Posts from our progressive community

Coming awfully close now, isn't it?
Wright didn't just dash off a cheque to Duffy in a moment of sentimental weakness, to dry Duffy's tears on a sad February day.
Harper's chief of staff actually went through a negotiation with Harper's former legal counsel to give Harper's best media buddy a legal deal for $90K:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former special counsel and legal adviser worked on the legal deal between Nigel Wright and Sen. Mike Duffy’s lawyer that called for Wright to help Duffy pay off $90,000 in invalid expense claims, CTV News has learned.But none of them told Harper anything about it.  Oh, sure.
Despite Perrin's carefully phrased denial, I just don't believe Harper's sanctimonious Sgt. Schultz 'I know nothing NOTHING' defense, and neither does anyone else.
Canadian Press reports on what happened today during Question Period:
"They think we're fools," said Francoise Boivin of the NDP. "They're trying to make us believe that (Harper) knew nothing."
Complained New Democrat Nathan Cullen: "These guys will not be accountable."
Charlie Angus, the New Democrat who has been worrying at the issue since it began, called it "abuse of the public trust."
The government "has lost its moral compass," boomed Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. "The prime minister is in this up to his neck."
Liberal colleague Ralph Goodale called it "an insidious scheme."
Through it all, Baird maintained an uncharacteristic calm, glancing periodically at his notes and insisting Harper only knew of the payment to Duffy when it became public last week.
The minister, who can be a vitriolic opponent, never raised his voice. "I can't be any more clear," he said repeatedly.

As I watched Stephen Harper walk up the steps of his getaway jet today, I can only imagine what he must have been thinking.

I'm leaving the piggy behind.

They can't question me, or arrest me.... in Peru.

And I told them NOTHING !!!!
Read more »

Cats on the rocks.

Stephen Harper's performance before the Conservative parliamentary caucus this morning spoke volumes for the integrity and sense of raw power and privilege of what passes for a prime minister in Canada today.

Harper played victim and complained about how he was very upset at the conduct of certain Parliamentarians (i.e. Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau) and how he'd been let down by his own Prime Minister's Office.

Having, like Pilate, washed his hands of the affair, Harper demanded  the Senate reform itself forthwith, clean up its act, put an end to these transgressions.

But what exactly had the Senate actually done that was particularly egregious?  Nothing.   A few of its members may have fudged their expense accounts and claims but it was the actions of the Senate that brought that out.  It was the Senate that called in outside auditors.  It was the Senate that ordered an investigation.

And, once the Senate had taken these steps to cleanse its own house, what did Stephen Joseph Harper's very own PMO do?  Why top officials in the PMO brought Mike Duffy's problems in-house.  The bribed Duffy with cash to reimburse the Senate accounts.  Harper's office did that, not the Senate.  Then they moved to thwart the Senate's investigation, ordering Duffy to say nothing to the independent auditors and spurn their requests for cooperation.  Harper's office did that, not the Senate.  And then they moved to strongarm the Senate audit committee to launder the report into Senator Duffy's difficulties.  Harper's office did that, not the Senate.

In fact, almost all of the real corruption in this scandal emanated from Harper and his closest aides (or just his aides if you believe in the Easter Bunny and the claims that Harper had no knowledge of any of this).   That's where the corruption is, within Stephen Harper and his office.   So it's a little rich when the Great Corrupter points fingers at the Senate and demands they reform.

This greasy bait and switch is an integral party of Harper's determination to regain control of this scandal.  He's determined to roll this scandal back from the PMO and into Duffy's lap because he knows if he doesn't turn this around, the scandal is heading straight for him.

Curious there was not the slightest mention today of reforming the Prime Minister's Office.  That speaks volumes for what is truly at play here.

Nix "Duffygate," trash "Senategate," this is "HarperGate" and that's what the opposition needs to hammer away at.

Heritage minister James Moore is said to be en route to Prince Edward Island to demand Duffy's resignation.   That has to be part and parcel of rolling this scandal back out of the PMO and straight into the lap of a safely-resigned former senator where the opposition will be left to pick on a carcass.

Harper signalled that would be the approach in his remarks this morning.  Oh he was so deeply upset that these bad people had betwayed him.   Bad people, bad people.  So many disappointments.  Poor prime minister.   So sad.  No room for the likes of Duffy, not in Steve's government.   Bad Duffy, bad.  Poor Steve.

That is, however, the narrative Steve has chosen to fall back on, the story he plans to sell through the summer.  He has to get the focus turned around, back on Duffy, and keep it from heading toward Sussex Drive.   Stephen Harper has to regain control of this scandal.

If the opposition falls for it, Stephen Harper wins and they lose, big time.  If they focus on Duffy instead of what happened inside the PMO and why, they lose.   They need to hammer away on the cheque and the letter of understanding.   They need to keep the spotlight on Wright, on Perrin and directly on Steve Harper.  They need to make the Canadian public realize the stink isn't coming from Friendly Lane but from right inside the PMO.

When you're in opposition to a guy like Harper you won't be getting many opportunities like this one.   They cannot afford to waste it.

Word has it that Harper minister and loyalist, James Moore, has been dispatched to P.E.I. to demand that the Cavendish Cottager resign his senate seat.

Will Duffy call the cops on another intruder?

Does Harper's envoy come bearing parting gifts?   Oh to be a fly on the wall.

We interrupt this travelogue to bring you an important announcement. I got my first librarian job!!

This is a part-time, temporary position in the children's department of the Central Library, where I was a page for 14 months. I am thrilled.

But wait, there's more!

I also interviewed in a competition for eight part-time positions, not librarians, but great experience doing reference and programming. I was one of the top scorers and was offered my choice of four of these positions, including two that are permanent.

So what does this mean? It means I can be a part-time librarian until March 2014, and if I don't have a full-time librarian position by that time, I have a permanent, part-time position doing reference and programming at the Central Library. I chose the "Reader's Den" department, for the opportunity to work with teens and do readers' advisory both youth and adults.

And here's what I didn't tell you. A few months ago, I interviewed for a permanent, full-time librarian job at one of Mississauga's branch libraries. It was my first librarian interview, and I bombed. Really crapped out. Then I had a combined 90 minutes of feedback with three different managers. I learned so much. I re-did my resume. I re-thought my entire approach.

I was still very disappointed. Permanent full-time librarian spots don't come up that often, and I had a chance, and I blew it. I've been totally beating myself up about it. But at my next opportunity, I landed the job.

You know what else I learned from that feedback? These managers, who are all young and in the midst of very successful librarian careers, all told me about positions they didn't get, interviews that they blew. One of them told me about repeatedly failing to get a senior librarian position, even though she was the acting senior librarian in the department, the incumbent in the position. She is one of the most successful young librarians in the system. Her candor made me feel much better.

As it happens, she was on the interview team for these eight reference/programming spots. I sensed she was impressed and happy to see me do well after her feedback.

So! I am a librarian! The new position starts June 3.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program, Laura and Allan Go To Spain.

A past logo of the Frontier Centre
for Public Policy.

Image obtained from the
Green Market OracleWaaayyyyyy back (by blog standards) at the end of March I discussed the hard right Frontier Centre for Public Policy's article on Bill 18. There I noted the (unwarranted) claim that the Safe and Inclusive schools measures in Bill 18 would impede discretion and sound teacher judgement.

Part of the two-pronged approach of rightwing opponents - particularly the Pallister CONs - has been to claim that this bill is too weak by not mandating specific penalties while simultaneously claiming it's too strong because it grants protections to all supportive, anti-bullying student groups - regardless of whether religious bullies approve.

The later half of the Frontier Centre's policy note details their opposition based on this "religious freedom" issue:

The other problem with this bill is that it threatens religious freedom. Specifically, Bill 18 requires all schools, including independent faith-based schools, to facilitate student groups that may undermine the schools’ religious values. In its enthusiasm to stamp out bullying, the Manitoba government appears prepared to run roughshod over the right of private religious schools to uphold their faith.

[...]

Obviously, some people will say that since some faith-based schools receive government funding, they should accept Bill 18 without question. However, the acceptance of funding should not eliminate the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. Many parents, in fact, choose faith-based schools specifically because of the school’s values.

("Manitoba’s Bill 18 Fails the Test of Good Legislation". Clifton & Long & Zwaagstra. (Mar. 22, 2013). Frontier Centre for Public Policy)
The Frontier Centre's paper chastises the lack of religious freedom, while ignoring the elephant in the human: the right of gay students to basic human dignity and safety. Instead, the Frontier Centre seems to be treating the rights of certain religious fundamentalists to express their hate by denying gay students a safe space above the rights of gay students to a safe and supportive space. In short, it seems that the Frontier Centre is valuing the rights of religious bullies over students.

As the Evan Wiens case shows, there is an existing problem with school administrators obstructing gay-straigt alliances in climates where anti-gay bullying is severe.



But what about the constitutionality arguments? Does the right to religious freedom include the right to deny students the freedom to start a gay-straight alliance?
The American religious right was founded to oppose
the desegregation of parochial religious schools.

Do religious schools have the right to bar minorities
from attending because of "religious liberty"?

Image Source: QuestGarden
Well, Aaron Hildebrandt has a great resource refuting this:


The belief that Bill 18 takes away the right of religious schools to prevent LGBTQ students from discussing their sexual orientation or ban openly LGBTQ students from the school. However, schools have not had this ability since the Canadian Human Rights Act came into effect in 1977 (and sexual orientation was specifically added in 1996).The Canadian Human Rights Act nor other human rights legislation, to the best of my knowledge, have been struck down for violating religious freedom. It's been well recognized in most western societies that religious freedom does not include the right to practice institutional discrimination.

 Take, for instance, the case of school desegregation. The US religious right was founded to oppose it. Regardless of their "religious freedom", you aren't allowed discriminate against a class of people just because you think God says it's okay. Given that's the case in the much more hands-off, laissez-faire to religion world of the US do you think that courts are going to buy that religious bigotry trumps laws protecting gay rights in Canada? Religious rights do not justify the infringement of the basic rights of all people to dignity and safety.

On a final note, I find it ironic that the Frontier Centre's in-house education analysts have tackled the supposedly grave religious freedom violation that voluntary Gay-Straight Alliances pose. Why?

Because I have yet to find their denunciations of politicians in favour of forcing religious & political objectors to attend assemblies. Involuntary mandates to attend assemblies seem a lot more intrusive than allowing voluntary Gay-Straight Alliances, don't you think?


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This raw video from this morning's efforts at damage control says all there needs to be said about Harper and accountability:



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Yeah, right Prime Minister Stephen Harper told his Conservative caucus this morning that he’s “upset” by the conduct of some senators and members of his own staff, and asked them to uphold a “culture of accountability.” Harper gave an address... Dr.Dawg http://drdawgsblawg.ca/

The importance of sound judgement when it
comes to the use of public funds is no
laughing matter.

Image Source:
Borris Minkevich/Winnipeg Free PressWell, the country club conservative of Tuxedo and mayor of Winnipeg Sam Katz wants to privatize city golf courses. Deputy mayor and fiscal axman Russ Wyatt says we have "no choice".

There's likely little benefit to the city in having a plethora of public or private golf courses. It'd make more sense for golf courses be converted into multi-use public parks, some used for the development of cooperative housing, others for mixed-used development or market-driven housing development, and a few retained as affordable public golf courses for all Winnipeggers.

A good way to conduct a review of our City golf courses would be to run a thorough public consultation. That way we could get citizen input on a broad range of alternative uses.

But the City doesn't seem to be conducting such an open-ended, listening exercise. Rather, it looks like the Katz administration is telling the public that City Hall should privatize golf courses. He's trying to use such ads to get constituents to pressure critical councillors to pass his measure.

The ads say they're from a group called Responsible Winnipeg.



Problem is that the $90,000 ad campaign of Responsible Winnipeg is funded with public money!!!

It's a City initiative, though initially the City logo didn't accompany the ads. Katz called this an oversight and subsequent ads now have the logo.

What this means is that the City bureaucracy is getting involved in a political, City Council debate - trying to influence a vote through public messaging and pressure politics.

If this isn't illegal then it should be. This is bloody obscene.

The civil service side of our City is supposed to be about implementing the policies of council, not making council chose certain policies. The City budget isn't Sammy's to use for whatever he wants, it's our money. Russ Wyatt should be swinging his financial axe at this waste of public money.

 Meanwhile, the "independent advocacy group" known as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is deafeningly silent on this issue.

Strange that this use of taxpayer money for a political campaign hasn't caught their attention. I mean, as a taxpayer federation they're all about the prudent use of public monies, right?

It's almost as if the "Taxpayers Federation" cares more about an ideological, slash-and-burn agenda than the appropriate use of taxpayer dollars.

But that couldn't be right, could it?

Regardless, I suggest our Mayor and the financial axeman respect the spirit of this initiative. If we're going to save big bucks privatizing public golf courses, why not start saving bucks now by privatizing the campaign to privatize golf courses?

I'm sure Sam Katz could fund the campaign for this deeply-held conviction of his. Heck, maybe Wyatt could give some of his salary to make this media blitz happen.

After all, one must make great sacrifices in the call of public service.

Right?

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This began with a scandal about Mike Duffy and a cottage on Friendly Lane in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.  Suddenly that seems like so long ago, an eon.

Duffy, Duffy who?

Now the scandal has shot straight up the food chain, ricocheting around the Senate and on into the PMO.  And the path is littered with the bodies - Duffy, Pam Wallin, Nigel Wright and now, seemingly, Benjamin Perrin, Harper legal counsel.   Now the scandal has kept on going, right into Mr. Harper's private office, right to his very throne.

Thanks to some dissident, insurgent if you will, probably from the ranks of Harper's own Parliamentary caucus, we have learned a lot over just the past week.   We have learned about a curious cash payment, secret deals, a laundered Senate report, and improbable, hopelessly feeble denials by a prime minister and his chief of staff reeling from the revelations that were never supposed to be.

We know a lot but how much really?   This whole Duffy deal was a potentially high risk business by people who are expert at understanding risk.   They knew what it would mean for them if their transactions ever surfaced in public.

There were no end of ways to get Duffy a paltry, for them, $90,000.  Why a personal cheque from Harper's chief of staff?  Why drag Harper's Special Counsel in on this?  Obviously there was a need to bring this "in-house", to keep it under wraps and that meant under the direct control of the prime minister and his top advisers.

Why the added inducement of rigging the Senate audit report, the promise that the report would "go easy on" the Cavendish Cottager?   That's a real "deal sweetener."  It's a promise to corrupt the workings of a committee of the Senate of Canada.   And now we know that is precisely what happened.

Duffy isn't and never was worth this risk.   No, very important people don't take these risks to bail out some lowly senator.  It's a pretty safe bet that they weren't doing this to protect Michael Dennis Duffy of Prince Edward Island.   This was about protecting Stephen Joseph Harper.  From what?  We don't know, not yet.  Maybe never.

But I would bet the farm that Mike Duffy knows and that Stephen Harper and his closest aides know what Mike Duffy knows and that's why they deemed it critical to bring the Duffy expense scandal in-house and ensure the Senate audit report gave Duffy a soft landing.

Harper knows from experience that we're a dull and generally unquestioning lot with a collective attention span often not much greater than that of lesser primates.   And he knows that he's almost made it to summer, the season of scandal salvation.  He's betting he can hold his breath longer than we can and he knows from past experience that's not a bad bet.

Update - Well, there it is, the summer narrative.   Stephen Harper is sticking with "I didn't know".  Nope, he's outright indignant and has told his caucus that he's "very upset" with the conduct of people in the prime minister's office and some parliamentarians.  And now, kids, sorry but I have to run.  I have a plane to catch to Rio.

Let's once again take a slightly closer look at what's been reported about the Cons' senate scandal - as yesterday's revelations about the involvement of Stephen Harper's special counsel and legal adviser Benjamin Perrin may offer a few more indications as to who was actually pulling the strings.

To start with, here's CTV's reporting on the drafting of the agreement between Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former special counsel and legal adviser worked on the legal deal between Nigel Wright and Sen. Mike Duffy’s lawyer that called for Wright to help Duffy pay off $90,000 in invalid expense claims, CTV News has learned.

Sources told CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife that back in February, Benjamin Perrin helped draft the letter of understanding that called for Duffy to publicly declare that he would repay the money. In return, sources say, Wright would give a personal cheque to Duffy to cover the $90,000. Sources say the agreement also stipulated that a Senate investigation into expense claims would go easy on Duffy.
...  Perrin left the Prime Minister’s Office in April and has returned to his position as an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Law. As I noted earlier, it seemed dubious that any lawyers at all would be involved in drafting trust conditions or agreements around a merely personal gift. But Perrin's involvement raises some additional questions - no matter how one interprets the chain of events.

On one hand, it's possible that Wright was treated as being the "client" giving instructions to Perrin. That possibility raises its own set of questions: is it normal practice for publicly-funded counsel at the PMO to deliver personal legal services to staffers? Did Wright pay the PMO for receiving those services from the office's counsel? Would Wright have the authority to release the relevant documents as the client of record - and indeed, might he have waived any solicitor-client privilege by allowing the PMO to take control of them?
The PMO also declined to release the letter of agreement, saying it is now in the hands of Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, who is investigating Wright’s $90,000 cheque to Duffy. On the other hand, it's possible that the story is one of Stephen Harper's legal advisor acting in his official capacity, taking instructions from Stephen Harper's Prime Minister's Office to draft an agreement in which Stephen Harper's chief of staff paid a Stephen Harper Senate appointee to keep quiet.

That might give the PMO a slightly better claim to try to withhold access to the relevant documents from its end (though Duffy and his lawyer would presumably have copies as well which would presumably be relevant to any RCMP or Senate investigation). But the second scenario also includes a rather obvious common denominator - and no matter how determined he is to flee the country, it's hard to see Stephen Harper avoiding full responsibility if every aspect of the Duffy payout was carried out in his name.

You are a father whose shrieking child was killed in front of your eyes by soldiers. Years later, sneering deniers mock you. You are part of a carefully orchestrated conspiracy to win world sympathy, they claim. Your kid is... Dr.Dawg http://drdawgsblawg.ca/

… tries to blame the Opposition for the latest CPC debacle! Canadians have grown to expect this complete lack of accountability. (1) Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario

Harper is unhappy! And upset too! Who will feel his wrath? Who will he throw under the big blue bus? Inquiring minds want to know! (2) Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario

Since the post on 'Life' was popular I thought I should post this too.

Although it has been many years since I read Bram Stoker's Dracula, I recall that it was a far more subtle and eerie depiction of vampiric activity than the generations of films that it spawned. The latter almost invariably portrayed Dracula as a charming yet unholy creature who pounced swiftly, gorily, and mercilessly upon his victims; the novel, on the other hand, depicted a creature that, while driven by an unslakable thirst, did not deprive Mina Harker of her life in one fell swoop, but slowly drained her of her life force, leaving everyone bewildered as to the cause of her demise. If anything, this Dracula, with his endgame in mind, had the patience and self-control necessary to see his goals through.

In many ways, Stoker's original creature serves as an apt metaphor for the unholy political practices that have been underway these past several years in Canada under Stephen Harper. For those with any sense of history, it is obvious that there has been a gradual yet systematic exsanguination of the values and programs that have been a proud part of our identity for many many years. While I have no intention of offering a comprehensive list of those depredations, as others have done a far better job in analyzing them than I ever could, a few will suffice to demonstrate how far we have fallen under this regime and, to be fair, under previous ones, who paved the way for our current unhealthy state:

The Erosion of Progressive Taxation: At one time, there existed the notion that as people's income rose, they paid proportionally more. Like the corruption that the vampire represents, the Harper regime has seduced Canadians into believing they deserve to keep more of their earning (pension splitting, TFSAs, reduction of GST, record low corporate taxes, etc.) without a thought given to the services they pay for, the social safety net that keeps people from truly hitting bottom, the egalitarian nature of our health care, etc.)

The Progressive Destruction of The Environment: The strident calls of this corporatist government would have us believe that muzzling scientists, closing research facilities, aggressively pursuing tarsands development are all but innocent cost-saving and revenue boosting initiatives that have little to no impact on the climate crisis currently engulfing the world.

A Degree of Government Secrecy Incompatible With a Democracy: Canada now ranks No. 55 among 93 nations when it comes to the law that allows journalists and others to get access to federal government documents. As reported in The Star, this ranking by the Centre for Law and Democracy puts us just ahead of Angola and Thailand, but one place behind Slovakia. This is a huge drop from 31 years ago when Canada’s initial legislation on access to information (ATI) was hailed as world-leading.

When a government regulars denies its citizens and parliamentarians access to the information that allows for informed discourse and thoughtful decisions, the illusion of a free and open society wears very thin very quickly. The ongoing very secret negotiations around the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) trade deals are probably one of the most worrying indicators of further Harper destruction, as many claim it will give the same power that NAFTA does to investors to sue governments if their polices (e.g. environmental) hamper their profit-making ability as well as limit governments' ability to use local suppliers and businesses in contracts.

In many ways, the current Senate expense scandal is but a sensational diversion from the much larger picture of corrupt abuse of power endemic in our current political apparatus. While disgraced Senator Duffy has become a donkey upon whom it is fun to pin the tail, there is a much larger tale to be told and taught to the people of Canada. Yet perhaps there is a lesson to be learned in the almost universal condemnation that Duffy's dishonesty has provoked. Most see his fraudulent expense claims as a grievous insult to all who work hard, many eking out meager existences, and dutifully paying their taxes. In other words, his abuses are something we can all relate to.

Perhaps, like the librarians in Troy Michigan who mounted such an effective campaign to stop the erosion of library services, all who are able, both within and outside of the blogosphere, need to find new, compelling and relatable ways to present the story of our deterioration as a nation in order to galvanize the electorate. Given our collective knowledge and creativity, this should be a task many are well-suited for.

Because let's face it - without widespread citizen engagement and resistance, the Dracula within our midst will only continue to drain our nation's lifeblood.





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This post is the first of a new series on the history and future of Canadian multi-party democracy. The posts will be based on a spreadsheet of election results which I’ve assembled using Elections Canada data for recent elections, and Wikipedia tables for older ones. The spreadsheet is not yet finished but will be posted when it is. The first posts only make use of part of the data set, so I’m going ahead with them anyways.

One of the most important things that people should realize, and generally don’t, about the present state of Parliamentary democracy in Canada is that we have a structural, steadily growing democratic deficit which continues to increase regardless of voter turnout levels, regardless of how responsive political parties are or are not to public opinion, and regardless of how much or how little freedom of speech is granted to backbench MPs by party leaders. The problem, quite simply, is that we do not have enough MPs. 

I have made this suggestion before on this blog, and it never goes over very well, because we generally consider MPs to be like mosquitoes: we may grudgingly accept that they’re necessary for the ecosystem, but we don’t like them around us, we certainly don’t like listening to their ceaseless whines, and the fewer of them there are, the better.

Which may be true at the moment, but at the same time, the fewer MPs you have, the weaker your democracy is and the more power is centralized in a small number of unrepresentative hands. Because of population growth, we have lost, quite literally, 97% of the representation in Parliament that our ancestors enjoyed in 1867. It’s the democratic equivalent of currency inflation: the value of your vote is shrinking, and it has been shrinking for a long, long time.

This chart shows the number of voters who actually cast ballots — not the number of registered voters — per average MP since 1867. If we adjusted for declining voter turnout by using the actual number of registered voters, that curve would be even steeper. Ironically, cratering voter turnout levels are actually “good” for the democratic deficit in statistical terms, insofar as they increase the relative voting power of the shrinking number of people who actually bother to make their way to the ballot box.

Beyond that, though, the reality is stark. In 1867, if you were an actual voter, you were one of about 1500 people to whom your MP was accountable. Today, you’re one of almost 50,000. Given this fact, is it any surprise that we feel as though our views are not represented in Parliament?

Even if an MP today decided that instead of living in Ottawa he would just tour the constituency full-time, meeting every single voter individually, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, that would still mean that the average voter could expect less than five minutes of face-time with her MP. In contrast, in 1867, the average voter could have spent almost an hour and a half with his MP.

I hope you caught my slippage in pronouns there. One of the responses to what I’m saying will doubtless be that, at least until recently, Canada got much more democratic. After all, after much strife, the white male establishment grudgingly admitted its own bigotry. Women were enfranchised. Japanese and Chinese were re-enfranchised. Later, too much later in my opinion, aboriginal people were re-enfranchised.

But the important thing to take away is that the Parliamentary system was never adjusted to account for the increased number of voters. Between 1914 (when no women could vote) and 1921 (when all could), the electorate more than doubled, ballooning from 1.3 million to 3.1 million. Yet the seat count in the House of Commons rose only slightly, from 221 to 235. Since then, the democratic deficit has climbed slowly but steadily.

In theory, if population grows and voter turnout either stabilizes or recovers, that democratic deficit will only grow further. Under the current representation formula, the number of seats in Parliament is fixed at 279 plus special allocations. In practice it’s significantly higher because of the special allocations: you can’t take away any of a province’s guaranteed seats, so PEI will always have four, and Quebec will not lose seats in the current allocation even though its population share is dwindling, etc., etc.

The reason we’re getting several new seats for 2015 is because population growth in the West means they are getting a higher share of the 279 “base” seats, Quebec is retaining more “special” seats, etc. But this representation formula, because the base seat count is fixed, will never be able to cope with long-term population growth.

How this problem should be solved, or whether it even needs to be solved, is another question entirely. But I think that whatever else might be said about the decline and future of democracy, it has to be accepted that Parliamentary representation in its present form grants far, far less representation to the public than it once did, and consequently that it is not surprising that MPs feel less and less beholden to the electorate.

All of that said, you might assume that the declining voter turnout is a direct consequence of the declining value of your vote. I don’t think so, because, as I’ve been saying repeatedly for the last couple of weeks, most people don’t particularly care because they are intellectually lazy. The only people committed enough to actually make this sort of calculation are the ones who are probably interested enough in politics to vote anyways. That said, the larger the constituency, the less useful your vote is to your MP, and the less work he or she will and even can do in order to earn it.

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This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Murray Dobbin contrasts the B.C. NDP's recent election loss against the type of popular focus which helped Saskatchewan's CCF to earn a twenty-year stay in office in the face of far more hysterical opposition:
You can design a campaign that projects a positive vision of the future but two things about the NDP's approach doomed it to failure. First, you can't run a positive campaign in a month. It takes time to engage people in a vision of the future, even one they agree with.  Secondly, the NDP tied one hand behind its back by failing to hold the Liberals to account for the horrible, destructive policies they implemented over twelve long years.
...
Tommy Douglas and the CCF (the precursor of the NDP) won power in 1944 in a province totally dominated by a Liberal, pro-business party machine for decades. It won a landslide victory in a media atmosphere of absolute hysteria (headline: "CCF will seize farms"), fearmongering and blatant lies. The CCF held power for twenty uninterrupted years. How? It started out as a movement and retained that character for many years afterward. It was deeply rooted in community. People felt ownership of it and its policies and out (of) that came government programs that met the expressed needs of the people. And that, in turn, brought enormous trust in government. 

People's distrust of government now runs so deep that it will take years of trust-building to regain some democratic equilibrium. That means a totally different kind of politics and a totally different kind of political party. Progressive parties run by brain trusts, engaging in politics as a game, will ultimately lose. For them progressive policies are simply pieces on a chess board, not part of a larger vision. And the longer this style of politics goes on, the more institutionalized and inward looking such parties, including the NDP, become.- But if we're looking at comparing which types of politics deserve some measure of trust, we can rule out a few fairly easily. For example, Martin Regg Cohn writes about the false promise of privatized liquor sales, while Kathy Tomlinson reports on yet more examples of the temporary foreign worker program being used (with the Cons' approval) to replace qualified Canadians with easily-exploited temporary imports.

- In the latest in the Cons' Senate expense scandal, CTV reports that the paperwork for the hush payment from Nigel Wright to Mike Duffy was drawn up by special counsel in the Prime Minister's Office. Michael Harris writes that Stephen Harper's PMO is falling apart, while Lawrence Martin sees the Cons' abuses of power as reaching a critical mass. Sid Green and various Reform alumni all make the case for Senate abolition if the Cons can't be trusted to police their own. Andrew Coyne sets out the laws which the Cons had to know were violated. And while John Ivison may be the last person left to pretend accountability has anything to do with the Cons' value structure, he does nicely contrast the Cons' one-time promises against their actions once in office.

- Meanwhile, the Cons' commitment to accountability also includes blatant patronage and support for criminal bid-rigging. Try to act surprised.

- Finally, Paul Adams rightly notes that the great challenge for media participants in our time is how to manage the vast amount of available information - and that we should see that development as a massive improvement from the restricted supply which once existed. But we should be more than wary of attempts to push information back behind closed doors, whether through laws or through litigation.