Who Should I Vote For in 2015?

I must be the worst blogger in the history of the internet. I realize this is my first post in eight months. However, since no one is really reading my blog, I suppose it doesn't matter. Vicious cycle.

Canada faces a federal election this October (or sooner). Through a recent change in the election process, there is a fixed date for federal elections. In the past, of course, the election was called by the sitting government at a date more or less of their choosing, and it had to fall within the mandate period following the previous election. With the new system, the federal government can still call an early election if they think it is to their advantage (or technically they would be forced to if there was a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons - though that is virtually impossible in a majority government situation). So, this year's federal election will be held on October 15th.

The Conservative Party of Canada earned their first majority government in 2011. This happened despite their earning only 39.6% of the votes. This 39% earned them 166 seats out of a total of 308, giving them the necessary 155 or greater to form a majority government. I am biased - I am not a conservative voter, despite my conservative fiscal leanings - but I think it is fair to say that a majority of Canadians are not represented by the current government. Roughly 60% of voters did not vote for the party that won, and of course there are many citizens who also did not vote. Many of them (minors, for example) are unable to vote. Such is the nature of parliamentary democracy. Once a party has majority rule, they can pretty much do whatever they want. Issues still need to be debated and voted on in the House of Commons, but since a bill passes with a majority vote, so long as the ruling party whips the vote they can ensure the passage of whatever bill or budget they want. For the term of their mandate, it is in many ways a dictatorship.

Any party that wins might govern this way, and in the 1990s the Liberal Party governed much the same way. They formed government with less than 50% of the votes, and with their majority in the House of Commons they pretty much did as they pleased.

The big difference with the current government is that the majority of voters (about 60%) all vote for parties that have much in common. The Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), and the Green Party, moving more and more left of centre respectively, have much in common when compared to the Conservatives. Therefore the 60% who did not vote Conservative are probably more likely to be consistently disappointed with the government's decisions than if one of the other parties were in power.

To illustrate this point, I recently took a poll of how I should vote in the coming election. I found a webpage which allows you to fill in a number of responses to issues, and to attach a significance level to each question:

https://canada.isidewith.com/political-quiz

The poll then provides you with a breakdown of how you should vote, and how strongly your views align with each major party. The first time I did the poll, I was told that I was 98% in line with the Liberal Party. The next time I did it (answering much the same as far as I could remember), I was  98% lined up with the Greens:

What is interesting about the results, though, is that the Greens, Liberals, and NDP all line up 95% and above with how I feel about various important issues. The Conservatives line up only 21% with my views. There is a major outlier among the major political parties in Canada, and it is the governing party. According to this poll, I should be relatively content to vote Green, Liberal, or NDP. (Indeed I would say that I have yet to decide which of those parties I will vote for, if I decide to vote). The only way the Conservatives will win another majority government is if the 60% of voters who don't vote for them end up splitting their votes between the other parties. If everyone would hold their noses and vote for the Green, Liberal, or NDP candidate most likely to win in the particular riding, then the Conservatives would be reduced to an also-ran. Yes, this might mean that for many Canadians we would not see our first choice of party in power, but it might also mean that the party in power would side with us on 95% of the issues, rather than only 20% of the issues.

There is a movement afoot in Canada called ABC - Anything But Conservative. I can see their logic.

Why Even Have Members of Parliament Anymore?

This past week in Canada, the budget vote went through. Bill C-38 was an omnibus bill, over 400 pages long, that included many issues that really don't traditionally belong in a budget. One of the major changes is a sweeping reduction in environmental reviews for major industrial projects. Everyone in Canada, the governing Conservatives included, knows that this strategy was a way of getting unpopular legislation through all at once in a bill that pretty much has to pass. If it doesn't, then the government falls and the country goes to an election. But, the only way the legislation would not pass was if at least 10 conservative members of parliament (MPs) voted against their party, and that is not going to happen because then those very MPs would risk losing their seat in a forthcoming election. I'd be willing to bet money that there were some Conservative MPs who did not agree with everything in the bill, and who would have voted against certain issues had they been able to in separetly debated bills passing through the House of Commons, as is the norm. But, the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is a very shrewd and ruthless politician. He recognized the opportunity to ram through a bunch of legislation at once, force his party to vote for it, and get what he wanted a whole lot quicker and with less fuss (i.e. informed debate) than usually occurs.

So, the question is, why do we even have MPs? I mean, my Member of Parliament is a Conservative, and he voted in favour of the budget bill at every vote. I knew he was going to do so, he knew he was going to do so, and his party knew he was going to do so, no matter what debate occured in the House of Commons during the process. Isn't an MP supposed to listen to the debate and then vote accordingly? Wasn't there even one issue in there that my MP felt wasn't the greatest for his constituents? Doesn't matter. He was instructed to vote with his party and did so. So, why do I have a Member of Parliament representing me? Why not, in the next federal election, just vote for different coloured pieces of paper that represent each of the political parties in Canada? Then, the party that wins the most coloured pieces of paper can form the government and each piece of paper can sit on a seat in the House of Commons and be assumed to vote in favour of that party at every single vote. It would save a lot of time. It would save a massive amount of money in salaries, benefits, perks, and pensions. And, we'd end up with the same result: a system of government that does not serve the constituents at all, but buys votes once every 4 years with empty promises of "jobs" for peopel who already have jobs, and then does whatever they want (read: raises taxes and spending) for the next four years.

Conservative Party of Canada Getting it All Wrong So Far...More Science Please

Anyone who reads my writing knows that I am a fan of the scientific process. Science leads us to truth. Not always immediately, nor even as quickly as we may like, but it does eventually lead us to the truth and realities of the world we live in. Hence, the best approach to any and every issue humanity ever faces is to examine the evidence with an open mind and then form your conclusion from the evidence, whether you like the conclusion or not. The history of humanity is full of examples of people going about things in exactly the opposite manner: having an agenda and trying to find evidence to fit that agenda. Religion is an obvious example: no religion would have ever sprung into existence if people had objectively examined the evidence in the world around them without agenda or assumptions. Modern governments appear to take the same flawed approach: they have an agenda, ram that agenda into action, and then find evidence to sell it to voters. Inevitably this leads to decisions being made that are not in the best interest of the citizens of the country. All parties do this. But some parties seem particularly apt at ignorning the evidence and seeking their agenda. Or perhaps another way of looking at it is that some parties have an agenda that seems particurarly bent on ignoring the stark realities of the world we live in, as established by the scientific process.

The Conservative Party of Canada currently in power, has a Minister of State for Science and Technology that does not understand the basics of science. He has openly denied evolution and then when pressed on the issue, has shown that he doesn't understand the most basic facts about the process of evolution. This is the best example of the Conservatives simply ignoring the realities of the world we live in. Evolution happens. It is a reality long since established and overwhelmingly supported by facts and data. Continuing on as if it doesn't happen is to put blinders on and pretend we live in a fairy tale. But more importantly, this is an example of the same attitude of ignoring the facts that the Conservatives take on every other issue. If one denies something so established as evolution, then one can easily also dismiss the notion that humans (and other species as well) require clean water, food, and air for survival, that chemicals introduced into our bodies will cause diseases such as cancer, and that more money and jobs is not the answer to every problem faced by Canadians.

All of this is to say, it is easy to simply disagree with everything a political party does when in power. Seemingly that is the position the official opposition, the New Democratic Party (NDP) in Canada, takes. But, more important is to oppose those decisions and policies that go against or ignore the realities of the world we live in. In that light, let's take a look at some of the decisions that the Conservative Party has taken since winning a majority in the spring of 2011, and examine why they are poor and uninformed decisions based on ignorance of the facts.

1. The new crime bill C-10.
The bill introduced to the House of Commons and labeled colloquially as "Safe Streets and Communities Act" purports to make Canadians safer (from crime) by taking a number of steps including longer mandatory sentences for certain drug related offences, increasing prison sentences for marijuana offences, and increase the power of government in monitoring its citizens through online activity (though this portion has since been reduced). The reality of the bill is that it will increase the provincial costs of incarceration though greater nubmers of convictions. The bill is expected to cost Canadian taxpayers tens of billions of dollars in the coming decade, all in an attempt to make our streets and communities safer. But, what is the greatest safety risk that most Canadians face on a daily basis? What is the activit that is most likely to lead to a parent losing a child or vice versa? What do most Canadians take part in on a daily basis that is most likely to cause pain, turmoil, loss of money, and long-term damage to their lives? Traveling in a motor vehicle. Making streets and communities safer from the gravest risk we all face on a regular basis should focus on making the daily commute safer. Most of know someone who has lost a loved one to a motor vehicle accident. How many of us know someone who has lost a loved one to a drug-related murder? Now, proponents of the bill argue that, just because crime rates are at their lowest rate in Canada in four decades, doesn't mean we can't do better and reduce crime even more. That is true, and as a society we chould always strive for better ways to keep each other safe, but the problem is that there is a finite amount of resources to do so. There are only so many billions of dollars to go around. If we spend the money on reducing the little bit of crime that we face, the money won't be there to actually make our streets and communities safer from the biggest risk we all face on a daily basis. Facts be damned though, fighting crime (whether it exists or not) looks good come election time.

2.Northern Gateway Pipeline
The Northern Gateway Pipeline is a proposed oil pipeline to run from northern Alberta to the northern coast of British Columbia (Kitimat, BC). The pipeline will move bitumen from the oil sands in northern Alberta to the coast for shipping across the Pacific Ocean, mainly to China. China is a huge energy market. If Canada is going to continue to access the oil resources available in the oil sands (which undoubtedly the country will), then movement of this oil to China makes sense economically. But, there are significant concerns over shipping it by pipeline across the Rocky Mountians, approximately 7,000 streams, creeks, and rivers, and to the coast where supertankers will travel up one of the most pristine and beautiful fjord systems in the world (and also one of the most violently stormy in the winter) to dock and load their toxic cargo. It is inevitable that and oil spill will occur if the pipeline goes ahead. Enbridge, the company proposing the pipeline, has a massive record of oil spills. Between 1999 and 2010, 804 oil spills occured on Enbridge pipelines, releasing over 168,000 barrels of toxic hydrocarbons. Given that each gallon of oil contaminates approximately 250,000 to 1,000,000 of water, that translates to up to 42,000,000 gallons of water contaminated by Enbridge in one decade. If the average North American human goes through 100 gallons of water per day (which is a reasonable estimate for showering, washing dishes and clothers, drinking, etc.), then between 1999 - 2010 Enbridge was responsible for contaminating the water for 1,150 people for a whole year. This is miniscule in comparison to the damage an oil tanker spill on the coast would do.

So, there are some significant disadvantage to this proposed pipeline. There are also some significant economic benefits. Why look at only one side of the equation though? Why only examine the economic benefits and ignore the ecological downside and risk? We all require clean air, food, and water on a daily basis. That is not negotiable or debatable. Yet, the Conservative government has already decided to support the pipeline before any of the discussion has taken place. Over the next two years, a government appointed committee will hear from all those with vested interests in the proposed pipeline, including a significant number of First Nations people who live in the areas most affected. Yet, even before this government appointed committee has heard any of the issues, the government itself has already made up its mind that the pipeline is a good idea. Talk about putting an agenda before evidence. Maybe the pipeline will be a benefit, maybe it won't. Maybe we should allow it, maybe we shouldn't. But the decision should not be made before the evidence has even been examined.


3. Plans to spend tens of billions on F-35 fighter aircraft.
Canada is a huge country. Defending it from invasion would be a huge and impractical problem for a population of only 35 million. I'm not suggesting that Canadians, like any other nation, would not try to defend their country valiantly if invaded, but I think it is safe to say that Canada is not actually defendable by Canadians for a few fundamental reasons. Firstly, there are only 35 million of us stretched over a huge area. Strategically that would spread any defence forces very, very thin. Secondly, no nation is ever going to get close to invading Canada unless the United States allows it to. America will never allow any country to invade and occupy its neighbour to the north unless it is in American interests to do so. This brings me to my third point which is to look at the only countries that have any hope of invading Canada. Though unlikely, America is at the top of the list. Geographically it would be easy for Canada to be invaded by the U.S. Canada would be completely overpowered by the huge military might of the United States. Due to my second point above, any country that invades Canada is going to do so either with America's blessing (and presumably with their help), or they are going to have to take on both Canada and the United States. In either scenario, 65 fighter aircraft are going to make not one bit of difference in the defence of the country. Yet, Canada wants to spend tens of billions of dollars on 65 F-35 fighter aircraft. The price quuotes have been all over the map. The goverment will never give a real appraisal of what the cost will be. But it is likely to be $25 - $35 billion dollars up front with another $20 - $40 billion in maintenance and ongoing costs over the next 20 years. Crazy money. And all for naught. The up front costs alone would wipe out the entire federal deficit. Yet, the Conservative Party wants to forge ahead with this unecessary and wasteful expenditure that is not based in evidence or facts.

4. Development of the Tar Sands
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to think that Canada is the next Saudi Arabia. We have a massive amount of oil in Canada, some say second only to some large deposits in the Middle East. Canada is now the greatest supplier of oil to the United States, which is surprising considering the magnitude of the oil thirst of that nation. The problem is that most of the oil in Canada is located in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan, mixed in with sand. It is not a traditional oil field in which you can pump the crude out of the ground for processing. The tar sand must be processed at a much higher energy cost and with much greater waste products than traditional oil. In addition the process takes a massive quantity of water, leaving the water impure and unusable. In decades past one could hardly blame a Prime Minister for wanting Canada to devleop its oil resources no matter the environmental cost. The amount of money available to the country is massive. But, we are not in the 1970s here. We know a lot about how the ecosystem is fragile and necessary. We know a lot about how fossil fuel use alters the environment very drastically and dangerously quickly. What should we do? Should we just leave all that oil lying in the sand in Northern Alberta? Perhaps not. But should we accelerate the extraction, build pipelines through the mountains and over rivers to the sea for export to China? Perhaps not. Isn't there a moderate approach that might be a little more carefully thought out? Yet, this Conservative government is trying to accelerate the process of selling Canada's raw resources abroad. No one seems to stop and consider the question of what happens when those resources are gone. Where will Canada be in 30 years from now when most of the oil is gone? We will have a huge economic crash if we don't start planning for that now. Prime Minister Harper will be dead by then (though his kids will be very wealthy), so he perhaps doesn't really care.

The Myth of Government Job Creation...Part II

 
In a previous post I wrote about the myth of government job creation. Today in the news there is a classic example of what I'm talking about:

This story talks about how Shell is to build a liquid natural gas plant in the small northern coastal town (more of a village really) of Kitimat, BC. The project will "create" between 5,000 - 7,000 jobs. Of course, the premier of the province of British Columbia, Christy Clark, rushed to get her name all over this story and to take credit for the Shell corporation's decision to invest in B.C., saying: "We are a stable government with a business-friendly environment, so they’re very interested in British Columbia." Doubtless Clark believes that this is a part of a fantastic plan to increase the number of jobs in B.C., all part of her economic plan to...well, to where exactly?

Yes, an investment like this will bring more jobs to the town of Kitimat. So what? So, more people will move to Kitimat to take up those jobs. It is not as if there are between 5,000 - 7,000 unemployed workers in Kitimat just waiting for a new job (Kitimat's population is around 8,000 people in total). It's also not as if there are 5,000 - 7,000 unemployed people around the province or the country who are just itching to relocate to a very remote coastal village to work on a liquid natural gas plant. And, you can bet that after these 5,000 - 7,000 jobs are "created", the unemployment rate in the province will not change one bit.

So, where do the people come from when a project like this "creates" jobs? They shift from other sectors, they come from overseas, immigrants to Canada have new jobs, and people who move to Kitimat to take up the new jobs marry, have a family and have new kids who grow up and, lo and behold, need a job! Economic growth simply leads to population growth, with roughly the same unemployment following the economic growth. Certainly, during booming economic times such as a few years ago in Alberta, there are very few unemployed people and wages are comparitively high. But, Alberta is a great example of where that leads. What happened when there were so many jobs in Alberta? Wages shot up to entice people to relocate to the jobs. But real estate shot up as well, doubling in price in just a couple of years. Then the whole economic meltdown occured and suddently the natural resources weren't in demand anymore.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. What politician's like Christy Clark don't understand is that economic growth leads to population growth. Then, that larger population demands a larger economy and more jobs to support it. The cycle continues, and more jobs are "created", leading to more population growth and a greater demand for jobs.

The cycle never ends. This is why our current system is not sustainable and is ultimately doomed. We are under the false pretention that we can endlessly grow economically, which we can't. We are also under the pretense that we can endlessly harvest natural resources, which we can't. Natural resources are finite, especially hydrocarbons like oil and natural gas. Eventually they will run out. What will happen then? What will happen when we have developed our economy so much that the population has increased to a level that demands that economy to keep going? Which will crash first, the economy or the population?

Re-Thinking Charitable Status in Canada

I heard an interesting interview with Greg Oliver, President of the Canadian Secular Alliance, on the radio yesterday about the charitable status of religious organizations in Canada, and the effect of that status on tax revenues. Given the most recent federal budget in Canada, with a whopping budget deficit not expected to be in the black for another 3 - 4 years (no one can really accurately predict these things given the wide swings in global economic activity), every billion dollars of federal revenue and expenditure seems fairly relevant.

In Canada, to qualify as a charitable, an organization must fall within one of four categories of work: 1) the relief of poverty, 2) the advancement of education, 3) the advancement of religion, or 4) other purposes that benefit the community in a way the courts have said are charitable, according to an 1891 ruling in the United Kingdom (Commissioners for Special Purposes of Income Tax v. Pemsel). Number three certainly seems to stand apart from the others, and given that this definition is based on a British court ruling from over 120 years ago, perhaps it is time to revisit this definition. The other three categories seem fair enough. When asked to define charity, most people would probably say something about giving to the poor. The advancement of education is one very specific and effective way of reducing poverty and advancing society and so logically belongs in the definition of charity. In a country such as Canada with a Common Law system, the rulings of the courts are what ultimately determine much of the law. Therefore the fourth definition of charitable status (as defined by the courts) is inescapable. But the advancement of religion? Should we use tax revenue to support that cause? Surely not. 

As pointed out by the host of the interview I was listening to, religious organizations do much poverty relief work and as such should qualify for charitable status. Certainly so. Any organization, religious or secular, which performs work aimed at reducing poverty should retain its status as charitable. There are many organizations which straddle more than one of the four definitions above, and their status as charitable should remain based on whichever of the other three apply. But what about organizations that have the sole purpose of promoting religion? We do realize what this means? An organization that supports young indoctrinated men and women coming to your door to disturb you at dinner time while they launch into their sales pitch for Mormonism is supported by your tax dollars. Does that seem right? 


The financial side of things is perhaps as important as the rationale. The total tax revenue lost to Canada as a result of organizations that are defined as charitable based solely on definition three above is about $1.8 billion per annum. So, any religious organization that mixes their proselytizing with some poverty relief or education is not included in that figure. In other words, if the federal government would recognize that the advancement of religion, alone and not in conjunction with any other benefit, is not an activity it wants to support financially, Canadians would now be $1.8 billion closer to eliminating the deficit. 


The current conservative government in Canada sold Canadians on its abilities to balance the budget and eliminate the deficit (which they created while a minority government one should point out) during their five years in office. Canadians bought what they were selling. Canadians bought into the fear that said that we needed a strong hand on the tiller in this global economic storm. Yet, the government won't shore up an easy $1.8 billion along the way because they believe that the advancement of religion is an activity that is worthy of financial support by every tax payer in Canada. Just so we're clear on the dollar amount here, every single Canadian citizen pays over $50 per year specifically to promote religion. Not to help religious organizations alleviate poverty or educate children, but solely to promote religion in society.


Shame.

Budget Day Aftermath

Canada is currently a country in which dogma, superstition, fear, religious belief, and agenda rule the day over rational, reasonable, evidence-based decisions.

I have written previously about how Canada's Minister of State for Science and Technology is igorant of basic science like evolution. The man appointed to oversee science-funding decisions in the country doesn't even know how long humans have been around, or where we come from. He does, however, believe that putting on a pair of running shoes or high heels involves evolution.

So one might assume that the latest Conservative government budget was full or equally ridiculous policies. One would not be disappointed if one did so.

Canada's projected budget deficit, following the latest budget, is about $21.1 billion dollars. A lot of money, to be sure. It is no enviable task that the Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, has over the next few years to bring that deficit back to zero by the time the next election rolls around in 2015, as the Conservatives have pledged to do. (I'm still trying to figure out what they did with the record surpluses they inherited when they came into office and managed to turn them into record deficits). No one likes to see their programmes cut, and there are no popular cuts, just less unpopular ones. Everyone can always find a problem with the budget, no matter how carefully it is put together. I'm sure I could go through Canada's budget carefully and point out all the silly waste of money (e.g. corporate tax cuts, huge prison costs associated with the lastest un-needed crime bill), but one needn't go that far to point out the irrational, fear-based approach to this budget.

The deficit is around $20 billion or so. Yet, the Conservative Party plans to spend anywhere from $35 - $90 billion (depending on cost overruns) on F-35 fighter planes for the military. That means, they plan in the next few years to throw away anywhere from 1.6 to 4.3 times the annual budget deficit. At the highest end, that means that they could do away with that one expense, and balance the budget for the rest of their mandate until 2015. With one expense cut they could avoid cuting funding to any other department in government, they could avoid cutting health-care transfer payments to provinces, they could avoid raising the retirement age from 65 to 67 (as they just did). Will they? Not a chance.

Why? Fear. Irrational fear of the same sort that keeps people scared as hell of hell and buying into religion. Canada has never once been invaded by air. We have not been invaded at all since the 19th Century. And yet we will spend between 1.6 and 4.3 times the annual budget deficit to buy fighter aircraft in case we need to repel an air attack for the first time. If we did ever face an air attack, which country(s) would be potential candidates to invade? Possibly, Russia or China, and conceivably India or the United States in a much changed world in the future where water is scarce. Would any number of F-35 fighter jets help in that case? No. Canada will never own enough fighter jets to repel an air invasion by any of those countries. It is an utter and complete waste of money based on irrational fear.

And what is the long-term cost? Well, every year that we continue with a budget deficit, as the Conservatives have committed to do until at least 2015, increases the national debt which we currently pay $30 billion annually to service with interest payments. The numbers keep going around and around like a washing machine, but somehow the laundry never quite comes out clean.

The Myth of Government Job Creation

Seemingly every political campaign nowadays boils down to the economy and jobs. Most conservative leaning parties make it their number one issue. The Conservative Party of Canada is widely acknowledged to have been elected in 2011 due to their incessant messages indicating that they are the only party capable of "strong" stewardship of the economy and of job creation. In America, the Republicans sound like a broken record on two issues: cutting government spending and job creation (never mind that the two are in conflict). The Republican message is one of massive tax cuts to corporations and leaving the market to itself so that the big employers can create lots of jobs. Many provincial governments in Canada mimic this pattern of the job creation message in election campaigns. Who can blame them? After all, it has proven very effective. People are motivated by fear and the fear of not having a job tops the list for many people.

But there are some major problems with this approach of governance. Firstly, governments are not traditionally in the business of creating jobs. Certainly the government is a very large employer itself, but in order to create government jobs there must be increased government expenditure (and therefore taxation) and most conservative minded voters are against "big government" in which the government itself employs lots of people. Traditionally the role of government is to implement law, and to run social services with tax revenues, not to "create" jobs. Now, of course, government legislation can have an effect on the economy and on job creation and unemployment rates. But, not nearly as much as people think.

The first myth is the one of corporate tax cuts. There is a belief that cuts in taxation to corporations will actually create more jobs and therefore decrease the unemployment rate. While there is some truth to this, the link is not nearly as strong as most voters think it is. In Canada, the Conservatives cut the corporate tax rate by 2% to bring it down to one of the lowest rates in the Western World. Yet, it has had virtually no effect on the unemployment rate whatsoever. In fact, the latest numbers in Canada suggest that the unemployment rate has inched upwards a bit. Many, many corporations these days are in the business of moving money around with relatively few employees rather than in the business of employing large numbers of people in manufacturing or service positions. We all know that large manufacturing corporations produce their goods in China and other places outside the country, so giving them a tax break doesn't help employ Canadians (or Americans in the States). Even of the large corporations in Canada, many do not have a massive effect on the employment rate as the corporate tax rate changes. Many of the wealthiest Canadians and Americans are in the business of trading stocks and investing, not in the business of employing people to make things. As many as 85% of the wealthiest North Americans aren't in the business of making anything at all. Cutting corporate tax rates does two things: it makes corporations richer and, not surprisingly in the modern economy of very little competition, that wealth is usually not passed on to consumers by way of lower prices. The rich get richer. Secondly, the tax cut to corporations must be made up elsewhere by the government, and of course the place it is made up is in personal tax revenues. The poor get poorer.

The second myth is that we need constant growth and job creation. Think of the unemployment rate over the past several years or even decades. It really doesn't change dramatically. It shifts up and down a few points here and there as the economy goes up and down in cycles. But an economy that creates many jobs really doesn't ever get rid of unemployment. Even in relatively negative economic times, there are always job ads in the newspapers. There are almost always jobs available. Only in the Great Depression (and not since) were there basically no jobs even for those willing to work at anything. So, a government that is elected on a "job creation" mandate is destined to fail even if they are successful in the short term by "creating" some jobs (or allowing the free market to do so). Because in the long run, the population simply goes up, immigration increases, and the actual number of unemployed stays roughly the same. At the next election cycle, the same old message of job creation can be run again, often with the same success. Nothing changes.

The third myth is that there is actually any difference between political parties in terms of job creation. Recently in Canada, a new leader was chosen for the New Democratic Party. The NDP, traditionally a left-of-centre party that has never been in power was most recently elevated to become the Official Opposition in the 2011 federal election. The new leader, Thomas Mulcair, was immediatly (on the same evening as his election to party leader) attacked by the Conservative Party as being a socialist who will raise taxes and kill job creation. The NDP undoubtedly will raise the corporate tax back up by the 2% that the Conservatives lowered it, should they be elected. But that will provide some tax relief to the rest of Canadians in their personal income taxes. The effect on job creation will be nill.

Ultimately, as so often in politics, it all boils down to fear. Without fear amongst voters the Conservatives never would be elected in Canada. Without fear the United States never would have invaded Iraq (or become involved in the Vietnam War, or countless other engagements such as the first Iraq war in 1991). Without fear, people like Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich would never stand a chance in politics. I wish for a day when more and more voters can think for themselves rather than having politicians tell them what to think. Sadly, we seem to be going in the opposite direction.

There is an old adage that the best salesman is one who begins by selling you the problem and then conveniently has the only solution to the problem they created. That seems so true in many walks of life. In religion people are sold the solution to hell after the same salesman has created the problem for them. In politics, the modern successful politician sells voters the problem of job creation and then tells them that he alone has the solution. 

Canada's Watergate Will be Swept Under the Rug..."Democracy" Continues

I'm no conspiracy theorist. I am no radical. I am an educated person with a stable long-term career who makes investments in mutual funds and real estate like any other good capitalist. I'm no "left-wing nut-bar", as Kevin O'Leary rudely labels Chris Hedges at 3:30 of this video:

No, I consider myself part of the traditional establishment. I believe in the fundamentals of capitalism that have made the Western world so wealthy and have increased life expectancy and quality of life. And yet...I find myself growing ever more sceptical about the "system".

Two things about our current system make me very uncomfortable. The first is the modern approach to capitalism. Capitalism is supposed to provide opportunities for all through a free market. The success of sellers of goods and services that are bought and sold on that market is, in theory, to be determined by the quality of their products. If you sell a nicer loaf of bread that someone else does, then more people will buy your bread. Cost, of course, also has a large bearing on that success. If someone else undercuts your price and  their product is still acceptable to the consumers, then likely they will be more successful. That is how the system is supposed to work.

But in practice what we have is a market all driven by marketing, not by quality or price of products. Think about it. When you go to by a product, be it a new computer or a pair of shoes, how often do you consider buying a product from a manufacturer that you've never heard of? No, you buy a Toshiba, Sony, or some other major name-brand product. That is all fine, and the name-brand is supposed to assure you of a certain level of quality. But, where is the opportunity for the new fledgiling capitalist in the computer market. Someone who has significant skill in manufacturing high quality computers has zero chance of any success on the open market. The major manufacturers will out-market that individual, and if that doesn't work, then they'll simply buy up his company thereby making the individual very wealthy, and put an end to their competition. This is the real key to the problem in modern capitalism: complete lack of competition. How many choices do I have if I want a cell phone provider? Maybe three. How many choices do I have if I want to open a bank account? Maybe five in Canada (all with identical products and services). How many choices do I have if I want electricity to flow into my home? One.

The second thing that makes me uncomfortable about our current system is the process of democracy, or lack thereof. I don't even have time to get started on the problems in the United States, but what is going on in Canada is equally frightening. In the last federal election, in May 2011, the Conservative Party won a majority and have been in power since. Now, in the past few weeks, reports have surfaced indicating that tens of thousands of Canadians may have had their right to vote illegally tampered with. Many Canadians receive automated telephone calls prior to the election asking them what party they were likely to vote for. If they responded that they were likely to vote for anyone other than the Conservative Party, then they were often directed to false voting addresses thereby decreasing their chances of actually being able to vote. On top of that, the automated callers often falsely identified themselves as being from Elections Canada, an independant non-partisan body. This is, of course, all illegal in an election.

The normal reponse to these reports, one would assume, would be to assist a full investigation to find out exactly what happened. No matter what party one supports, surely everyone can agree that we want a fair election process. We want all the votes to count and we want everyone who wants to vote to have their say. Yet, the government's response to this scandal has been the exact opposite of aiding an investigation. First they dismissed a young twenty-something party supporter and claimed that it was all his fault and claimed that it was an isolated incident. As reports came in or more and more fraud in tens of electoral ridings all across the country and it became obvious that a single 24-year old was probably not capable of organizing this kind of fraud, the government then blamed the opposition parties. They claimed that the Liberal Party was responsible since they had hired an American company to manage some of their election phone calls and some of the fraudulent calls had been traced to an American company. Then, it was pointed out in debate in the House of Commons that the American company hired by the Liberal Party was not the same one used in the fraudulent calls, the Conservatives did not apologize but simply claimed that it was all part of a vast smear campaign against their party by the opposition parties who were sore losers in the election. Most recently, a Conservative dominated parliamentary committee voted not to give Elections Canada more power to investigate the issue properly.

Wouldn't the simple and right answer be to investigate this openly and fully and find out what actually happened? The Conservative Party, though they have yet to be found actually guilty of anything, are certainly behaving as though they don't want the scandal investigated openly and fully. Why not?

The implications of this are enormous. My prediction is that, given there are another 3 years or more until the next election, the whole issue will be swept under the rug and voters won't care by the time the next election rolls around. In the next election campaign, the Conservative Party will claim that it is all about the economy and that they are the best suited party to foster a strong economy (despite the fact they are running massive deficits leading Canada in the same failed path that countries like Greece, Spain, and even the United States are on). Voters will not care about some theoretical scandal that happened a few years ago. They just won't care.

And yet the implication is that the Conservative Party possibly never was actually elected. We will never know who actually should have won the 2011 Canadian federal election, just as we will never know who should have won the 2000 American presidential election. No one actually knows whether Gore or Bush won more electoral college votes because the Supreme Court stopped the recount. Republicans and Democrats alike will argue until they are blue in the face that they each should have won, but the truth is that no one will ever know. The same goes for the most recent election in Canada. No one will ever know how many seats the Conservative Party should have won, and whether they actually won a majority or not.

But, this whole scandal might help explain one thing: how during the election campaign, absolutely no one, except the leader of the Conservative Party, predicted a Conservative majority. What did he know that the rest of us didn't?

A Few Simple Observations Among Conservative Christian Neighbourhoods...

I've lived in many different places. Several countries, and many, many different towns and cities. In some places you don't really notice the political culture, in other places it is blatantly obvious. I've lived in places where the majority of the residents vote liberal and where the majority vote conservative. I find that when you live in a place where more than about 60% of the residents vote a particular way, it becomes noticeable in the culture of the area. I've also lived in areas where the particular religious culture is not evident; multicultural cities like Vancouver, Montreal, and London. I've also lived in places where almost everyone is of one religion - such as the so-called Bible Belt in both America and Canada. Often, or perhaps even typically, an area that is very Christian in its religious culture, it is conservative in its political culture. All of this experience has given me an opportunity to make a few observations that I find interesting to note when I spend time in an area in which the political and/or religious culture is distinct:


More churches. Kind of a no-brainer, but there are churches on every street corner in some Bible Belt areas. One wonders why the economy of scale lesson never caught on amongst church goers.

More pick up trucks and hummers. Not sure why pick up trucks are so popular amongst conservative voters and Christians. Do they need a large vehicle to carry Bibles? 

More mullets.

More trashy-dressed women. One might expect to see more, well, conservatively dressed women in conservative Christian areas. But you don't. You see way more tights, thongs, and high heels.

More facial hair. Without a doubt, conservatives grow more facial hair than liberals.

More people willing to mock runners. When I go for a recreational run in a predominantly liberal area, I never have a comment hurled at me from a passing car. In predominantly conservative areas it happens at least 20 - 30% of the time I run. Once, when riding my bicycle in a very conservative neighbourhood, I had someone slow down and lean out their truck window to yell: "You fucking pinko faggot!"

More guns. Guns are everywhere in conservative neighbourhoods. I've met teenagers carrying rifles in town. I've noticed way more gun ranges in conservative and Christian areas than in liberal ones. I can't say I've evern noticed that having more guns in a neighbourhood reduces the amount of violent or non-violent crime. Some might even make the outrageous hypothesis that the more guns there are in a society, the more likelihood it is that you will get shot.

More cheap coffee. Don't know what it is about conservatives, but they do enjoy drinking weak brown water rather than good coffee.

More dog shit. I do a fair bit of walking, hiking, and running for recreation. Without fail, there is far more dog shit in public parks and on sidewalks in conservative and Christian areas than in liberal ones. I do not see more dogs in these areas (in fact I would say there are fewer dogs actually out walking and more tied up in back yards), leading me to make conclusions about dog ownership rather than dog populations.

Fewer boutique shops and more box stores.


Draw your own conclusions.

Modern Conservatives: Consistently Inconsistent

I heard a high school friend of mine once asked what characteristic he valued most in his friends. I was somewhat surprised to hear him say consistency. At first I thought that loyalty, love, or even common interest might be more important, but when the more I thought about it, the more I recognized that consistency really is a foundational basis of every healthy relationship. If someone is completely inconsistent, it is very difficult to establish any level of intimacy in a relationship of any kind, whether romantic, frienship, political, counselling, et cetera. We take for granted that our friends will have at least some level of consistency in their behaviourr, beliefs, and values. For someone to genuinely earn my respect, I find that I do demand consistency of them. Even if I don't know them personally, it is hard to respect someone whose views appear inconsistent. We tend to associate inconsistency as a character flaw in political candidates, a sign of weakness indicating that the candidate will simply form their views based on popularity rather than inner conviction about what is right. Even someone with whom we strongly disagree on an issue but who is consistent is much easier to communicate with than someone whose opinions are all over the map and changing daily. If you think about it, almost any human conversation, certainly any argument, demands consistency. If we perceive someone being inconsistent, we immediately call them out on it, saying things such as: "But earlier you said such and such, now you are contradicting yourself." Children are, of course, inconsistent in their position all the time, constantly changing their minds as it suits their personal needs. Consistency is a characteristic of the mature adult.

Consider for a moment the modern conservative in North America. Europe is somewhat different when it comes to political conservatism since it tends not to muddle the issues of religion and conservatism so much. It is entirely possible to be a popular conservative leader in Europe without having to be a religious wingnut. Just think of Maggie Thatcher. She might have been a wingnut, depending on your political viewpoint, but no one ever accused her of being Britain's version of Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann. In the United States, and increasingly in Canada since the union of the Progressive Conservative party (a European-style conserative party) with the Reform Party (an American-style religious conservative party), conservatism and religion are inseparable. Religious people in the U.S. generally vote Republican. In Canada, it is very rare to meet a Christian who does not vote for the Conservative Party of Canada. Many of the members of parliament in the Conservative Party in Canada rely on the Christian vote to be elected, and many of them form the basis of their political beliefs and agenda around Christianity.

It is this religious influence that infects the conservative parties in North America with an incredible inconsistency. In order to be a true believer of Christianity demands a fair amount of inconsistency. You must believe that Jesus is the son of God and you must believe that he died and rose from the dead to save humanity from their sins. Almost every Christian must believe those two things. Yet those two beliefs are completely at odds with the world in which we live. There are no documented cases of fatherless (or more specifically sperm-less) fatherhood in humanity. There are no documented cases of people ever coming to life again after being genuinely dead for three days. This inconsistency, bought into by the religious since childhood, infects their mind with an acceptance of inconsistency in the politcal arena. As long as their policial veiws are in line with their version of Christianity, then they consider themselves to be consistent.

Consider you knew nothing whatsoever about the political process and you were being introduced to it by someone else. You might, at some point, ask the differences between liberals and conservatives. In North America you would be told that conservatives are generally pro-life. But then you'd be informed that they are also generally pro-capital punishment. You'd be told that they believe it is acceptable to surgically remove part of a little boy's genitalia at birth and the right of the parents to do so should be legally protected, but you'd also be told that to do the equivalent to a female would be considered abuse and should remain illegal. You'd be told that most conservative voters believe in a religion in which peacemakers are blessed and in which it is important to respect and love other people, but then you'd also be informed that it has been conservative leaders who have started the most atrocious and illegal wars in the past fifteen years. You'd be told about the conservative viewpoint that government should be small, social spending should be limited and reduced, but then you'd be informed that conservative voters don't think the defence budget should ever be cut at all. You'd be informed that conservatives want to reduce government spending, but then you'd be told that in Canada the only government in the past generation to balance a budget has been a liberal one, and in the United States the largest deficits in history have traditionally been under conservative rule.

Many politicians of every stripe demonstrate inconsistency. Politcians, after all, want to be elected. Making statements that help them do so is more important than demonstrating consistency. Liberal politicians might be considered as inconsistent as conservative ones. But when it comes to the voters, conservatives are incredibly inconsistent. Their values and beliefs simply flow along the illogical and bizarre path laid out before them according to the Bible.

I read the news today...oh boy.

Today in the news, Canada's Conservative government was reported to have made two significant decisions, one which I would classify as common sense and one which I would classify as common ignorance.

First, the good news. It was decided that in Canada, you will not be able to veil your face when taknig the oath of citizenship. This decision is primarily aimed at women from Muslim cultures who might have preferred the practice of wearing a niqab or similar garment while taking the oath of citizenship. There is currently a similar challenge to the supreme court concerning the rights of witnesses to wear a veil over their face as they testify in court. Identifying people by their face is a standard part of our culture and most cultures around the world. Further, being able to recognize emotions such as fear, hatred, anger, love, friendliness et cetera, is a fundemental part of most human interaction. Therefore I would go one step further than this decision and outlaw the wearing of any clothing that completely covers the face in pubic (with the exception of clothing worn as genuine protection from the elements such as scarves or balaclavas in the middle of winter). Certainly when undertaking something as significant as the oath of citizenship one should have to show one's face for a host of reasons including identification and verification that the oath is actually being said. As I say, to me this is common sense.

Unfortunately the second decision announced today is not so positive. Canada has officially withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol. In short we are reneging on our responsibilities that we signed up to in 1997. Whether you agree with Kyoto or not is more or less irrelevant in this case. The Conservative government is not pulling out of Kyoto because they think the protocol itself is faulty (though they will use that as an excuse) but rather because they don't think global climate change is relevant. As I've pointed out several times in past posts, when you have a Minister responsible for science who does not accept or understand basic science, then you are doomed to making very poor scientific decisions. A government that truly doesn't believe in climate change will not make any decisions to invest in change in the effects we have on the climate. They see it as a waste of money. Indeed, they see the opportunities to make vast amounts of money precisely by ignoring climate change. Sadly many of my fellow Canadians truly believe that climate change is a made up story. Many believe that it is a United Nations scam designed to increase international tax revenue by the U.N. Many otherwise intelligent people actually believe that we can burn fossil fuels ad infinitum with no consequence. This is a bit of ignorance that is all too common.