Why do so many people put their faith in market solutions when push comes to shove even the staunchest proponents, those in the financial sector, rely on the public sector to bail out their sorry asses?
Well, for one, discussions and negotiations are a lot less emotionally charged when we are focused on the machinations of the market instead of having to face up to the fact that we are engaging a group of greedy bastards who don't give a rat's ass about the consequences of their actions or inactions upon anything else than their bottom line.
It's all way too polite for me and shows an incredible naivety with regard to the motivations of those who seek to profit from the free market discourse. When it works in their favor, let us all adhere to the gospel of Milton Friedman and his disciples, when it doesn't, we're all Keynesians now.
When it comes to climate change legislation, forget the cap and trade market-based solution no matter what economic theory may say because the other side ain't buying it.
When facing a zero-sum situation, we shouldn't engage in magical thinking guided by the belief that we are going to find a win-win solution. In this case, take the stick over the carrot.
Indeed, the recent failure to secure meaningful climate change legislation is the latest instance of a myth of Sisyphus situation where the environmentalists are trying to roll a huge boulder up a steep political incline - we're not playing on a level field.
Given the unlikely eventuality of achieving meaningful results within the existing political frameworks, environmentalists should now shift their focus to the courts, politics by other means, and do so on two fronts: environmental issues and democratic reform.
One day the good fight may be taken to the political arena but not in the immediate future.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Democracy Undone: The US Senate Scuttles Climate Change Legislation
Say good-bye to cap and trade. Once again a group of rich middle-aged white guys effectively veto climate change legislation already adopted by the House of Representatives that would have put a price on carbon emissions. Once again, the deny-and-delay faction chalks up another victory at the expense of everyone else on the planet.
What irks me - above and beyond that Canada is now off the hook to adopt any meaningful legislation to reduce its own CO2 emissions - is the way that it was done.
On one hand, there is the American President, elected by a majority of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral college and the democratically apportioned House of Representatives that support the principle of cap and trade and, on the other hand, there is the malapportioned Senate (each state elects two senators, which means that a voter in Wyoming has seventy times the voting power than a voter in California) that prevents the proposed legislation from coming into force. Taking into consideration that it requires a supra majority of 60 percent to adopt a bill in the Senate, it takes as little as the votes from the states representing 12 percent of the population to block any legislation from passing.
This state of affairs flies in the face of the principle of one person, one vote upheld by the US Supreme Court in Reynolds vs. Sims. Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down state legislation that deviated from the core democratic value of electoral equality. Yet, the inherently undemocratic composition of US Senate remains.
So what gives?
How is it that given we are most likely at a critical juncture of human history that the most influential nation in the world can experience a systemic failure of its democratic institutions and, as a result, jeopardize the long-term well being of the rest of the planet's inhabitants?
Simply put, the probability of catastrophic climate change increases as a consequence of the refusal of the North American English settler states, the US and Canada, to make a break with their colonial past and to fully embrace democracy.
At the heart of the problem is the bicameral Congress in the US and Parliament in Canada. They are both modeled on the British Parliament, which is comprised of the House of Lords and the House of Commons and has a long history of resisting democratic principles: an antiquated voting system, dubious electoral districts, and an unelected upper house that has wielded inordinate political power over the elected lower house. It is this latter feature that the former British colonies retained that allows the US and Canada to circumvent the democratic will of the people.
Although there are significant differences between the American and Canadian Senates, both institutions place significant limits on the democratic aspirations of their respective populations. Most notably, since any proposed legislation in either country must gain approval in the Senate, each body effectively grants a veto to its nation's upper class. In North America a monied aristocracy finds its political leverage in a democratically compromised upper house much in the same way the British hereditary aristocracy exerted its control over the lower classes.
The most important limit concerns the rules from which the economic game is played. Any legislation that proposes a qualitative change to the way money is made is unlikely to pass in the Senate since the monied class has a vested interest in maintaing a status quo that has proven to be very beneficial to its economic well being.
Let's make no mistake. Effective climate change legislation disrupts the status quo and will change the distribution of wealth, and this is the real reason why such legislation will never make it through either upper house.
All the talk about the negative effect on the economy is just a smokescreen for protecting established fortunes and societal status of an existing elite. Indeed, a retooling towards a low carbon economy makes sense both in the short term (millions of jobs and increased expenditures) and the long term (it's cheaper to incur the preventative measures than the economic costs of catastrophic climate change). However, since no one can predict who will come out on top if such game changing legislation were ever enacted - there are always winners and losers as a result of fundamental change - the status quo remains.
I've always wondered who was the bozo that in the distant past cut down the last standing tree on Easter Island. After seeing how the Senates in both Canada and the US have killed climate change legislation, he was probably the Easter Island equivalent of a senator, using an ax furnished by the members of the ruling class.
(To learn more about how the Canadian Senate is in the process of scuttling climate change legislation, see my blog post: The Curious Case of Bill C-311)
What irks me - above and beyond that Canada is now off the hook to adopt any meaningful legislation to reduce its own CO2 emissions - is the way that it was done.
On one hand, there is the American President, elected by a majority of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral college and the democratically apportioned House of Representatives that support the principle of cap and trade and, on the other hand, there is the malapportioned Senate (each state elects two senators, which means that a voter in Wyoming has seventy times the voting power than a voter in California) that prevents the proposed legislation from coming into force. Taking into consideration that it requires a supra majority of 60 percent to adopt a bill in the Senate, it takes as little as the votes from the states representing 12 percent of the population to block any legislation from passing.
This state of affairs flies in the face of the principle of one person, one vote upheld by the US Supreme Court in Reynolds vs. Sims. Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down state legislation that deviated from the core democratic value of electoral equality. Yet, the inherently undemocratic composition of US Senate remains.
So what gives?
How is it that given we are most likely at a critical juncture of human history that the most influential nation in the world can experience a systemic failure of its democratic institutions and, as a result, jeopardize the long-term well being of the rest of the planet's inhabitants?
Simply put, the probability of catastrophic climate change increases as a consequence of the refusal of the North American English settler states, the US and Canada, to make a break with their colonial past and to fully embrace democracy.
At the heart of the problem is the bicameral Congress in the US and Parliament in Canada. They are both modeled on the British Parliament, which is comprised of the House of Lords and the House of Commons and has a long history of resisting democratic principles: an antiquated voting system, dubious electoral districts, and an unelected upper house that has wielded inordinate political power over the elected lower house. It is this latter feature that the former British colonies retained that allows the US and Canada to circumvent the democratic will of the people.
Although there are significant differences between the American and Canadian Senates, both institutions place significant limits on the democratic aspirations of their respective populations. Most notably, since any proposed legislation in either country must gain approval in the Senate, each body effectively grants a veto to its nation's upper class. In North America a monied aristocracy finds its political leverage in a democratically compromised upper house much in the same way the British hereditary aristocracy exerted its control over the lower classes.
The most important limit concerns the rules from which the economic game is played. Any legislation that proposes a qualitative change to the way money is made is unlikely to pass in the Senate since the monied class has a vested interest in maintaing a status quo that has proven to be very beneficial to its economic well being.
Let's make no mistake. Effective climate change legislation disrupts the status quo and will change the distribution of wealth, and this is the real reason why such legislation will never make it through either upper house.
All the talk about the negative effect on the economy is just a smokescreen for protecting established fortunes and societal status of an existing elite. Indeed, a retooling towards a low carbon economy makes sense both in the short term (millions of jobs and increased expenditures) and the long term (it's cheaper to incur the preventative measures than the economic costs of catastrophic climate change). However, since no one can predict who will come out on top if such game changing legislation were ever enacted - there are always winners and losers as a result of fundamental change - the status quo remains.
I've always wondered who was the bozo that in the distant past cut down the last standing tree on Easter Island. After seeing how the Senates in both Canada and the US have killed climate change legislation, he was probably the Easter Island equivalent of a senator, using an ax furnished by the members of the ruling class.
(To learn more about how the Canadian Senate is in the process of scuttling climate change legislation, see my blog post: The Curious Case of Bill C-311)
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thanks George W. For Reducing America's GHG Emissions by Seven Percent
While we're at it, we should thank him for reducing the green house gas (GHG) emissions for the entire OECD in 2009 as well. Hell, if it weren't for India and China, global emissions would be down. According to the latest research, the drop in emissions in the OECD was entirely offset by the rise in the Asian giants. Too bad they aren't in our economic sphere.
At first it may seem strange to associate the name of George W. Bush with environmentally friendly economic policies. It's certainly a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The former American President was loathe to enact any environmentally progressive legislation for fear that it would hurt the economy.
Ironically, it was his unwavering belief in free market economics that paved the way for the onset of the Great Recession and the subsequent decline in economic activity that accounts for the drop in GHG emissions. Perversely, by pursuing the politics of maximizing economic growth at the expense of environmental degradation, the Bush regime actually plunged the developed world into recession and applied the brakes to the underlying cause of global warming: high-carbon economic activity. Talk about unintended consequences.
This raises a fundamental question: could the equivalent reductions in GHGs have been obtained in an intentional manner? I think not. Our ideological commitment to ever increasing economic growth would not allow us to reduce economic activity. As a result,
although we may have reduced the energy intensity of each unit of GDP, overall emissions would have continued to rise.
So, what lies in store for us as we live through what will probably be the hottest year on the planet since records have been kept?
There is the possibility that we will have more of the same. In the Anglo-American sphere, economic policy is moving toward imposing austerity measures in Canada, the UK, and the United States. This could spell economic disaster for the champions of economic growth. As the Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, has pointed out, cutting public expenditures while the economy has yet to recover and record levels of unemployment still exist might have the effect of tipping the global economy into a protracted depression.
From an mainstream economic view, this scenario represents an unmitigated disaster. However, from the perspective of the planet, a lengthy period of slow or no economic growth could effectively cap the levels of GHG emissions while allowing us to retool for a low carbon economy. In fact, last year was the second consecutive year in which investments in the development of renewable energy sources outstripped the investments in the development of fossil fuel resources in the US and the EU. If these two trends continue, a scenario could arise in which the return to economic growth could be accompanied by a reduction of GHG emissions as more of the renewables come on line.
Perhaps, unbeknownst to the proponents of neoconservative economics, they could put into place further economic policies that would have the perverse effect of being beneficial to the environment.
Maybe, the invisible hand is connected to a being that has an ironic sense of humor.
At first it may seem strange to associate the name of George W. Bush with environmentally friendly economic policies. It's certainly a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The former American President was loathe to enact any environmentally progressive legislation for fear that it would hurt the economy.
Ironically, it was his unwavering belief in free market economics that paved the way for the onset of the Great Recession and the subsequent decline in economic activity that accounts for the drop in GHG emissions. Perversely, by pursuing the politics of maximizing economic growth at the expense of environmental degradation, the Bush regime actually plunged the developed world into recession and applied the brakes to the underlying cause of global warming: high-carbon economic activity. Talk about unintended consequences.
This raises a fundamental question: could the equivalent reductions in GHGs have been obtained in an intentional manner? I think not. Our ideological commitment to ever increasing economic growth would not allow us to reduce economic activity. As a result,
although we may have reduced the energy intensity of each unit of GDP, overall emissions would have continued to rise.
So, what lies in store for us as we live through what will probably be the hottest year on the planet since records have been kept?
There is the possibility that we will have more of the same. In the Anglo-American sphere, economic policy is moving toward imposing austerity measures in Canada, the UK, and the United States. This could spell economic disaster for the champions of economic growth. As the Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, has pointed out, cutting public expenditures while the economy has yet to recover and record levels of unemployment still exist might have the effect of tipping the global economy into a protracted depression.
From an mainstream economic view, this scenario represents an unmitigated disaster. However, from the perspective of the planet, a lengthy period of slow or no economic growth could effectively cap the levels of GHG emissions while allowing us to retool for a low carbon economy. In fact, last year was the second consecutive year in which investments in the development of renewable energy sources outstripped the investments in the development of fossil fuel resources in the US and the EU. If these two trends continue, a scenario could arise in which the return to economic growth could be accompanied by a reduction of GHG emissions as more of the renewables come on line.
Perhaps, unbeknownst to the proponents of neoconservative economics, they could put into place further economic policies that would have the perverse effect of being beneficial to the environment.
Maybe, the invisible hand is connected to a being that has an ironic sense of humor.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Slaying the Deficit: Target the Innocent Victims or the Culprits?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the economists."
(Modern adaptation of Henry VI, part 2)
These are trying times for politicians who rely on the advice of economists. Now that the collapse of the financial markets has been averted, at great cost to the public purse, what do we do about the mountains of debt?
There are basically two schools of thought: implement austerity measures to reduce public spending or continue deficit spending to promote economic recovery and once this has been achieved, pay down the debt.
How you respond to this dilemma probably indicates whether you are on the right or the left of the political center. Those on the right prefer austerity measures while those on the left opt for continued deficit spending.
Unfortunately, economics (the dismal science) has little in the way of predictive capabilities, as born out by the massive failure of the vast majority of economists to predict the onset of the Great Recession. This raises the fundamental question, how are we to choose between the two aforementioned options if we cannot be certain of their effects upon the economy?
This is where the economy becomes political. In fact, given the level of uncertainty, this choice is entirely political, a question of with whom do your interests lie.
One thing that we must remember is how we got into this fine mess.
Lest we forget, the principal cause of the Great Recession was the unregulated trading of debt securities. Trillions of dollars from the public sector were then used to forestay a collapse of the financial sector and a subsequent economic disaster in the global economy.
So, who should pick up the tab to set things right, the innocent victims or the culprits?
Indeed, why should those who use public services be asked to bear the brunt of the economic and social costs of the malfeasance and the sector which is largely responsible for this disconcerting state of affairs should get off scot free?
In order to reduce the deficit, cutbacks to social services represent only one option. A second option is to maintain current expenditures and to raise revenues, in particular, a financial transaction tax that would in effect recoup the monies spent to prop up the financial sector and to decrease the possibility that speculative trading would again disrupt the lives of those who toil in the real economy.
Economic prognostications are just a smokescreen for the more fundamental question of whose ox is going to be gored.
For example, in the UK, the government just announced the annulation of a billion dollar expenditure to refurbish their aging public schools and in the United States, elected federal politicians just left for vacation while approximately 3 million unemployed workers were to see their benefits expire. Have a nice summer.
So, which path is Canada going to take? The last budget had a wait and see approach that given the circumstances, I thought was appropriate. In my opinion, the next budget should trigger a federal election since it will entail some very fundamental political choices that await.
This would be a good time to have an electoral system which would bring about a democratic result.
(Modern adaptation of Henry VI, part 2)
These are trying times for politicians who rely on the advice of economists. Now that the collapse of the financial markets has been averted, at great cost to the public purse, what do we do about the mountains of debt?
There are basically two schools of thought: implement austerity measures to reduce public spending or continue deficit spending to promote economic recovery and once this has been achieved, pay down the debt.
How you respond to this dilemma probably indicates whether you are on the right or the left of the political center. Those on the right prefer austerity measures while those on the left opt for continued deficit spending.
Unfortunately, economics (the dismal science) has little in the way of predictive capabilities, as born out by the massive failure of the vast majority of economists to predict the onset of the Great Recession. This raises the fundamental question, how are we to choose between the two aforementioned options if we cannot be certain of their effects upon the economy?
This is where the economy becomes political. In fact, given the level of uncertainty, this choice is entirely political, a question of with whom do your interests lie.
One thing that we must remember is how we got into this fine mess.
Lest we forget, the principal cause of the Great Recession was the unregulated trading of debt securities. Trillions of dollars from the public sector were then used to forestay a collapse of the financial sector and a subsequent economic disaster in the global economy.
So, who should pick up the tab to set things right, the innocent victims or the culprits?
Indeed, why should those who use public services be asked to bear the brunt of the economic and social costs of the malfeasance and the sector which is largely responsible for this disconcerting state of affairs should get off scot free?
In order to reduce the deficit, cutbacks to social services represent only one option. A second option is to maintain current expenditures and to raise revenues, in particular, a financial transaction tax that would in effect recoup the monies spent to prop up the financial sector and to decrease the possibility that speculative trading would again disrupt the lives of those who toil in the real economy.
Economic prognostications are just a smokescreen for the more fundamental question of whose ox is going to be gored.
For example, in the UK, the government just announced the annulation of a billion dollar expenditure to refurbish their aging public schools and in the United States, elected federal politicians just left for vacation while approximately 3 million unemployed workers were to see their benefits expire. Have a nice summer.
So, which path is Canada going to take? The last budget had a wait and see approach that given the circumstances, I thought was appropriate. In my opinion, the next budget should trigger a federal election since it will entail some very fundamental political choices that await.
This would be a good time to have an electoral system which would bring about a democratic result.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Curious Case of Bill C-311
We all have our prejudices, so before I begin, I will share mine. I am an ardent believer in the necessity of reducing global green house gas (GHG) emissions. The scientific evidence cannot be ignored. Severe climate change is occurring and it is being brought about by human activity.
Even if the validity of this premise is uncertain, from a risk management perspective, it is by far more prudent to incur the economic costs of moving towards a low carbon economy than to risk the catastrophic consequences of significant global warming.
Bill C-311 imposes the required limits on Canada's GHG emissions: 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. The Bill was adopted by a majority vote in the House of Commons and is now stalled in the Senate.
Before it can become the law of the land, it needs to be passed by the upper house. However, it is expected that by November the Conservatives will have a majority in the Senate and, as a result, will be able to kill Bill C-311.
This state of affairs is extremely curious.
How is it that a bill adopted by the majority of the elected members of the House of Commons can be thwarted by the majority of an unelected Senate, especially when the recent appointments to the Senate are made by a Prime Minister of a minority government, one that has the support of only 23% of the electorate?
In this case, the Senate would not be acting as an instance of sober second thought; it would be acting in a manner diametrically opposed to the fundamental values of a free and democratic society.
Let us be clear. This is game changing legislation. If adopted, we would have to restructure our economy and the consequences of doing so are unknown.
The million dollar question is who decides?
Are we a democratic nation or are we still an English settler state in which an electoral system and constitutional convention allow a minority of the population to impose its will upon the majority?
If we are democratic, this situation demands an appropriate response to change our political institutions. An unelected body cannot be empowered to overturn the decisions of an elected majority, more so when the members of this body are appointed in a manner that reflects our pre-democratic colonial past.
Presently, Canada has a Prime Minister that favors an elected Senate, and if politics is the art of the possible, a possible solution to our democratic anomaly is to push for an elected Senate that uses a proportional voting method. This would be in keeping with our Commonwealth cousin, Australia, and wouldn't require any constitutional amendments.
As well, if it's still necessary to seek out the approbation of the mother of all Parliaments in Westminster, the coalition government in the UK has announced its intentions to undergo a modernization process that includes a referendum on the voting system for its House of Commons, a redrawing of the electoral map, and the possibility of holding elections for its upper house, the House of Lords.
It's time Canada leapt into the twenty-first century and addressed its democratic short comings instead of continuing to be a laggard with respect to the evolution of its system of governance.
Even if the validity of this premise is uncertain, from a risk management perspective, it is by far more prudent to incur the economic costs of moving towards a low carbon economy than to risk the catastrophic consequences of significant global warming.
Bill C-311 imposes the required limits on Canada's GHG emissions: 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. The Bill was adopted by a majority vote in the House of Commons and is now stalled in the Senate.
Before it can become the law of the land, it needs to be passed by the upper house. However, it is expected that by November the Conservatives will have a majority in the Senate and, as a result, will be able to kill Bill C-311.
This state of affairs is extremely curious.
How is it that a bill adopted by the majority of the elected members of the House of Commons can be thwarted by the majority of an unelected Senate, especially when the recent appointments to the Senate are made by a Prime Minister of a minority government, one that has the support of only 23% of the electorate?
In this case, the Senate would not be acting as an instance of sober second thought; it would be acting in a manner diametrically opposed to the fundamental values of a free and democratic society.
Let us be clear. This is game changing legislation. If adopted, we would have to restructure our economy and the consequences of doing so are unknown.
The million dollar question is who decides?
Are we a democratic nation or are we still an English settler state in which an electoral system and constitutional convention allow a minority of the population to impose its will upon the majority?
If we are democratic, this situation demands an appropriate response to change our political institutions. An unelected body cannot be empowered to overturn the decisions of an elected majority, more so when the members of this body are appointed in a manner that reflects our pre-democratic colonial past.
Presently, Canada has a Prime Minister that favors an elected Senate, and if politics is the art of the possible, a possible solution to our democratic anomaly is to push for an elected Senate that uses a proportional voting method. This would be in keeping with our Commonwealth cousin, Australia, and wouldn't require any constitutional amendments.
As well, if it's still necessary to seek out the approbation of the mother of all Parliaments in Westminster, the coalition government in the UK has announced its intentions to undergo a modernization process that includes a referendum on the voting system for its House of Commons, a redrawing of the electoral map, and the possibility of holding elections for its upper house, the House of Lords.
It's time Canada leapt into the twenty-first century and addressed its democratic short comings instead of continuing to be a laggard with respect to the evolution of its system of governance.
Monday, June 28, 2010
The Big Sleep: The Quiet Revolt of the Quebec Middle Class
I am a late arrival to the middle class. In fact, I've just arrived, so I am well placed to make some observations about how life is different here in the land of affordable luxury.
The reason I arrived late is that making money was never that important to me, but once I made that decision - it was payback time for the years of having someone else picking up more than her fair share of the tab - I have come to realize why the struggle to advance the common good is so difficult: those who have the capacity to make significant social contributions to society have opted out. With comfort comes indifference.
For someone who comes from a working class background in Winnipeg and went to the University of Manitoba, a university that will never make it to the top of the list of Canada's most prestigious post-secondary institutions since it strives to make a higher education universally accessible, it's easy to see that here in the land of skinny lattes and crossover SUVs hardly anyone gives a damn about the deteriorating quality of Quebec's public services.
Why would you if you can cherry pick? Leave it to the plebes to send their kids to public high schools where the drop out rates are around 40%, and leave it to the plebes to wait more than 24 hours to see a doctor at the emergency ward of a hospital since they don't have access to a family physician.
Of course, the rich don't use public services. We know that. But what is relatively new in Quebec is that the state actually encourages the middle class to make use of those publicly-funded services when they see fit and to become members of the petit bourgeoisie when it's to their advantage.
It starts with the publicly-funded daycare at $7 a day. It doesn't matter if you have a family revenue of $50k or $200k, the tariff doesn't vary, and the same rate applies for the before and after school supervision per day and for full-day supervision during professional development days while your child attends elementary school. Those of us with the means could pay more, but that would leave us with less disposable income.
The lack of progressive tariffs for social services constitutes a huge financial incentive towards establishing two income, two car families living in the burbs, where couples manage their small to medium enterprises (in French they are referred to as PMEs), which were previously called households, or in some cases, families. Essentially, the Quebec government subsidizes the middle class lifestyle.
For instance, once your children are ready for high school - and heaven forbid you send them to a crappy public school where every year the number of teachers without teaching certificates is on the rise - the state is there to pick up approximately 60% of the tuition fees. So, for about $3000 a year, you can send your child to a school where the chances of finishing secondary school within five years jump from approximately 50% to 98% as a result of the superior pedagogical program. This is a very sweet deal.
Thereafter, your children can then attend college in Quebec, which is a combination of community college and undergraduate university courses, for only a nominal fee. Then, university awaits with the lowest tuition fees to be found in North America.
With regard to health care, to make the system work for them, members of the middle class pay to get their diagnostics done in the private sector and then obtain the appropriate referral to the public system to have the medical service performed at a bargain rate. In the meantime, those with more limited means sweat it out waiting for their diagnostic examinations before receiving medical interventions.
Some would say that the presence of such affordable social services is the mark of a progressive society. Yet, something remarkable has changed in Quebec: the solidarity between the working class and the middle class that made the social gains brought on by the Quiet Revolution possible no longer exists.
Throughout the middle class, the triumph of individualism has occurred, and those who have the comforts as a result of having two professional incomes no longer are in the struggle to maintain the quality of public services. Instead, they have retreated to their enclaves, releasing their stress in the omnipresent above-ground swimming pools and hot tubs, while remaining more and more disengaged from the less well off. In short, the game has changed. Social causes have become a faded memory of a boomer past, and now when people march, more often than not, it's in support of the fight against cancer, the plague that respects no social boundaries.
The retreat from the social sphere in Quebec is best demonstrated by the precipitous drop in political activity. In ten years, the participation rate during provincial elections has dropped by 25%. Moreover, the number of electors who are members of political parties now resides at approximately 110,000 in an electorate of 5,400,000, about two percent - hardly a hot bed of democracy. This is a far cry from the 1995 referendum, which fell just 50,000 votes of having Quebec separate from Canada.
Today, it appears that the state's primary function is to be the port of entry into the middle class. More than 500,000 are employed in the public sector and salary scales have become much more important than the quality of government or the quality of public services. For example, Quebec's population is faced with a scandal-ridden government that refuses to hold a public inquiry into the connection between the construction industry and the financing of political parties in direct opposition to overwhelming public opinion. Elsewhere, this refusal would have been met with concerted action from the unions, leading to a series of public sector strikes in order to force the government's hand. Not here. Not now.
Two of the three major unions were in the process of negotiating their public sector collective agreements and third would have been part of the focus in a public inquiry looking at the construction industry. In other words, organized labour, which constitutes about 40% of the workforce, chose to cast a blind eye towards the legitimacy of Quebec's democratic institutions.
In a similar vein, there was an eerie silence in Quebec when it was announced in the last budget that there would be the equivalent of a $200 poll tax to raise monies for the health care system with an additional $25 charge per visit to consult a physician.
Without question this is a fiscal measure that drives a wedge between the middle and working class. For an upper middle class family, the $200 surcharge is the equivalent of the cost of a top-of-the-line hockey stick for junior, while for the working poor it may mean going without the essentials. Similarly, a $25 charge to see a doctor would not deter a middle class family from seeking an appointment, not so for someone with limited means.
The absence of a strong, vocal response to these regressive measures demonstrates the changes in Quebec since the days of the Quiet Revolution. The notion of creating an independent social democratic state is dead. Sovereignty has become an identity marker rather than a viable political option. Even the former Quebec Premier, Lucien Bouchard, publicly declares himself to be sovereignist while admitting that the movement is at a standstill.
It is as if Quebec, having failed at making the radical move of declaring independence, has lost interest in anything political, and when nothing stirs the passions, a great number will settle for material comfort. Politically speaking, les Quebecois have lost their collective mojo.
Yes, the culture and the language are alive and doing well, but other than the linguistic differences, there seems to be the boring North American sameness throughout Quebec. People here are in the same process of amusing themselves to death, only the cultural icons are different.
The reason I arrived late is that making money was never that important to me, but once I made that decision - it was payback time for the years of having someone else picking up more than her fair share of the tab - I have come to realize why the struggle to advance the common good is so difficult: those who have the capacity to make significant social contributions to society have opted out. With comfort comes indifference.
For someone who comes from a working class background in Winnipeg and went to the University of Manitoba, a university that will never make it to the top of the list of Canada's most prestigious post-secondary institutions since it strives to make a higher education universally accessible, it's easy to see that here in the land of skinny lattes and crossover SUVs hardly anyone gives a damn about the deteriorating quality of Quebec's public services.
Why would you if you can cherry pick? Leave it to the plebes to send their kids to public high schools where the drop out rates are around 40%, and leave it to the plebes to wait more than 24 hours to see a doctor at the emergency ward of a hospital since they don't have access to a family physician.
Of course, the rich don't use public services. We know that. But what is relatively new in Quebec is that the state actually encourages the middle class to make use of those publicly-funded services when they see fit and to become members of the petit bourgeoisie when it's to their advantage.
It starts with the publicly-funded daycare at $7 a day. It doesn't matter if you have a family revenue of $50k or $200k, the tariff doesn't vary, and the same rate applies for the before and after school supervision per day and for full-day supervision during professional development days while your child attends elementary school. Those of us with the means could pay more, but that would leave us with less disposable income.
The lack of progressive tariffs for social services constitutes a huge financial incentive towards establishing two income, two car families living in the burbs, where couples manage their small to medium enterprises (in French they are referred to as PMEs), which were previously called households, or in some cases, families. Essentially, the Quebec government subsidizes the middle class lifestyle.
For instance, once your children are ready for high school - and heaven forbid you send them to a crappy public school where every year the number of teachers without teaching certificates is on the rise - the state is there to pick up approximately 60% of the tuition fees. So, for about $3000 a year, you can send your child to a school where the chances of finishing secondary school within five years jump from approximately 50% to 98% as a result of the superior pedagogical program. This is a very sweet deal.
Thereafter, your children can then attend college in Quebec, which is a combination of community college and undergraduate university courses, for only a nominal fee. Then, university awaits with the lowest tuition fees to be found in North America.
With regard to health care, to make the system work for them, members of the middle class pay to get their diagnostics done in the private sector and then obtain the appropriate referral to the public system to have the medical service performed at a bargain rate. In the meantime, those with more limited means sweat it out waiting for their diagnostic examinations before receiving medical interventions.
Some would say that the presence of such affordable social services is the mark of a progressive society. Yet, something remarkable has changed in Quebec: the solidarity between the working class and the middle class that made the social gains brought on by the Quiet Revolution possible no longer exists.
Throughout the middle class, the triumph of individualism has occurred, and those who have the comforts as a result of having two professional incomes no longer are in the struggle to maintain the quality of public services. Instead, they have retreated to their enclaves, releasing their stress in the omnipresent above-ground swimming pools and hot tubs, while remaining more and more disengaged from the less well off. In short, the game has changed. Social causes have become a faded memory of a boomer past, and now when people march, more often than not, it's in support of the fight against cancer, the plague that respects no social boundaries.
The retreat from the social sphere in Quebec is best demonstrated by the precipitous drop in political activity. In ten years, the participation rate during provincial elections has dropped by 25%. Moreover, the number of electors who are members of political parties now resides at approximately 110,000 in an electorate of 5,400,000, about two percent - hardly a hot bed of democracy. This is a far cry from the 1995 referendum, which fell just 50,000 votes of having Quebec separate from Canada.
Today, it appears that the state's primary function is to be the port of entry into the middle class. More than 500,000 are employed in the public sector and salary scales have become much more important than the quality of government or the quality of public services. For example, Quebec's population is faced with a scandal-ridden government that refuses to hold a public inquiry into the connection between the construction industry and the financing of political parties in direct opposition to overwhelming public opinion. Elsewhere, this refusal would have been met with concerted action from the unions, leading to a series of public sector strikes in order to force the government's hand. Not here. Not now.
Two of the three major unions were in the process of negotiating their public sector collective agreements and third would have been part of the focus in a public inquiry looking at the construction industry. In other words, organized labour, which constitutes about 40% of the workforce, chose to cast a blind eye towards the legitimacy of Quebec's democratic institutions.
In a similar vein, there was an eerie silence in Quebec when it was announced in the last budget that there would be the equivalent of a $200 poll tax to raise monies for the health care system with an additional $25 charge per visit to consult a physician.
Without question this is a fiscal measure that drives a wedge between the middle and working class. For an upper middle class family, the $200 surcharge is the equivalent of the cost of a top-of-the-line hockey stick for junior, while for the working poor it may mean going without the essentials. Similarly, a $25 charge to see a doctor would not deter a middle class family from seeking an appointment, not so for someone with limited means.
The absence of a strong, vocal response to these regressive measures demonstrates the changes in Quebec since the days of the Quiet Revolution. The notion of creating an independent social democratic state is dead. Sovereignty has become an identity marker rather than a viable political option. Even the former Quebec Premier, Lucien Bouchard, publicly declares himself to be sovereignist while admitting that the movement is at a standstill.
It is as if Quebec, having failed at making the radical move of declaring independence, has lost interest in anything political, and when nothing stirs the passions, a great number will settle for material comfort. Politically speaking, les Quebecois have lost their collective mojo.
Yes, the culture and the language are alive and doing well, but other than the linguistic differences, there seems to be the boring North American sameness throughout Quebec. People here are in the same process of amusing themselves to death, only the cultural icons are different.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Canada Has Yet to Atone for It's Immoral Treatment of the First Nations
As you are probably aware, this week marked a time of reconciliation between Canada and it's First Nations Peoples. At issue was the systemic government-sponsored abuse that was perpetrated against indigenous children by taking them away from their families, placing them in a residential school setting, where they were often subject to verbal, physical, and sexual abuse.
The federal government has apologized for the role that it played (for the record, the articles of the Indian Act that empower the government to behave so cruelly are still on the books), but in my opinion saying you are sorry doesn't go far enough in order to make things right.
What is required is that as a nation, we come clean with the magnitude of the abuse we have inflicted upon the First Nations and the precious little we have done to fix the problem.
No, we can't turn back the clock and erase the sins committed by this nation's forefathers, but we can own up to the fact that we as a people radically disposed the indigenous peoples of their land, ignoring for the most part the treaties that were signed and even the principles of our common law which holds that aboriginal title was never extinguished since it requires an act of Parliament with an explicit intention to do so.
Essentially, we pushed them off their land, forced them to live on reserves and administered a legal framework that treats aboriginal peoples as if they were subhuman. Case in point, the residential school system. Imagine, if you will, the international out cry if similar methods were imposed upon a white European ethnic minority. Without question, there would be mention of crimes against humanity, but in the context of the English settler states, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the US, the ill treatment of the indigenous peoples is thought of as the unfortunate outcomes of colonial expansion into virgin territory.
As could be expected, the four above-mentioned settler states rejected the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples although Australia subsequently endorsed the declaration and New Zealand recently announced its intention to do so as well. That leaves the US and Canada as the only hold outs, much to the chagrin of the international community.
Canada's official position is to assert that we cannot sign the declaration because of our constitutional framework. How convenient. If we were serious about facing the unpleasant facts entrenched in our collective past, we would move beyond this institutional inertia and do what it takes to bring about a substantive and equitable reconciliation with the peoples we have oppressed for four hundred years.
For that to happen, we need to bury the two founding peoples myth and face up to the fact that we are a people comprised of successive waves of immigrants that have settled and occupied other peoples' lands.
In my mind, if Canada is ever going to evolve into a modern state of the 21st century, we will need to be honest with regard to how we got here and put aside the collective amnesia that we have found to be far too comfortable.
The federal government has apologized for the role that it played (for the record, the articles of the Indian Act that empower the government to behave so cruelly are still on the books), but in my opinion saying you are sorry doesn't go far enough in order to make things right.
What is required is that as a nation, we come clean with the magnitude of the abuse we have inflicted upon the First Nations and the precious little we have done to fix the problem.
No, we can't turn back the clock and erase the sins committed by this nation's forefathers, but we can own up to the fact that we as a people radically disposed the indigenous peoples of their land, ignoring for the most part the treaties that were signed and even the principles of our common law which holds that aboriginal title was never extinguished since it requires an act of Parliament with an explicit intention to do so.
Essentially, we pushed them off their land, forced them to live on reserves and administered a legal framework that treats aboriginal peoples as if they were subhuman. Case in point, the residential school system. Imagine, if you will, the international out cry if similar methods were imposed upon a white European ethnic minority. Without question, there would be mention of crimes against humanity, but in the context of the English settler states, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the US, the ill treatment of the indigenous peoples is thought of as the unfortunate outcomes of colonial expansion into virgin territory.
As could be expected, the four above-mentioned settler states rejected the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples although Australia subsequently endorsed the declaration and New Zealand recently announced its intention to do so as well. That leaves the US and Canada as the only hold outs, much to the chagrin of the international community.
Canada's official position is to assert that we cannot sign the declaration because of our constitutional framework. How convenient. If we were serious about facing the unpleasant facts entrenched in our collective past, we would move beyond this institutional inertia and do what it takes to bring about a substantive and equitable reconciliation with the peoples we have oppressed for four hundred years.
For that to happen, we need to bury the two founding peoples myth and face up to the fact that we are a people comprised of successive waves of immigrants that have settled and occupied other peoples' lands.
In my mind, if Canada is ever going to evolve into a modern state of the 21st century, we will need to be honest with regard to how we got here and put aside the collective amnesia that we have found to be far too comfortable.
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