Tag Archives: China

Roundup: Ignoring accountability, again

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Samara Canada, the country’s civic engagement organisation, put out a report over the weekend about electoral reform and what the various kinds of systems looked like. And it’s a decent enough report on its own, but what struck me was the fact that yet again, we get a report on electoral systems that ignores the biggest single point of discussion with any electoral system – accountability. While I tweeted this concern, the report author responded thusly:

While the fact that two systems have a correlation between MPs and ridings, it doesn’t spell out the fact there are accountability mechanism, particularly around both nomination processes and in being able to punish an MP at the ballot box if necessary. Why this needs to be spelled out is because with Proportional Representation systems that have lists, the ability for voters to determine who is on that list is a big issue. Is it a slate? Then do you not vote for the slate for one or two bad names on that list? Is it an open list? How does that complicate the ballot process, particularly if you want to punish a bad MP? There is mention paid in the report to parties who want to put more women and visible minorities on their lists as a selling feature, but nothing about where those lists become problems when it comes to holding that party to account, or those MPs when it comes to re-election.

Similarly, one party government does not tell us anything about how we hold a government to account at election time, nor does it spell out the problems with holding governments to account when they are part of a coalition. The ability to punish a government at the ballot box is a feature of our current system, and this needs to be stated as such. Conversely, the fact that in many countries that use PR systems and have coalition governments, central parties can stay in power for decades by simply shuffling their coalition partners around periodically. This is not holding them to account, nor is it actually healthy for democracy if parties stay in power in perpetuity. They actually need to be out of power from time to time in order to refresh themselves, but this is not mentioned anywhere.

While I appreciate that the author had limited space to work in, accountability is a concept that needs to be stated explicitly and discussed in open terms rather than in vague mentions like he did here. As with the whole electoral reform committee process we’ve seen, so much attention is paid to fetishizing the ballot without actually ever mentioning accountability that it’s only having half the discussion. Accountability matters. Being able to punish at the ballot box is just as important – if not more so – than electing someone. Being able to throw the bums out is one of the biggest single features of our current system, and yet that gets mentioned almost nowhere over the course of these discussions. It’s ridiculous and wrong, and we need to talk about it openly and frankly if we’re to have a true and proper discussion about what’s at stake.

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Roundup: Reporting the terror threat

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The government released their 2016 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada yesterday, and there are a few items of note, particularly that there are more Canadians who are suspected of travelling abroad to engage in terrorist activities, more women are joining the cause, and more of them are returning to Canada after some time abroad, all of which needs to be monitored. The biggest threat remains those lone wolves who are “inspired” by terrorist ideology rather than being directed from abroad, because quite obviously it’s much harder to detect and monitor. Apparently it’s also news that Ralph Goodale is calling ISIS “Daesh” in the report, but some terror experts will note that this is just a bit of name-calling. On a related note, RCMP are talking about their roadblocks in the fight against terrorism, which is a lot about the difficulty in turning evidence gathered from partners like CSIS into something they can admit to the courts, which is apparently harder than it seems. I’m not really sure that I’ve got a lot to add on this one, just that despite the various howls from both the Conservatives and the NDP in how the Liberals have been handling the terror file – the Conservatives insisting that the Liberals have given it up and are running away from the fight (objectively not the case), and the NDP caterwauling that C-51 needs to be repealed full stop – that the Liberals do indeed seem to be taking this seriously. While experts have been praising them on their go-slow approach rather than legislating in haste, I think it’s also notable that they are making reports like these public in order to give a realistic picture of what is going on, rather than relying on hysteria in order to try and build public support that way. We’ll no doubt see a lot more from them in the next couple of months as the new national security committee of parliamentarians is set up, and consultations on the state of our anti-terror laws transition into legislation, but this was a good reminder that things are in the works. In the meantime, here are some more thoughts from a real expert on these kinds of things, Stephanie Carvin.

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/768814441865605120

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/768848309754564609

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/768853486670708738

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/768914845475278849

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Roundup: An important disavowal

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Oh, hey – the author of a study on ranked ballots that relied on survey data from the last election has admitted that it wasn’t really a good study because the behaviours of voters would be different using a different ballot system. Gosh, you think? This is the same study and survey data that people have been citing in the blind panic that “OMG it will be first-past-the-post on steroids so obviously the Liberals want it!” because somehow it would give the Liberals 205 seats, based on that singular poll about second choices in the last election. It ignores that the selling feature of a ranked ballot – other than ensuring that a winner will always have more than 50 percent of the vote (no matter that you need to keep redistributing votes until you reach it) is that it eliminates the need for strategic voting, and in Australia it has given the Green and other minor parties a few seats of their own in the House of Representatives, plus allowed their National Party to remain independent of the Liberal (read: conservative) Party. Considering that they have largely relied on coalitions in the last few parliaments has shown that it’s not just geared toward majoritarianism, the way that people have been freaking out about in Canada. That said, why this particular study was allowed to stand considering its obvious design flaw is a bit galling, and this walking back from the results should have come much sooner rather than this committee hearing after months and months of false and misleading media stories proclaiming that ranked ballots would exacerbate the “distortions” of the current system, which have poisoned the well when it comes to having a reasoned discussion on the various systems that are out there. (Note: Those distortions are not real but a result of misreading the results based on a logical fallacy. Also note that I am not actually a proponent of ranked ballots, merely of proper and informed debate on electoral reform, which we have not been getting).

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Roundup: Referendum lies and demagoguery

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So, the electoral reform committee was back again yesterday, and they heard from two academics – one was an avid proponent of proportional representation that Elizabeth May fangirled over so hard, while the other was a former Quebec MNA who spearheaded that province’s failed attempt at moving to a multi-member PR system. There wasn’t much takeaway from either, other than Arend Lijphart (the former of the two) was a big fan of multi-member ridings in Canada (because apparently the problem of enormous rural ridings escapes him), and the fact that he felt that we should avoid a referendum because like Brexit, it would fall victim to demagoguery and “outright lies.”

To which I immediately have to ask – whose lies? The proponents of the status quo, or those of the advocates of PR? Because having seen both in the state of the debate so far, they’re equally odious. How about the lies that majority governments formed under our system are “illegitimate?” Because Lijphart was peddling that one. Or the lies about “38 percent of the vote gets 100 percent of the power”? Because a) the popular vote figure doesn’t actually exist (it’s a logical fallacy based on a misreading of our elections as a single event when they’re 338 separate but simultaneous events), and b) even in proportional systems, parties don’t get a share of power equal to their share of the vote, particularly if they are not part of the governing coalition and even if they are, the “share” of power will not be equal to their vote share. How about the lies about how voter turnout will suddenly blossom under PR? Because research has demonstrated that the most increase we might see is maybe three percent (because declining turnout in Western democracies is a widespread problem that has nothing to do with the electoral systems but rather a great many other factors). How about the common lies of PR advocates that votes are “wasted” and that they don’t count if the person they voted for doesn’t win, and that they system is so unfair? Are those lies any better than the ones about how a PR system would turn us into Israel or Italy and we would have nothing but unstable governments, and the sun would become black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon become as blood? Or are the lies that PR advocates tell okay because they’re well intentioned and lies about a future full of rainbows, gumdrops and unicorns better than lies about doom and destruction? Is pro-PR demagoguery morally superior to the demagoguery of status-quo doomsayers? That’s what I’d like to know.

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Roundup: Taking yet more wrong lessons

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Another day, another column with a plaintive wail that Proportional Representation (PR) is really nothing like its critics say – really! And like Andrew Coyne last week, this defence by Devon Rowcliffe for iPolitics.ca relies again on comparisons that are problematic. The argument that small parties better reflect our diverse society ignores that large brokerage parties that exist in this country are adaptable and diverse in their own right, and seek to attract diverse candidates. Many countries that rely on PR systems are fairly ethnically homogenous, and I would be concerned that a system that privileges smaller ideological parties would also favour parties founded on ethnic nationalism – a party of Sikh voices or Ismaili Muslims, for example. There are plenty of stories that exist among people who currently organise in our system about attempts by these communities to turn themselves into voting blocs for one party or another, and in a system that privileges those kind of blocs with the promise of outsized power – as opposed to one that diffuses these differences among the many factions being brokered into a big tent – there would be the danger of rewarding sectarianism, which would do nothing for social unity. And no, Canada is not New Zealand, so trying to force that comparison is yet another attempt to draw lessons that may not be applicable.

Rowcliffe also cites that there’s no real fear of unstable coalition governments, and then cites the Danish political drama Borgen as an example of this in action, apparently taking the wrong lessons as every other episode of Borgen that I’ve seen (granted, I’m only into the second season currently) has the coalition being in danger of falling apart because one party or another that forms it is looking to leverage their way into more power or influence. Look at the Liberal Democrats in the UK! You mean the part where the party was virtually wiped out in the next election? Shouting “Stephen Harper!” as an excuse to implement PR ignores that there was a significant following for Harper and his policies at the time, and it should not bear repeating but trying to change the voting system to keep out a party you don’t’ like is a very poor reason to do it because that leads to all manner of unintended consequences. Pointing to the 1993 election as examples where the current system has failed ignores both the circumstances around it and the fact that it was a blip and not the norm (not to mention that once again, the logical fallacy of the popular vote is cited as being a real figure when it is not, and hence the epithet of the system being “broken and archaic” is reliant on a lie).

One last point, which is that constantly whining about how unfair the current system is to the Green Party (as Rowcliffe borders on) ignores that the Green Party is not a grown-up political party. It’s a loose collection of conspiracy theory-minded hippies and bitter Red Tories with a policy development system that consistently falls prey to marginal groups like “Men’s Rights Activists,” and their inability to effectively organize or come up with a coherent policy book is not the fault of the system. Pretending otherwise ignores the facts for the sake of sore loserism.

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Roundup: Beware blinkered history

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There is always a danger in trying to look for lessons from history when you do so selectively. This is the case with a column by William Watson in today’s Ottawa Citizen. Watson – an economics professor at McGill and not a parliamentary observer, it should be noted – dug through the 1917 Hansard to look over the debates on bringing in income tax (remember, this was the “temporary” wartime measure that was introduced and then eventually became a permanent thing), and discovered that lo, the debate was so much more serious then and nothing like things are today, ergo Parliament was better in 1917 than it is today.

And then I bashed my head against my desk for a while.

This is what happens when you take a look at a narrow slice of history without actually looking at the broader context or picture. It’s easy to take a single debate and declare a golden age because hey, the government of the day was giving complex answers to complex questions, but that’s not to say that there weren’t antics that took place. Remember that this was not far removed from the days when MPs would light firecrackers and play musical instruments to disrupt the other side during debate. Hell, I was speaking to a reporter who was in the Gallery during WWII, and she said that there was far less professionalism in those days, and MPs who got bored would often break into song during debate. This was also the era before TV, before the proceedings were recorded in audio or video and able to be checked, so we don’t know what the transcriptionists missed. It was also an era where I’m sure that time limits for questions and answers were looser than they are now, and where MPs weren’t playing up for the cameras. Does that make it better? Maybe, maybe not. Parliament was also composed entirely of white men, mostly of a professional background – does that make things any better? You tell me. Parliament had very different responsibilities in those days as well, and government was much, much smaller. Patronage ruled the day, and government was more involved in direct hires of the civil service rather than it being arm’s length. Is this something we want to go back to? Watson kind of shrugs this important distinction off because they had more meaningful exchanges about income tax.

Declaring simply that Parliament was composed of “intelligent, informed adults” in 1917, and the implication that it is not so today, is a grossly blinkered view of history and of civics. I will be the first to tell you that the state of debate today is pretty abysmal when it mostly consists of people reading statements into the record, talking past one another, but that doesn’t mean that MPs aren’t intelligent or informed. Frankly, it seems like Watson is longing for the days of the old boys’ club if you read some of his nostalgic commentary. I’m not sure that’s proof that things were better then, and it certainly should be a caution about taking a blinkered view of history.

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Roundup: Amendments are not some power grab

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After hours of debate, the Senate passed the first amendment to the assisted dying legislation to remove the definition “reasonably foreseeable death” and replace it with the language from the Supreme Court’s decision in Carter, and immediately the pundit class erupted in cries of horror and outrage that how dare an unelected body dare to touch the precious words of the elected House of Commons, and that this newly emboldened Senate was dangerously overstepping its bounds going forward.

Oh. Please.

It’s like any hint of context went out the window when it comes to this particular bill, and the fact that you have a Supreme Court of Canada decision that it’s supposed to be in answer to (not that parliament needed to draft a law, mind you). There are serious concerns about the constitutionality of this bill. MPs in the Commons believed it, you have a lower court judge in Alberta that believed so when crafting a judgment around an assisted death request and how the state of this legislation wouldn’t conform to the Supreme Court decision, and now Senators are doing their constitutional duty of weighing the constitutionality of a piece of legislation, and quite rightly, they find it wanting. This is why the Senate exists, and what the “sober” part of “sober second thought” means – that freed from the constraints of having to worry about what voters will think, they can take a more clear-headed look at these controversial bills. And if you get hung up on the “unelected” part, apparently the policy and legislative roles taken not only by the Supreme Court or the various administrative tribunals that exist in this country also should keep you awake at night. (Also, their democratic legitimacy comes from being appointed by a government who has the confidence of the chamber, but you know, it’s not like Responsible Government is anything other than a minor detail).

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/740737440231641088

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/740743223396683776

So what happens next? Once the remainder of the amendments are decided upon one way or the other, the report gets sent back to the Commons, which they will then debate and amend at their pleasure – you know, like democratically elected legislators are supposed to do. The Justice Minister doesn’t sound keen on these amendments “without more safeguards,” but I also take this with a grain of salt because I do believe the government is setting up this narrative of reluctance so that they can show that they have been “forced” to accept what the Supreme Court has laid out by a Senate that could veto the bill if they find it unconstitutional. Because remember, MPs who have electoral considerations don’t like to be seen to take bold steps with difficult decisions when it’s easier to hide behind another body who can take the blame for them. And it’s not like MPs aren’t used to giving abdicating all manner of their roles to other unelected bodies (the courts, Officers of Parliament, and the Senate), this just being one more in a long line of examples. It’s one more reason why I find this concern trolling by the pundit class all the more difficult to swallow. If MPs were actually serious about their jobs, then it wouldn’t be incumbent upon the Senate to be the grown-ups of parliament, and yet here we are.

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QP: Memories of Dion positions past

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After the revelries of the weekend, most everyone was present, except Thomas Mulcair. As he so colourfully put it at the Gallery Dinner, he really doesn’t care anymore. Rona Ambrose led off, and immediately laid into the referendum question. Justin Trudeau reminded her that the majority of Canadians voted for parties that wanted change, and that he looked forward to the strong voices that would be heard on the committee. Ambrose raised the issue that Stéphane Dion said in 2012 that a referendum would be necessary on electoral reform, and Trudeau said that they needed committee consultation on such a complex question. Asking again in English, Trudeau gave a more impassioned defence of a robust consultative process. Alain Reyes made the demand for a referendum again in French, and got much the same response. Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet led off for the NDP and raised the Liberal Senate leader who did not agree with C-14, and would the government listen to him. Trudeau pointed out that there was no greater endorsement of their reforms to the Senate than the NDP endorsing senators’ work, and then basically admitted that the bill would come back to the Commons with amendments. On a follow-up in French, Trudeau again said that they would look forward to amendments. Murray Rankin took over, raising more objections to the bill, and Trudeau kept saying that they consulted widely and looked forward to the bill coming back.

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Roundup: Adjourning until Tuesday is not a problem

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Expect a weekend full of concern trolling about the Senate not having passed C-14 before Monday’s Supreme Court-imposed deadline, and people shaking their head or clutching their pearls that the Senate chamber is not sitting on Monday. I fully expect a pundit or three to wonder aloud why the Senate isn’t sitting Monday, and demands that senators do their jobs like they’re paid to do. And if you hear anyone say something boneheaded like that, smack them upside the head and remind them that the bill is at committee, which will be sitting Monday and Tuesday, and there’s no point in the full Senate sitting on Monday to pass the bill when it’s at committee, and no, they’re not going to rush that process any more than they already are. Meanwhile, if there’s anyone to blame for it not passing on time, it’s the House of Commons, and the Liberals playing stupid games with the debate schedule and not bringing forward the bill for debate so that votes could happen more expeditiously (and yes, their attempts to control that debate calendar with tactics like Motion 6 failed spectacularly before our eyes, but that doesn’t explain why they didn’t bring the bill forward on subsequent days either). If people think that the Senate should just rubber-stamp a bill like this one without any actual debate or scrutiny, well, they need to take a remedial civics course because that’s not why the Senate exists. And yes, this is exactly the kind of situation for why we have the Senate, where a bill that is constitutionally dubious is going to get a more thorough hearing than it did in the Commons, and we are likely to see some more substantive debate on its merits and particularities so that even if it does pass in its dubious state, there is a parliamentary record that the courts can then use in their deliberations when the matter inevitably comes before them.

Add to that, this is a case where we are likely to see amendments that will head back to the House of Commons, which put the whole timetable into question. Part of what is going to be at issue is where the votes will lie in the Senate for which amendments – the ones from the more socially conservative who want greater restrictions, or those who want to see at minimum the “reasonably foreseeable death” criteria struck out in favour of the language in the Carter decision. I suspect the latter will have the more votes and we will see those amendments head to the Commons, where we will see if the government decides to dig in its heels or not given that it’s a criticism that has fairly broad support in the Commons about the bill. It also gives the government a bit more political cover in that the Senate is “forcing” them to adopt those measures – particularly that the Senate is much more independent and the Liberals have given up any levers therein to try and bully through bills – so they can insulate themselves from criticism that they have gone too far. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s why the ministers keep insisting that they are open to amendments when they rejected them all in the Commons – because putting the blame on the Senate is the next best thing to putting the blame on the courts. If they do decide to dig in their heels and we reach an impasse between the chambers, there is always the possibility of a conference between them, which Kady O’Malley has dug up the procedural details for here:

If you missed the second reading debates in the Senate, they’re available here, and they are absolutely substantive and far beyond anything we heard in the House of Commons, and dealt with the real substance of the bill rather than the usual “This is deeply personal/what about palliative care?/conscience rights, conscience rights, conscience rights” narrative that we heard ad nauseum.

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Roundup: A precipitous climbdown

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In an attempt to head off a day full of useless circular discussion around the process of the electoral reform discussion, the Liberals offered an epic climbdown and accepted the NDP’s gamed committee configuration, giving up their perfectly legitimate committee control and then patting themselves on the back for looking reasonable for backing down. Trudeau went so far as to say that they felt like they were looking too much like the previous Conservative government, and decided to take a different tone, with all of the usual platitudes about working together and cooperation and so on. Which is a nice sentiment, and they get all of these plaudits for looking reasonable and like grown-ups, but I wonder if they haven’t given up their ability to put their foot down in the future when they need to, lest the process spin out of control, as these things are wont to do. Nevertheless, I will reiterate that this is not any kind of reasonable compromise. In fact, there are a few reactions that sum up my feelings pretty well.

https://twitter.com/inklesspw/status/738384990463918081

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/738409956865642496

And Hiltz is bang on. The Liberals have walked into the NDP’s trap, and this whole process, already a gong show, has just become an even bigger one. The Conservatives are completely apoplectic with outrage, claiming that there was a “backroom deal” to get this deal (when that really doesn’t seem to be the case if you look at how it was unveiled and how the NDP were just as surprised by it). So while the howls for a referendum will continue, and the bogus “proportional” arguments will ring through the back-patting on this whole sordid affair, I will just reiterate this particular sentiment.

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