40 Reasons Why I Cannot Vote for a Candidate in My Riding Who Supports Stephen Harper’s Conservative Government

In all my sixty-nine years, the current government of Canada led by the Conservative Party of Canada is the worst, most anti-democratic, most anti-Parliament, government I have experienced.

I have voted in every election for which I have been eligible and my voting habit is to vote the person among offered candidates within the electoral constituency in which I live, rather than vote the party, as should every voter in a Parliamentary democracy if Parliament is to function properly in representing people.  As it turns out, the candidate in my riding whose views have most matched my own views was usually a Progressive Conservative candidate.  During the minority government years of the current regime I could support our local Member of Parliament in spite of his participation with a leader I find repellant.  He spoke his mind and, often a thorn to his colleagues, found himself shut out from potential advancement.  With his retirement before our last federal election, I could not support his successor and turned my vote to another, though unsuccessful, candidate.

With the coming Canadian federal election I will vote for a candidate in my riding other than any candidate who supports Mr. Harper and his Conservative Party of Canada for the following reasons (in no particular order but two of which I emphasize as truly substantial):

1. Contempt for Parliament: on March 25th, 2011, the Harper administration was found to be in contempt of Canadian Parliament. This is the first time in the history of any commonwealth government that this has happened. The Speaker of the House of Commons had to rule three times that "the Harper government" appeared to breach parliamentary privilege. (reference, The Globe & Mail)

2. Cheated in the 2006 Election: in Spring of 2011, a federal court found that Mr. Harper's Conservatives wilfully violated the $18.3 million election spending limit, during the campaign which originally brought them to power in 2006. 4 Conservatives (including 2 Conservative Senators) currently face charges and possible jail time. (reference, The Globe & Mail)

3. Discourages voter participation by restricting our rights to vote:  This government passed its so-called Fair Elections Act (widely colloquially called the “Unfair Elections Act”) which strips Elections Canada, the nonpartisan government body responsible for administering elections, of its authority to actively encourage citizens to vote; allows incumbent candidates rather than Elections Canada to appoint polling supervisors; muzzles the Chief Electoral Officer, restricting the role from raising awareness of the electoral process to speaking publicly on just five ‘safe’ topics such as ‘how to become a candidate’ and ‘how to cast a ballot’ and specifically removing the role’s power to alert the public to problems during an election while making it more difficult to investigate vote and campaign  fraud by cutting off Elections Canada’s investigations arm; and then cut Elections Canada’s budget by 8%. (reference The Guardian)

4. Turned Canada's Surplus into Debt: by 2006, under non-conservative leadership, the Canadian budgetary deficit had been turned around, into a $16 Billion surplus. Four years later, and the current government had returned Canada to a record $56 Billion deficit and, until the 2015 budget with its dubious surplus, had failed to return Canada to a surplus position in spite of protestations of fiscal responsibility. (reference Catch22)

5. Takes credit for others’ achievements: Since the 2008 Financial Crisis, this government has been taking credit for the relative strength of our financial sector, based on fiscal policy and a system of banking regulations they inherited, but didn’t support. (reference The Tyee)

6. Shut down Parliament. Twice: one of the Conservative platform promises was more accountability. Since making this promise, This government has shut down Parliament twice, once for several months to block an inquiry into Afghan detainees and to stall government bills, and a second time to avoid a vote of non-confidence which the government was expected to lose. (reference The Globe & Mail)

7. Suborned Canada’s national sovereignty and continues to suborn: This so-called loyal Conservative government negotiated, signed and eventually ratified the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA) which goes far beyond simply providing for freer trade but in effect diminishes Canada to a resource colony of the Communist dictatorship in Beijing for the next thirty-one years.  Chinese firms (which are merely arms of the Chinese Communist dictatorship) with investments in Canadian business now have the right to sue Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal governments in secret tribunals outside of our justice system if new environmental, labour, health and safety, business practice, etc. law impinges on their investment.  That is to say, Canada now has to clear such new laws, regulations, and court judgements with Beijing in order to bring them into effect.  Similarly, this government participates in CITA, TPP, TTIP, and TiSA secret negotiations and has signed other so-called free trade agreements, all of which include provisions for investor-state arbitration by which international corporations can sue sovereign nations in secret tribunals outside of any national judiciary to overturn new law enacted out of a nation’s sovereign right to govern itself.  This provision raises international corporations from the subjects of nations to, in effect, non-territorial kingdoms equal with or superior to no-longer sovereign nations while reducing nations to resource and labour colonies of those multinational corporations.  For these actions Prime Minister Harper and those of his ministers involved in these negotiations should be called to answer to the charge of treason. (reference Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Vancouver Observer, The Council of Canadians , The Independent, and many others)

8. Wants to replace the stable CPP with the untested PRPP: Although seniors' incomes have dropped for the first time in decades, it is clear that the so-called Conservative government was laying the groundwork to replace Canada's well-run, cost-effective, and stable CPP with a private, more expensive pension scheme, the Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP), run by the banking, mutual fund, and insurance industries. This new plan would mean Canadians would have to work for longer, or to retire on less. (reference NUPGE [PDF])

9. Shut down Women's and Minority advocacy groups: Since coming into power, our so-called Conservative government has cut funding for women's advocacy by 43 per cent, shut down 12 out of 16 Status of Women offices in Canada and eliminated funding of legal voices for women and minority groups, including the National Association of Women and the Law and the Courts Challenges Program. (reference Toronto Star)

10. The Economic Action plan has been to the benefit of the super rich; Mr.Harper's economic 'recovery' favoured the extremely wealthy: Over 321,000 Canadians lost their jobs in 2008 and Canadians' average wages fell. Meanwhile Canada's 100 wealthiest persons became richer, reaching an average net worth of $1.7 billion each, up almost 5 per cent from 2008. The majority of those surveyed by the Parliamentary Budget Office reported that the program has had either a neutral or negative impact on jobs. Even the conservative Fraser Institute has criticized it.  (reference Canada.com; The Tyee ; The Fraser Institute)

11. Fraud: One of Prime Minister Harper's top aides, Bruce Carson, had been convicted of 5 counts of fraud, and is currently under investigation by the RCMP. Most recently he was lobbying the government to buy water filtration systems, from a company where his wife was employed. (reference National Post)

12. Wasteful G20 spending, and a record number of arrests: at the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto: Mr. Harper spent $1.9 million building an artificial lake and nearly $1 Billion on security for the 3 day event. 1,105 arrests were made, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. Of those 1,105 arrests, only 99 criminal charges were ever laid. (reference The Toronto Star)

13. Loosened regulations to allow more chemical residues on your food: Since taking office, this government has weakened regulations so that more pesticide residues can be left on your fruits and vegetables. The plan is to bring Canadian regulations in line with U.S. Levels, which can allow to 100 times higher levels of residue. Under additional new regulations, corporate food producers will be allowed to conduct their own safety inspections. (reference Canwest News)

14. Removed the protection on our lakes and river established by Sir John A. MacDonald:  This government reduced the number of protected lakes and rivers from 2.5 million down to a mere 159. (reference CBC, o.Canada.com news)

15. Vindictive with knowledgeable people who raise concerns: in 2008, when Luc Pomerleau, a biologist at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency with a flawless 20 year record with the agency, leaked the plans mentioned in item 10, he was immediately fired. Since then, the listeriosis meat outbreak killed 17 Canadians. (reference Canwest News [2] & The Ottawa Citizen); in 2008, Linda Keen, President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, reported that the aging Chalk River nuclear facility was at a risk 1000 times greater than the international average. Our so-called Conservative government quickly fired her. (reference Toronto Star)

16. Shut down Canadian aid to the world's most impoverished countries: Despite consistently pointing out that Canada's economy is a global leader, Prime Minister Harper used the excuse of poor economic times to freeze aid to some of the world's most impoverished countries. An example of this is the African nation of Malawi, one of the 10 poorest nations in the world. Before this government, Canada was the 6th largest aid donor to Malawi, and the largest supplier of school books. After coming into power, they closed the Canadian embassy in Malawi and took the country (alongside 6 other African nations) off of Canada's aid priority list. They cut aid to Africa in half, before finally freezing all foreign aid in 2010. (reference 680 News)

17. Want to buy 65 stealth fighter jets using $29 billion of tax payers' money: That works out to around $1000 per person in Canada. The government initially reported the cost would be $9 billion, plus $7 billion in maintenance costs for a total life-time project cost of $16 billion. In March, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page warned Canadians that the Harper Government was low-balling the cost by more than $12 billion.  That is responsible fiscal management? (reference The Globe & Mail)

18. Refusal to sign UN declaration designating clean water as a human right: In the 2011 budget, this government failed to allocate any new funding for drinking water on First Nations reserves. 100 First Nations communities currently have water advisories, including 49 communities which are high risk. He also refuses to sign the UN declaration designating clean water as a human right. (reference Rabble )

19. Tried to quietly eliminate the Canadian long form census and with considerable controversy did eliminate it: The long form census is how our government determines the state and needs of the country, and is used extensively in various fields of research. In eliminating the census, many projects would be affected negatively, and it will become much more difficult to understand the needs of the country. (reference Hill Times)

20. Never kept promises of cutting $1.4 Billion in federal subsidies given to oil companies: In 2007, our current government cut $1.2 Billion from the establishment of national childcare, but failed to keep his promise of cutting the $1.4 billion in tax breaks he gives to oil companies, while these firms continue to see record profits. (reference CUPE )

21. Sabotaging efforts to deal with climate change: Protecting the interests of large oil companies, this government has fought global efforts to deal with climate change. In 2009, they cut science research funding by $138 Million, and imposed limitations on scientists at Environment Canada, requiring that they obtain permission to do interviews, and often screened their responses. The result is that Canadian media coverage of climate change science has been reduced by 80%. His efforts here have been so destructive, that in 2009 prominent politicians and scientists called for Canada to be removed from the Commonwealth. The last time this mark of shame was used, it was against South Africa while it was still under racist apartheid rule. (reference Guardian UK)

22. Cancelled the Kelowna accord: The Kelowna accord was a $5 billion breakthrough agreement to improve the quality of health and education for Canada's First Nation's Peoples. This government cancelled it in 2006, immediately after taking office. (reference CBC)

23. Tarnishing our international reputation as Peacekeepers: ‘We detained, and handed over for severe torture, a lot of innocent people.' in 2009 Canadian Diplomat Richard Colvin shocked the nation with these words. In Afghanistan, Canada captured 6x more prisoners than the British and 20x as many as the Dutch. Colvin explained that 'Many were just local people: farmers; truck drivers; tailors, peasants...the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured.' (reference The Globe & Mail)

24. Devastated Canada’s once significant reputation as a world leader on environmental issues. (Reference CBC, Huffington Post, The Star)

25. Wants more power, less oversight: The  so-called Conservative government has vowed to implement unprecedented levels of monitoring on Canadians' internet activities. Prime Minister Harper has tried and failed (4 times) to create a law that would implement mass scale internet surveillance, and that would allow the government access to private information without any warrants, and without any court oversight. (reference CBC & Michael Geist)  Now, this government seeks to diminish our human rights and impose secret police upon us with Bill C-51 when existing law, if properly resourced, is sufficient to respond to potential terrorism without reducing our freedom and privacy. (reference Times Colonist, The Globe and Mail, ThinkPol, CBC)

26. Wasteful prison spending increases, while shutting down rehabilitation centres: Even though crime rates have been falling for a decade, this government plans to implement tougher laws, and to incarcerate more Canadians than ever before. Plans are to double annual prison spending by 2015 (an increase of $5 billion annually). Meanwhile, six prison farms, considered by some to be Canada's most effective rehabilitation programs, where inmates produced food for themselves and other prisons, have been closed. This is in spite of having support from the majority of Canadians. Observers say that this will result in inmates being hardened, instead of healed. (reference Times Colonist & CBC)

27. Defunding and diminishing our national public broadcaster, the CBC (reference Friends of Canadian Broadcasting)

28. Breaking traditions: Traditionally, the lobby in parliament has been decorated with photos of former Prime Ministers. Since taking office, Stephen Harper has broken this tradition, decorating the lobby, Orwellian Big Brother style, with just photos of himself. (reference Ottawa Citizen)

29. Renamed 'The Government of Canada' to 'The Harper Government’: In late 2010, public servants from various departments confirmed that Stephen Harper has indeed renamed 'The Government of Canada' to 'The Harper Government,’ again in Orwellian Big Brother style. (reference The Toronto Star CBC )

30. Turned what is very Canadian over to foreign control: Just recently, this traitorous government sold control of the Canadian Wheat Board out from under our wheat farmers to American and Saudi interests. (reference The Globe and Mail, Global News)

31. Deliberately exporting jobs: Canada lost $3.5 billion when Finance Minister Joe Oliver chose to sell the government's shares in GM before they earned back their full value (reference The Globe and Mail) while Export Development Canada announced a $526 million loan to Volkswagen to help them "grow their operations in North America,” by building factories and creating jobs in Mexico at the same time as 1,000 auto workers at General Motors learned they were the latest ones to lose their jobs when the automobile giant announced massive layoffs at its Oshawa assembly line.(reference Press Progress)  Meanwhile, Canada's unemployment rate remains higher than it was before the 2008 - ’11 recession. (reference The Tyee)

32. Impeded world-wide nuclear armament non-proliferation: At the United Nations review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, this Canadian government has now helped block a major international plan towards ridding the world of nuclear weapons; thus nuclear disarmament efforts have been stalled until 2020. (reference The Globe and Mail, CBC)

33. This poster speaks for itself.

34. Hides under threat: When a pseudo-terrist nut case armed gunman stormed Parliament Hill after killing Cpl. Nathan Cirillo a short distance away, Mr Harper’s leadership style was such as to allow his caucus to have him cower in a utility closet behind his caucus in their meeting room. (reference Daily Brew Canada News)

35. Machiavellian plot to wreak Parliamentary havoc:  Back in 2007, a secret Tory handbook on obstructing and manipulating Commons committees revealing secret techniques to disrupt committee proceedings and render them ineffective at close scrutiny of Parliamentary business got leaked to the press. (reference CTV)

36. Doing nothing about giving Canada a part in controlling anthropogenic climate change. (reference Press Progress)

37. Spent more than $4.7 million fighting 15 losing court cases.  This is competent government? (reference CBC)

38. Arbitrarily and without due process seized the passport of a Canadian citizen while he was out of Canada, precluding him from returning to Canada.  (reference Reuters)

39. Attacks Canadian human rights to a sufficient extent as to draw the attention of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.  (reference Huffington Post, the Globe and Mail, The Star, and see items 9, 12, and 25 above)

40. Transferred fish protection away from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to the National Energy Board for waterways along potential pipeline corridors. (reference Common Sense Canadian)

Thoughts on Electing Legislative Representatives

As one who lives in a riding with an elected independent MLA, I would like to remind British Columbians of just what a vote does. We are voting for a person to represent us in our legislature. The legislature then creates a government from among its elected members and holds that government responsible to itself. We are not a republic and very rightly do not directly elect a government separately from the legislature. Vote the person; do not vote the party. Vote the person and you get a member representing you and your riding into the legislature; vote the party and you get a member representing that party back back to you and your riding from the legislature. A certain fashionable desire currently exists for proportional representation; sadly this desire is based on vote for the party thinking. Proportional representation will just perpetuate party structures (and place into the legislature people who have not necessarily received votes for them as a person) while a single transferrable ballot (multiple member not needed) will diminish parties, as it did the last time British Columbia used it. The real reform needed is to undo Dick McBride's big mistake when he introduced party politics into B. C. a century ago. Reduce the role of parties and eliminate party discipline and we can initiate policy right in the legislature, where it belongs, rather than on the convention floors and back rooms of political parties, have real debate focussed on actual issues rather party positions, and strengthen the independence of legislative committees.

On Public Funding of Political Parties

I placed the following response to today's topic on CBC Radio One's Cross Country Check-Up:

I tend to agree that there should be no public funding for political parties. Party finances should be entirely by personal donation. This is just simply fair and democratic. Under public funding, some of my tax dollars are ending up in the hands of some political party or another that I cannot support, which is totally undemocratic. This is the same as the bad old days of corporate and union funding of political parties when some of my corporate equity or some of my union dues ended up in the hands of political parties I oppose. It is only democratic that I voluntarily contribute where I personally see appropriate and do so as a private individual.

If a party gets out of touch with the electorate, its finances will decline; a party more in touch with the electorate will receive growing financial support. Certainly a party's finances will strongly predict its placing during a given election but a winning party's success will not be simply the result of its financial capacity. More truly the reverse will be true, the winning party's financial capacity will be the result of its attraction to voters.

There is a role for the public purse in political funding, though. That is as a collection and distribution service only. A fear exists among the voting public that larger donors to specific political parties can have undue policy influence. Compulsory anonymity would preclude this fear. A public agency could receive my personal donation (and any limit as to donation size would be totally unnecessary) and assign it to the political entity I designate without ever identifying me to that entity. The only cost to the public purse would be the operating costs of that agency as no public money would go to any party. Other than actual membership fees, political parties will have no knowledge of the specific sources of their funding but they they most certainly will know if their offerings to the voting public have any real attraction.

Yes, eliminate public subsidy to political parties; keep party financing entirely from personal sources, but make those sources anonymous to receiving parties.

Not mentioned, but quite consequential, I think, anonymous-to-the-recipient personal source political financing would likely be conducive to independent political candidacy, which would be all to the good for our democracy.

Delta South Leads the Way

The current provincial election offers extra drama here in my own riding of Delta South.  We have a strong independent candidate who is a true contender for the seat.  So often independents are weak candidates who barely show in the polls.  Not so here,  our independent ran a close second in the last election, was wooed by both major parties before this election, and chose to remain independent for this election.  Our retiring MLA proved to be the most archetypal toe-the-line backbench MLA who functioned as her party's legislative representative to us, in Delta South, rather than as our representative in the legislature.  With a strong independent, committed to representing the riding first and not subject to any party whip, we can say, "Never more!"

The leaders of both major British Columbia political parties' first choice as party candidate in Delta South was Vicki Huntington and she turned them both down to remain independent.  The parties settled on alternative candidates, strong ones but still second choices.  This gives the election in our riding extra drama.  I also hope that it serves as a model for other potential strong independent candidates among other ridings for future elections.  Perhaps we can gradually break the stifling hold party discipline imposes on our politics.

On STV

The British Columbia provincial election approaches.  With it we will have the referendum on the Single Transferable Vote recommended by the Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform.   The reform certainly does not reach the full extent I would envision.  The transferability does not include a distributed vote and it provides for larger, multiple member, constituencies than may actually be necessary.  My views on constitutional reform were, of course, outside of the Assembly's mandate.  The recommended reform is a compromise of many people's views and no one person's view should ever hold sway in a democracy.  I remain quite amazed at just how closely the Assembly's recommendations did match my own wishes for electoral reform and I heartily support this reform and will vote, "Yes!"

For general interest, my own submission to the British Columbia Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform, as I presented it on 2004, May 31 with a constitutional reform element in line with my earlier post on Senate reform included, follows:

       Let me begin with the things I respect about our electoral system and my participation in it.  Firstly, I deeply respect our model of responsible representative government.  In this, the Westminster model, the government is responsible to the legislature and the legislature is responsible to the electorate, each member responsible to the electors in that member's own constituency.  Electoral reform must strengthen this basic model.  I have voted in every provincial election since I became old enough to vote and I pride myself in saying that I vote for the person.  I do not vote vote for the party; in fact I have never held any party membership.

In my view, party politics corrupts responsible representative government and supplies the source of the distortions that have spurred creation of this electoral reform process.  Our Members of the Legislative Assembly are, in reality, held responsible, not just to their constituents, but also to their respective political parties.  This split in the direction of responsibility creates an undue conflict for each and every MLA.  Unfortunately, the power of the party currently overrides MLAs' responsibility to constituents.  I agree with others who have expressed reservations about the role of political parties; this is the grave distortion of responsible representative government that we live with today.  The answer lies less with change in the way we vote and more with breaking of the authority of party whips within the legislature, even eliminating party politics altogether from our broader political life.  If every elector voted only for the person and each MLA felt responsibility only to that MLA's own electing constituents, the distortions currently being addressed would not even exist.

Is politics possible without political parties?  Certainly it is; just look to our two recently constituted sister legislatures in the Northwest Territories and Nunavit.  Better yet look at our own history.  For over thirty years after our confederation with Canada, British Columbia governed itself without political parties.  Although this period often gets cited as turbulent, with too many short-term Premiers (the position of Premier or any other single personality in government just did not have the power significance accorded it today), on closer examination the underlying themes of provincial governance were actually more stable than superficial appearances.  In fact, this was the time when our MLAs were most truly responsible solely to their own constituencies.  Responsible democracy actually thrived and far less power resided in the Premier's office than at present; more power resided in the legislature as a whole.  Unfortunately, Richard M^cBride very deliberately brought an end to our freedom from the distortion of democracy wrought by political parties.

Of the alternatives currently under consideration, I have to say that I oppose any form of proportional representation based on political parties.  Make no mistake, whether party lists are open or closed, members placed (I dare not say elected as no voter could actually make a direct judgment on the member as a person apart from party affiliation) off a party list would see themselves as responsible to no constituency but their own party.  This may succeed in including minority voices but such minority voices will feel no responsibility to anyone but their own parties.  The most marked effect of having any MLAs in the legislature who are responsible to only their own parties and not to any other identifiable constituency can only be to further strengthen the power of each party over all its MLAs, including those elected from geographical constituencies.  This can only increase current corruption of responsible representative government in favour of party politics.

Not only would proportional representation based on political parties enhance the current power of party over person among our MLAs, I suspect it would also increase the longevity of parties.  We are fortunate in that we can, and do, "get rid of the rascals" for good.  How long has it been since the British Columbia Conservative Party formed a government?  Where is the British Columbia Social Credit Party today?  Decades ago, before New Zealand brought in its MMP, I visited that country during an election.  I was impressed at how New Zealand political parties came and went over the course of its history to that time.  No party had ever come back to power after more than two stints as government.  Parties whose time had come and gone no longer existed or had withered to minor participants.  Today, in contrast, the same two parties routinely alternate in power.  I suspect that, with any form of proportional representation, we will lock ourselves into a near unchanging set of alternatives that may allow addition of new minor parties but not prune parties that have had their day.

The other idea getting the most consideration, that of the single transferable ballot, has my wholehearted support.  Although it was before I was old enough to vote, British Columbia did use a single transferable ballot in the past and I regret I have not had opportunity to exercise this sort of vote.  This is obviously more fair to the candidates within their constituencies.  When people vote for people rather than parties, the single transferable ballot does not imply multiple member ridings as has been claimed.  Today we have the technology that the counting should not impose the burden on the electoral process that critics hold against this type of ballot.  Let us bring this reform back.

In fact modern technology may well permit us to enhance and more accurately reflect voter preferences through a single distributed vote.  For instance, among candidates A, B, C, D, and E, voter 1 may prefer candidate D but have some liking for candidate A and, thus, assign a 75% vote to candidate D and a 25% vote to candidate A.  Voter 2 may give a 100% vote to candidate C only.  Voter 3 may find two candidates indistinguishable and grant candidate D 40% and candidate E 40% while leaving 20% for candidate A.  Voter 4 may wish to rank all candidates giving 50% to candidate B, 25% to candidate A, 15% to candidate D, and 10% to candidate C.  Each voter could express that voter's choice in any of a diverse variety of patterns (in this example, at this point, candidate A has 0.70 votes, candidate B, 0.50 votes, candidate C, 1.10 votes, candidate D, 1.30 votes, and candidate E, 0.40 votes for a total of 4.00 votes cast).  A plurality would remain sufficient to elect.

What about giving expression to the diversity of points of view that go into our diverse society?  I suggest a constitutional change would serve far more effectively than electoral reform.  We should consider changing to a two chambered legislature that serves both our common interests and our diverse identities.  In fact we could call them the Chamber of Our Common Interest and the Chamber of Our Identities.  The Chamber of Our Common Interest would be largely indistinguishable from our current legislature (except, I would hope, it would be free of political parties), the source of the government responsible to the legislature and the senior of the two chambers, elected from geographical constituencies by openly scheduled general vote for terms of no more than four years.  It could still question its own confidence in the government and precipitate an unscheduled election (nothing is more vital for truly responsible democracy than the power to question confidence in the government!).  This chamber needs no further elaboration in this discussion.  The Chamber of Our Identities, able to review legislation initiated in the Chamber of Our Common Interest and initiate its own legislation, is a novel concept (that could also apply federally with Senate reform), in response to our diversity.  It also could question its confidence in the Chamber of Our Common Interest and precipitate an election for that otherwise senior chamber.

I suggest we identify the five most significant distinct elements of identity to which British Columbians hold.  These may be by gender, age group, mode of making a living, ethnic derivation, level of education, religious affiliation, generation count since immigration to Canada, etc. through the entire selection of identities by which all of us live.  Every twenty-five years a commission, very like this forum, would examine British Columbia society and identify the five areas of identity British Columbians currently regard as most significant.  The Chamber of Identities would be divided into five caucuses with equal numbers of members, one for each of the accepted significant areas of identity.  Each Identity Caucus would include members elected to constituencies defined by the identities that make up that caucus with the number of members of each constituency in direct proportion with the numbers of British Columbia citizens who self-identify with that specific identity.  Self-identification at voter registration would be vital to avoid having caucuses hijacked by external identity related organizations.  For instance, if ethnic derivation were considered a significant identity, the Ethnic Derivation Caucus of the Chamber of Our Identities would consist of elected members from constituencies such as British Columbians of British Origin, British Columbians of Han Chinese Origin, British Columbians of French Canadian Origin, Native British Columbians etc. through the entire diversity of ethnic origins within our current population, including British Columbians of Broadly Mixed Ethnicity.  If gender were considered a significant identity, the Gender Caucus of the Chamber of Our Identities could consist of two large constituencies of men and of women or of an appropriate number of paired geographic caucuses for men and for women.  In the case of age grouping being considered a significant identity, constituencies of children, elected by children, could exist.  The actual membership structure of the Chamber of Our Identities would be defined and reviewed every twenty-five years to keep the chamber relevant to British Columbia society.

Each identity caucus within the Chamber of Our Identities would be elected for a fixed five year term, one caucus at a time in succeeding years.  This would give a fixed schedule election every year and a turn over of chamber membership independent of of the membership turnover in the Chamber of Our Common Interest.  The first five years after each identity review would be a transition period with each previous identity caucus giving way to its successor identity caucus at each identity caucus election.  The system may be more complex than our present legislature, but it would give real voice for us to express both our common interests as British Columbians and our special interests within the various identities we hold to make up our diverse population.

Electoral reform alone cannot resolve the very real problems that brought this Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform into being.  These problems require us to curtail the power of political parties over our Members of the Legislative Assembly.  We also need constitutional change to permit us to express our diversity and special interests within our legislature, separately from our common interests.

Today in Ottawa

What a mess we have in Ottawa with both sides of the House of Commons behaving unconscionably.  The Grits and the NDP are welcome to attempt a coalition but to accept and allow themselves to depend upon the support of the Bloc Quebecois, whose sole reason for existence remains to break our country apart, stands as pernicious opportunism.  This dangerously unstable coalition deserves electoral punishment come an election.  The Tory government's decision to prorogue the House in order to avoid a vote of confidence sets an equally dangerous precedent, an abuse of Parliament that must not go unpunished for our parliamentary system to persist.  I feel at a loss!

Brief Reflections On the Recent Canadian Election

I am satisfied with the result of the federal election last Tuesday.  Why should I find such a lack-luster result satisfying?  We have a minority parliament, anathema to many politicians as dysfunctional and obstructive to government agendas.  In reality a minority parliament necessarily shifts the onus of governmental authority to the one place it rightly belongs in a parliamentary democracy, away from the cabinet and right back into parliament.  I grew into political awareness with the Diefenbaker/Pearson minorities and remember the hard fought battles on the floor of the House of Commons.  In spite of acrimonious, even bitter, debate, parliamentary compromises and accommodations produced legislation that both defines us as distinctly Canadian and reflects Canada back on us as we are pleased to perceive ourselves with far more accuracy than any majority government's legislation afterwards has produced.  Recent decades of mostly majority governments have seen gradual but steady devolution of power out of parliament through the cabinet and into the Prime Minister's Office.  This serves as a steady evolution towards episodic dictatorship which a series of minority parliaments can correct.  At the heart of parliamentary democracy lies the concept of responsibility: the government is responsible to parliament and parliament, in turn, is responsible to the electorate.  Yet too often lately we have seen majority governments use their members to represent their intent to the people, reversing the proper representation flow.  Surely, a second minority government will have to listen more closely to parliament and work more effectively with the opposition to produce legislative results more truly of parliament's will than just of the cabinet's intent. The current election result can only serve to strengthen parliament as our authority over the cabinet and the PMO.

Senate Response

To follow up on my last post, politicians do respond to direct communication. Fourteen MPs (or their offices) acknowledged my thoughts, including my own MP. Two Senators and one Provincial Premier also responded. My MP considers the concept of the House of Our Identities novel and interesting but expressed concern that it might formalize our differences rather than resolve them. I felt pleased to get the feedback.

A friend of mine communicated directly with me, sharing his thoughts along the same lines but with a three chambered parliament.

On Reform of the Senate of Canada

The new Government of Canada has expressed a desire to reform the Senate of Canada. In support of this effort, I have shared the following thoughts with my Member of Parliament, the Government, and Parliament as a whole:

As a constant, but minor, theme in Canadian politics, the question of Senate reform remains an unresolved irritant. As an irritant, it can either distract from or aggravate other issues with more pressing need for resolution. Public discussion focuses mainly on the question of why to reform the Canadian Senate and I will not delve into that question now except to acknowledge that the former Reform and Alliance parties both recognized the issue as important. In the past, further discussion sought to identify some principles around which a reformed Senate would function. These include the frequently cited "triple E Senate," and some effort to replace Senate appointment with election from provincial jurisdiction. I am not aware of any suggestion of how a reformed Senate may actually look and function. As a very ordinary Canadian, I would like to offer a suggestion for total reformation of the Senate.
The strength of a bicameral legislature lies in the capacity of one legislative chamber to serve as a check on the other and preserve balance in parliamentary deliberation. To achieve such ability to provide "sober second thought," the constitution must define each chamber very differently one from the other, the basis for membership in one chamber starkly different form the basis for membership in the other. Thus, Canada has an elected House of Commons and an appointed Senate. In the United States, the House of Representatives, made up of localized representatives within the various states, and the Senate, made up of state specific representatives, are, in practical terms, almost indistinguishable one from the other in behaviour and function. I think Canadians accept need to move from undemocratic appointment of Senators but hesitate to duplicate the House of Commons.

By looking at the House of Commons and issues of representation that recur with each election, I can see an alternative organizational structure for a replacement to the present Senate. Historically, the House of Commons is the chamber of the common people in contrast to the British House of Lords, the chamber of the (largely) hereditary landed aristocracy. Having no hereditary landed aristocracy, Canada opted for the current Senate, effectively a chamber of distinguished people, distinction defined neither constitutionally nor by any objective means but at appointment with a suggestion of representation by province. Therein lies its inability to serve Canada effectively. The House of Commons acts, in reality, more as the chamber of our common interest. Members get elected to represent roughly equal segments of Canada's whole population, distributed among highly localized segments of Canadian geography. Each Member of Parliament sits as a Canadian and as a Canadian only, the choice of Canadians within the geographical constituency that member represents.

From time-to-time, concerns circulate that Parliament is not sufficiently representative. There are too few women, as women, in Parliament (despite the fact that the total count of men, as men, in Parliament is zero); there are too few First Nations people, as First Nations people, in Parliament (despite the fact that the total count of non-First Nations people, as non-First Nations people, in Parliament is zero); there are too few disabled people, as disabled people, in Parliament (despite the fact that the total count of fully able people, as fully able people, in Parliament is zero); there are too few people, as members of many and various subsets of Canadians, in Parliament (despite the fact that the total count of people of any other subset of Canadians, as members of such a subset of Canadians, is always zero). Such representation concerns often accompany a suggestion of either quotas on representation in the House of Commons or that selected Commons seats be reserved for representatives of identifiable sub groups of Canadians. Clearly, such special designations would severely distort the House of Commons as a chamber of our common interest.

In contrast, these suggestions may have merit when we consider reforming the Senate. One of Canada's great strengths lies with the diversity of our people. We are all Canadian, yet each of us also shares in various other identities. Perhaps the Senate should become the House of Our Identities. each member elected to represent the interests of the other identities Canadians hold. The House of Commons would remain largely indistinguishable from our current House of Commons, the source of the government responsible to the legislature and the senior of the two chambers, elected from geographical constituencies by openly scheduled general vote for terms of no more than four years. It could still question its own confidence in the government and precipitate an unscheduled election (nothing is more vital for truly responsible democracy than the power to question confidence in the government!). The House of Our Identities, able to review legislation initiated in the House of Commons and initiate its own legislation, not government legislation, is a novel concept, in response to our diversity. It also could question its confidence in the House of Commons and, potentially, precipitate an election for that otherwise senior chamber. In contrast members of the House of Our Identities would sit for rotating, fixed, and limited, terms.

I suggest we identify the five most significant distinct elements of identity to which Canadians hold. These may be by gender, age group, mode of making a living, ethnic derivation, level of education, religious affiliation, generation count since immigration to Canada, ability/disability, mother tongue, province of residence, et-cetera through the entire selection of identities by which all of us live. Every twenty-five years a commission, very like the Forum on Electoral Reform used recently in British Columbia, would examine Canadian society and identify the five areas of identity Canadians currently regard as most significant. The House of Our Identities would be divided into five caucuses with equal numbers of members, one for each of the accepted significant identities. Each Identity Caucus would include members elected to contingents defined by the identities that make up that caucus with the number of members of each contingent dependent on the numbers of Canadians who self-identify with that specific identity. Self-identification at voter registration would be vital to avoid having contingents hijacked by external identity related organizations. For instance, if ethnic derivation were considered a significant identity, the Ethnic Derivation Caucus of the House of Our Identities could consist of elected members making up contingents such as Canadians of French Canadian Origin (i. e. of ancestry dating back to French colonial times in contrast to Canadians of more recent French migration origin whose view of their identity may differ substantially with those of French Canadian Origin), Canadians of British Origin (or, perhaps, subdivided among English, Welsh, Scots, and Irish), Native Canadians, Canadians of Han Chinese Origin, Canadians of African-American origin, et-cetera through the entire diversity of ethnic origins within our current population, including Canadians who prefer to self-identify as of Mixed Ethnicity and a general contingent for Canadians who do not want recognition by any ethnic identity other than simply as Canadian. In the case of age grouping being considered a significant identity, contingents of children, elected by children, and of adolescents, elected by adolescents, could actually take seats in the House of Our Identities.

Large contingents would have to be subdivided by geographical locale while small contingents would get elected at large over the whole country. If gender were considered a significant identity, the Gender Caucus of the House of Our Identities could consist of two large contingents, the contingent of men and the contingent of women subdivided by an appropriate number of paired geographic constituencies for men and for women. If religious affiliation were a significant identity, then Zoroastrians might elect a contingent of one Member of the House of Our Identities for the whole of Canada while Catholics would elect a large contingent from many Catholic constituencies all over Canada. This identity would also have to provide a contingent for those who eschew any religious faith and a general contingent for Canadians who hold their religious beliefs as wholly private.

The actual membership structure of the House of Our Identities would be defined and reviewed every twenty-five years to keep the chamber relevant to Canadian society, with some identities dropped (identities with large general contingents would be prime candidates to get dropped) as no longer significant and others added as newly significant. Each identity caucus within the House of Our Identities would be elected for a fixed five year term, one caucus at a time in succeeding years (this would require that one fifth of the existing Senate retire in each of the first five years of the new House of Our Identities). No member of the House of Our Identities should hold a seat for more than a single term. This would give a fixed schedule election every year and a turn over of chamber membership independent of of the membership turnover in the House of Commons. The first five years after each identity review would be a transition period with each previous identity caucus giving way to its successor identity caucus at each identity caucus election.

The system may be more complex than our present Senate, but it would give real voice for us to express both our common interests as Canadians through the House of Commons and our special interests as Canadians of diverse additional identities through the House of Our Identities. This suggestion offers a dynamic and very real function to a replacement for the current Senate without diminishing the House of Commons.