Canada Is Cool Once Again

Our Prime Minister Justin.  Check out his tattoo.

Before coming out and saying so, I had to wait a bit.  I had to make sure that the Trudeau-led Liberals were the real thing.  There are times when electoral expectations are not met, and we find out that the new boss is not really much different from the old one.

By now, I think all Canadians realize our new government is much different from the previous one under Stephen Harper.  During Harper's majority government, I often found myself is some uncomfortable situations when travelling in Europe, having to explain what had happened to Canada.  It is difficult to put into words how we had lost our collective mojo.  We had become as cool as a cardigan sweater.

Of course, that's all changed.  Sunny ways have pushed back the dark days of Harper.  It all begins with our newly elected Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.  Is this guy cool or what?  Obama didn't have a choice but to invite Justin to join him for a State Dinner in Washington.  Obama knows cool when he sees it.

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Since then, we have seen Justin holding a couple of pandas in his arms, greeting Syrian refugees at the airport, and inadvertently bumping a female Member of Parliament when trying to rescue a member of the opposition when he had been surrounded by members of another party who were attempting to prevent this member from voting on an important piece of legislation.  Shortly thereafter, Justin, in the epitome of what it means to be Canadian, apologized for his "unruly" behavior, and promptly received a standing ovation.  Only Canadians can understand how his gesture captures who we are.

But I have a confession to make.  During the recent electoral campaign, I sent a photo of Trudeau after he was jumped upon by young woman (also porting a tattoo) during a Gay Pride Parade in Vancouver, and wrote to my Mexican-American friend that Justin was simply way too cool to become our Prime Minister.

Canadians proved my wrong.  (OK, it was our stupid electoral system that gave him a majority government but that's what it is designed to do.  I'll get to this in a bit.)

Now, we have the coolest leader in the G20, the only one who has a visible tattoo.  The Americans are drooling.  Poor devils, they are soon going to have to endure a Presidential campaign featuring a contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, which is like being forced to listen to a radio that has only two stations, one for polka, the other for Japanese speed metal.  These are the choices?

Now, don't get me wrong.  Canada is not cool because Justin is our Prime Minister.  No, Justin is our Prime Minister because Canada is cool.

Now that I am older and having traveled a bit, I realize the Great White North is a cool place to live, and not only during the winter.  We have it right, a balance between freedom and social measures to make the notion of freedom meaningful for everyone: single payer health care, decent public education, affordable post-secondary education, an advanced mixed economy, but, more importantly, a social milieu that respects the fundamental human rights articulated and defended by Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  I live in a place where prejudice in whatever form is not accepted, whether it be based on colour, race, gender, sexual orientation, or religious belief.  Moreover, we have moved as a society to realize that our cultural restrictions of our Judeo-Christian past are no longer applicable in the 21st century.  People can marry their same sex partners, smoke marijuana if they chose to, and, if of sound mind, end their days with the aid of physician.  In other words, we care for each other without imposing our beliefs upon others.  That's very cool.

In closing, I have another confession to make.  I had been thinking about this post for a couple of weeks and I was going to entitle it: "Canada Is Cool, Except When It Comes To Sharing Power".  The reason?  Well, after promising to change Canada's electoral system, it appeared that the Trudeau-led liberals were going to continue to the practice of stacking the important committee looking into electoral reform so to give themselves absolute control of this legislative process even though they had not won a majority of votes during the last election -- a glaring anomaly if one is sincere about democratic reform.  However, the representation on this committee was changed.  It now reflects in a much better way the diversity of political views in Canada.

Again, I was overly pessimistic.  Maybe, I had lost my cool.  Maybe, Canada had attained a level of cool and I hadn't noticed.  Maybe, it took a new leader to show us how cool we had become.

Sunny ways, Justin, sunny ways Canada.  I stand on guard for thee.

Canada Embraces Its Watergate Moment And The People Will Decide, Maybe.

We could call the latest scandal in Canadian politics Duffygate, our version of the Watergate scandal that rocked America during the 1970s.  There are of course differences (tape recorded conversations vs. emails) but there are a lot of similarities in the unfolding of the two scandals.  In both instances, an unpopular leader of the country had to deal with the bungling of his underlings: in the US it was a bungled burglary attempt, in Canada it was a bungled Senate nomination.  In both instances there was a cover-up and the public was lied to.  In both instances, it was perceived that a breach of trust had occurred by the person occupying the highest and most important position in the country: in the case of Richard Nixon, he decided to resign rather than face an impeachment process; in the case of Stephen Harper, his fate will be decided by a grumpy Canadian electorate in the present general election.

Perhaps the most unsettling feature of both scandals is the contemptuous attitude that non-elected officials displayed towards the population at large, calling into question whether the two leaders shared this inclination and that the actions of the underlings were simply a manifestation of the culture created and maintained by the two men chosen to lead their respective countries.

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It could be argued that the unethical behavior is nothing more than the consequence of maintaining a political system in which political power is an all or nothing proposition.  To wield power the consent of the electorate must be won, and in the tradition of the political blood sport of electoral politics in North America, "winning isn't everything; it is the only thing."  Hence, the deception and manipulation are simply the means to a greater end.

However cynical this approach to politics might appear and whether the realpolitik in both Canada and the US actually functions in this manner, it fails to take into consideration the cornerstone of representative democracy: the trust that the electorate must have in transferring its sovereign power to an elected government.  Importantly, it is not required that everyone is in agreement with the government's programs and activities -- the electorate determines who possesses the legitimacy to act on behalf of the citizens, and if the people are not in agreement, those who are entrusted with that legitimacy can be voted out of office -- but while holding office those elected to act on behalf of the people must be trusted to act in the best interests of the citizens and to be truthful in their communication.  Failure to do so on either count constitutes a breach of trust and undermines the capacity of the political system to function.  After all, regardless of the power of mass communication in the information age, it still comes down to each individual citizen to evaluate the performance of an elected government and this cannot be done properly if the electorate has been deceived.

As a result, the result of the Canadian 2015 General Election will not be determined by the ideas and proposals from each of the political parties concerning the economy, social programs, the environment, and national security.  It will unfold as a morality play in painfully slow motion. 

Essentially, to re-elect the Stephen Harper led Conservatives, Canadians must decide if Mr. Harper is a man that can be trusted.  If they decide yes he can be trusted, a return to a minority Conservative government is by no means out of the question.  If they decide no, then the result of the general election is really a crap shoot, coming down to whether dissatisfied supporters of the Conservative Party decide to opt for the Liberals as the lesser of two evils, decide that the leader of the Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau, is like the Tory ads say, not ready for the job and vote for the New Democrats, or stay at home and not vote at all.

If you like a horse race, as the first-past-the-post voting system implies, this one is too close to call.  It will go down to the wire, and without question the vagaries of the voting method will influence the final result. 

WTF! In Quebec, Even If I Don't Vote I Still Get Screwed!

You have to admit that when it comes to maintaining their stranglehold on political power in Quebec, the two major parties, the PLQ (the Quebec Liberal Party) and the PQ (the Parti Québécois) can be very ingenious.

They need to be.  Revelations at the Charbonneau Commission indicate that both parties have benefited enormously from illegal financial contributions from private companies in the construction industry.  Estimates have it that about 80% of the donations to the PLQ and the PQ were illegal.

Too bad the extent of the illegal funding has yet to be established, which explains why we are having a second general election since the Commission was convened, and also explains why the law that established elections on a fixed date was totally ignored by the PQ, the governing party that introduced the motion.

Suspecting that the results of Quebec's general elections have been rigged for the last thirty years, Quebecers have been far less generous making donations to Quebec's political parties, especially when the donations are now limited to $100 and can only be made directly to Quebec's Director General of Elections.

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Never fear, the PQ has been incredibly ingenious in turning to the public purse to fund Quebec's general elections.  Indeed, the new funding formula takes the major mechanism of proportional representation, a voting system that gives fair and equitable results, and applies it to elections determined by the traditional idiotic voting method called first-past-the-post.

In a pure proportional voting system, all votes cast are aggregated in one single electoral district and representation is given to each political party based on the percentage of the popular vote it obtained. For example, a party that obtained 40% of the popular vote would get 40% of the available seats in the legislature, a party that obtained 30% of the popular vote would get 30% of the seats, and so on.

In the eyes of many, this is the fairest way to run an election since each vote counts and carries an equal weight relative to other votes.  A majority government comprised of more than 50% of the seats in the legislature can only be formed if the party in question had actually received more than 50% of the votes cast.

This is not the case when using the first-past-the-post method (FPTP).  In fact, FPTP regularly distorts electoral results that contradict the popular will as expressed by the popular vote.  In general, 40% of the popular vote translates to 60% of the available seats, thereby forming what is referred to as a false majority.  Worse yet, the party that finished second in the popular vote has gone on to form a "majority" government three times in Quebec, and in one instance in New New Brunswick, a party that received about 55% of the popular vote took all the seats in the legislature, idiotic results to say the least. To learn more about the vagaries of FPTP, I suggest that you consult the Fair Vote Canada website.

Having been steadfast in its refusal of adopting proportional representation as the voting method in Quebec, despite the wishes of the PQ's founder, Rene Leveque, the PQ has simply used the principle of proportionality as a means of increasing the available funds to fight an election under the rules of first-past-the-post.  In the new formula, the total number of electors on the electoral list is multiplied by $1.50 to establish the total amount to be divided, which is a sleight of hand since nearly 40% of these electors don't vote at all.  The total amount (approximately $ 9 million) is then divided among the parties based on the number of votes each party received during the previous general election.  In other words, 40% of the popular votes translates into 40% of 9 million or $3.6 million, 30% of the popular vote translates into 30% of 9 million or $2.7 million, and so on.

So, the question that begs to be asked is why the fuck is the principle of proportionality is invoked to establish the funding of the political parties but is not used to establish the representation of the popular will in Quebec's National Assembly?  What's up with that?

I'll tell you what.  Such a turn events gives the facade of democratic reform, something badly needed in Quebec, like the law that established general elections on fixed dates, but at that same time gives the PQ the possibility of forming a false majority government, something that would never happen if the principle of proportionality was applied to the question of representation in the National Assembly.  Moreover, this is done on the basis of an electoral system that is gerrymandered on linguistic and ethnic lines.

At the moment, the PQ and the PLQ are tied within the margin of statistical error with regard to the popular vote, but the PQ is way ahead, by more than 20%, in the francophone vote.  This is extremely important since 80 of the 125 electoral districts are comprised by an electorate where more than 90% of the electorate is francophone.  As a result, less than 40% of the popular vote, as long as the francophone electors vote predominantly for the PQ, will translate into a "majority" PQ government.

This explains the introduction of the controversial Quebec's Charter of Values that would discriminate against predominantly against immigrants, a law that even Quebec's Human Rights Commission has denounced but remains popular among francophones.

If you haven't figured it out, a PQ majority government inevitably means yet a third referendum on the question of Quebec independence.  This will be the last kick at the can for the PQ, a party made up primarily of aging baby boomers.

Ironically, the referendum on Quebec's independence must be held in a single, province-wide electoral district where each vote counts and is accorded equal weight.  The mandate to hold such a referendum is not.  Instead, it stems from a profoundly flawed voting system run by idiots.

Where does this leave me, an elector who tried to have his vote count in the last general election by voting strategically for the candidate who had the best chance of defeating the incumbent, a strategy that did not work?

I thought of boycotting this election, but then it dawned on me: since my name appears on the electoral list, staying at home on Election Day actually would give more money (I know the amount is small) to the political parties that conspire to prevent me from having the political representation I desire.

At least -- and this feature of the present electoral system in Quebec is absolutely the smallest incentive for voting that I can think of -- if I vote for the small party that best appeals to me, I give that party a bit of small change that would have otherwise gone to the PQ and the PLQ.  In reality, that works out to be about an extra 3 cents for my vote.  Previously, the entire subsidy for my vote would have gone to the party of my choice.  Now, it's so paltry it almost removes all incentives to vote for a small party at all.

So, it appears that if I truly want to protest this idiotic charade of an election, I would be better off by asking the Director General of Elections to remove my name from the list of electors.  That way, no public money in my name would go the political parties that refuse to make the electoral system truly democratic.

Given Today's Technology, Why Do We Continue To Elect Representatives From Political Parties?

Canada's political institutions have not evolved significantly from their conception nearly 150 years ago. We still regularly go to the polls and choose between the candidates from various political parties to represent us in Parliament and in the provincial legislatures.

Effectively, we transfer our popular sovereignty to a few individuals, who in turn vote according to the dictates of their political leaders.  Importantly, once the votes are counted and the seats distributed, almost the entire population is shut out of the political process that governs us.  We are left standing as spectators, hoping that are elected officials will be able to provide us with peace, order, and good government.

However, the political process, which should be in keeping with the values of a free and democratic society, is many things, but democratic is not one of them.

Political parties are corporate bodies that compete for market share in what I refer to as contested vote exchange.  In short by casting a vote for any candidate in this exchange, the citizen renounces his or her right to what the Greeks referred to as isigoria, the right to equal voice in the deliberations that lead to the formulation of policy and the adoption of laws.

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It might be argued that 150 years ago, given Canada's vast geography, sparse population, low levels of literacy in the population at large, and snail-paced communications, this institutional arrangement made a great deal of sense.

But what about today?

A well educated population and advances in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) seriously call into question the necessity of political parties co-opting the political process in order to provide what is supposed to be responsible government.

The logistics of representation no longer apply.  People living in an electoral district no longer need to suspend their right to equal voice in deliberations in favor of aggregating all of their voices and transferring this sovereign power to a single individual.

Historically, other than electing their military leaders, the Athenians did no such thing.  In fact, in order to prevent any faction from holding sway over their assembly, they rotated membership to the executive council on an annual basis, and the members were drawn randomly from a qualified pool of approximately 20,000 citizens.  Importantly, this institutional practice did not lead to "mob rule".  Far from it.  In fact, democratic practices like the right of every citizen to address the assembly were at the core of Athenian society, a golden age which saw an unparalleled flowering of human civilization, so captivating that their political innovation, democracy, rule by the demos (the Greek word for the people) remains as the sole basis of political legitimacy today, some 2500 years after its inception.

Today, people no longer congregate in a single venue at the same time to be heard.  Web casting, face-to-face communications applications like Skype, Google plus, and Face Time, combined with various social media like Twitter and Facebook, empower people from distant geographic locations to engage in meaningful dialogue without the need for intermediaries.  Moreover, supporting documents can be easily made available to everyone concerned and electronic voting can place the power of making the political decisions that affect the quality of their lives squarely in the hands of the people.

Rather than transferring their sovereignty to political candidates from a professional political class, citizens could instead form permanent citizens assemblies and keep their power to make political decisions close to home where they have the possibility of participating meaningfully in the political process.

Imagine a Parliament in which each and every seat represents the will of a citizens assembly in which every citizen has the right to be a member.  In this imaginary world, a network of electronically empowered citizens assemblies would govern Canada's affairs and political parties would be cast into history's dust bin.  Instead of celebrating the political victories of individuals, honour would be bestowed to those who served as stewards of democracy, those individuals that served to protect the democratic process from being appropriated by individual interests.

Maybe this is a project that could be undertaken when Canada commemorates its 150th anniversary and to be completed before it celebrates its 200 birthday.

In Canada's Contested Vote Exchange the Biggest Losers Are Democrats

Although Canadians like to think of themselves governed by a modern democratic state, in reality, we are still governed by a colonial form of government that is a vestige of the British Empire.

Our Head of State is a foreign monarch, Queen Elizabeth II; the Prime Minister is chosen by the Crown's representative, the Governor General -- although tradition has is that this title is bestowed upon the winner of the contested vote exchange that takes place during a general election -- and the laws adopted by Parliament do not become law until they are given the Royal Assent from the Governor General.

In theory and in practice, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. This means that Canada has both a written and unwritten constitution that allows for the Prime Minister to exercise, for all intents and purposes, the powers of the ruling monarch.

In fact, within his or her Royal Prerogatives, the Prime Minister has the privilege to form a cabinet of ministers, name the Supreme Court justices, and to place, at his or her discretion, the people who will represent the provinces in the Senate.  Moreover, the Prime Minister Of Canada can even declare war without the consent of Parliament.

Without doubt, this institutional arrangement is authoritarian by design.  When going to the polls, Canadians are effectively tasked with deciding to whom they are going to transfer their collective sovereignty, in other words, the leader of the political party who will rule on their behalf.

This is a far cry from democratic governance in which the people exercise their power to rule themselves.

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Essentially, elections in Canada are all about participating in a contest to determine which political party will win the most seats in Parliament.  The total number of votes cast for each party does not enter into the equation.  An absolute majority of votes is not required.  In fact, it is rare that a political party will receive more than 50% of the popular vote.

A majority government in Canada means that the ruling party has the majority of seats in Parliament.  In practice, each seat goes to the candidate that gathered the most votes in an electoral district.  Considering that we have multi-party elections, more often than not there are more electors who voted against the winning candidate than those who voted for. 

Aggregating the results of the simultaneously-held, electoral district contests produces the over all winner, the political party with the most seats, whose leader will receive the Royal Prerogatives. Generally, 40% of the popular vote will garner 60% of the seats in Parliament, and with this goes 100% of the political power.

Sometimes, the contest produces bizarre results like when a political party that wins 60% of the popular vote obtains all of the available seats, or when the party that wins the most seats received fewer overall votes than the runner up, or when approximately a million people vote for one party but are shut out of Parliament because their candidates did not win any of the plurality contests in the individual electoral districts.

But that's the way is game is played in Canada.  Democratic sensibilities do arise from time to time -- especially after one of the abnormal results comes about -- but the dissatisfaction with the process has never gained enough strength so that the rules of the game are changed.

Indeed lately, fewer and fewer people are participating in the game.  The idea of giving one's vote to any candidate has lost its appeal because most of the votes cast have no effect on the final result.

This makes the game much easier to play from the political parties point of view. 

Instead of spreading their resources over the entire electoral map, they can concentrate their efforts where they are most likely to be rewarded.  Instead of trying to convince undecided voters, they can concentrate of getting the voters who have been identified to vote for their party out to the polls.  Instead of putting forward reasoned arguments for the positions, they can simply slag their opponents, hoping to convince their supporters to stay home and not to exercise their right to vote.

In short, the winning strategy for political parties is to mobilize the vote that can be counted upon and to decrease the probability of opposing votes being cast.  Reducing the number of voters reduces the uncertainty of the results.

Of course, the biggest losers in these regularly staged electoral contests are those who would like to live in a democracy.  Not only are we aware of how the game is played, we are powerless to change it because we are out numbered and are unable to mobilize a critical mass of disaffected voters, who one day soon will become the absolute majority of Canadians.

Canada's Chief Electoral Officer: A Disgruntled Democrat?

In reaction to a government bill that would prevent Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, Marc Mayrand, from speaking publicly about the quality of Canada's Electoral System, he went on record to state:

"I'm not aware of any electoral bodies around the world who can not talk about democracy" and that "my reading of the act is that I can no longer speak about democracy in this country."

In other words, it seems that Mr. Mayrand is about to have his administrative balls removed with surgical precision.

I guess I would also be feeling pretty disgruntled if I were about to have my balls lopped off in the guise of making Canada's elections fairer.

But then again, I can't remember ever hearing Mr. Mayrand speak about democracy in Canada, which isn't all that surprising since Canada is not a democratic country by any stretch of the imagination.

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In theory and in practice, Canada is a constitutional monarchy.  This means that Canada has both a written and unwritten constitution that allows for the Prime Minister to exercise, for all intents and purposes, the powers of the monarch, Canada's Head of State, Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

Indeed, the Prime Minister is chosen by the Governor General, and the office usually goes to the leader of the political party that wins the most seats during the general election, not to the leader of the party that garners the most votes.

In fact, within his or her Royal Prerogatives, the Prime Minister has the privilege to form a cabinet of ministers, name the Supreme Court justices, and to place, at his or her discretion, the people who will represent the provinces in the Senate.

Moreover, the Prime Minister Of Canada can even declare war without the consent of Parliament.

Honestly now, do you think any democratic nation would delegate the power to declare war to any one person?

NFW!!!

Yet, Canada, for all its insistence on being a democratic state, has never gotten around to correcting this anomaly.

Again, this isn't all that surprising because the vast majority of Canadians are quite comfortable with our system of "responsible" government and couldn't give a rat's ass for the principles of democracy.

In my opinion, given our electoral system, the primary function of the Chief Electoral Officer is to run what a constitutional monarchy really desires: a contested vote exchange that gives to the winner of the electoral contest the spoils of victory, the powers of the monarch.

Democracy is what some people aspire to and are vigilant to protect.

Sad but true, Canadians are very content with their form of responsible government.