direction. Today, the Senate is subordinate to the Commons. This is at least more desirable than a Senate subordinate to the provinces. If we are actually in this to strengthen Canadian democracy, the provinces are going to have to give up their quest for more power. It’s a long shot, I know.

Once the provinces can agree that equal representation is not truly democratic and the parties can agree on the need for reform, we can move forward.

Shadenfeude

London Olympic costs may hit $17.6B – CNN

Compared to London, Vancouver is getting off easy with just a $100 million overrun (so far). Granted, Vancouver is hosting the smaller Winter games.

Toronto definitely dodged a bullet when it lost out to Beijing for the 2008 Summer games.

Some recent fun

Some tunes that I’m enjoying right now. If possible, I’ve included some links to where you can hear/download some of the newer stuff. Without further ado, in random order:

• Hospital Beds – Cold War Kids
• Lose You – Pete Yorn (.ram)
  
• Lucas with the Lid Off – Lucas
• Set Me Free – The Kinks
• Paranoid – Black Sabbath
• Subterranean Homesick Blues – Bob Dylan
• Cheer it On – Tokyo Police Club (streaming)
• Giddy Stratosphere – The Long Blondes
• Scatman – John Scatman
• Get a Move On – Mr. Scruff
• Mannish Boy – Muddy Waters
• I Can’t Turn You Loose – Otis Redding
• Lovely Rita, Meter Maid – The Beatles
• Sabotage – Beastie Boys
• North American Scum – LCD Soundsystem
• Low Happening – Howling Bells
• Splintering – Arizona
• In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
• Indestructible Sam – Buck 65 (.mp3)
• Dead Flowers – Townes van Zand
• Hang Me Up to Dry – Cold War Kids
• The Prayer – Bloc Party
• Alfie – Lily Allen
• Your Ex-Lover is Dead – Stars (streaming)
  
• Read My Mind – The Killers

Capitalism Shrugged

We all know communism is not an ideal form of government. The USSR and North Korea have more than proven that.

At the same time, Randian individualism and strictly laissez-faire economics also lead to distasteful results. Case in point:

American children in districts with the lowest taxes tend to be sicker, more often sexually abused, and more likely to run afoul of the law, according to a major study conducted by the U.S.-based Every Child Matters Education Fund. Such children are also likely to be less employable as adults, the researchers found.

There is a balance to be found between individual liberty and social equity, but neither the Americans nor the Koreans have found it. We in Canada haven’t found it either, and that we are not as badly off as the Americans should come as cold-comfort.

[photo credit]

Shame

This Prime Minister makes me so angry some days.

He insinuated a Liberal MP was connected with the Air India bombing decades ago, and the Liberal opposition to anti-terrorism laws is to protect their MP’s family.

Normally I would chalk this up as pandering to the base, but the Tories stand to lose a lot more of the centre with stunts like this, especially when it’s the Prime Minister doing the talking, not some wing-nut backbencher.

Fundamental Justice

The Supreme Court of Canada rightly struck down the government’s “security certificates” today.

Citizen or not, the government should not have the extraordinary power to imprison or deport people without charge.

We live in a country governed by laws. It’s not a hard concept to grasp.

By the People

The Toronto Star isn’t wild about reforming Ontario’s electoral system.

The best argument in favour of the status quo is that it leads to strong governments. By contrast, proportional representation is a recipe for unstable coalitions, permanent minority government and legislative chaos. For proof, one need look no further than Israel and Italy.

First of all, the system apparently favoured by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform is mixed member proportional representation, used in countries like Germany, not Israel and Italy.

Secondly, strong governments aren’t necessarily a good thing. Mike Harris, of who I’m sure the Star is no fan, was able to implement the Common Sense Revolution with two-thirds of the seats but less than 50% of the vote.

Today, the Liberals are doing a half-decent job at running a ‘benevolent dictatorship’, which it has been said is the best form of government. But there is no metric for separating the benevolent from the malevolent; it’s all subjective. That’s why I would rather take the risk of a less effective government over an effective dictatorship.

The Citizens’ Assembly is on the right track, and I look forward to the day when seat distribution in the Legislative Assembly more closely mirrors popular support.

Love Hate

A new poll is out with significant implications for how Western governments interact with Muslim nations (and perhaps their own citizens as well). The implications are obviously great, but the details are best left to those more articulate than I.

I just wanted to quote a bit from the Times piece on the poll:

The Gallup findings indicate that, in terms of spiritual values and the emphasis on the family and the future, Americans have more in common with Muslims than they do with their Western counterparts in Europe.

How odd is that?

Funding my education

It is fashionable among university students to demand a tuition freeze or, ideally, tuition reductions. A tuition freeze is a bit like a tax cut for the rest of you: it’s a selfish thing to want but not particularly useful to those selfish ends.

When middle-class folks (or the people who want their votes) cry out for tax cuts, they justify it in a variety of ways. They make appeals for smaller government, liberty, and so on, but it’s really about keeping more money for yourself. In the same way, when we university students talk about the increasing accessibility to post-secondary education, we mostly just want to keep more money for ourselves.

Given the cost of tuition in Ontario is somewhere around $5000 per year (and there are considerable additional costs like books), a difference of 6% or so each year doesn’t really affect the accessibility of post-secondary education. If you are able to spend $5000, you probably can spend $5300.

If we are truly concerned with making an undergraduate degree attainable for all, our relief efforts have to be focused on the people who need it. Instead of a freeze across the board, those people who can’t afford tuition as it is should receive the most aid. It only makes sense.

Corruption Saturation

There’s some kind of back-and-forth going on between the Conservatives and Liberals over some income trust thing.

I haven’t got a clue what’s going on, because there comes a point when I get tired of hearing about the same story every day. The Liberals were corrupt in government, that point is established. We had an election and threw them out.

It would be nice if the Tories had some accomplishments to stand on rather than empty posturing and repeatedly pointing fingers at the previous government.