Canada's Gatekeepers Conspire to Prevent Greens from Taking Their Rightful Place in Canadian Politics

We are well aware that Canada is considered to be among the dinosaur nations when it comes to environmental matters by the rest of the global community. Some would try to pin the blame on the present Harper government, but the antipathy towards what Greens militate for goes way beyond the confines of one political party.

At the heart of the conspiracy is the manner in which Greens frame politics which is a radical break from the colonial mindset that permeates this country. In short, Greens don't accept the economic dogma that ever increasing gains in economic growth increase the well-being of the population at large, though they cede the point that continued economic growth does very well for the top one tenth of the top one percent of revenue earners

Moreover, even if continued unbridled economic growth were not part of a cancerous ideology, Greens would still oppose the massive exploitation of non-renewable resources as a means to drive this growth. And for good reason. There is a wealth of evidence that demonstrates that continued economic growth could bring about catastrophic climate change.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post.

For those of you who read this blog regularly, you know that I find it aberrant that a million people could vote for the Greens and still be denied any representation in Parliament whatsoever. Clinging to the sanctity of our British roots, we refuse to modernize our electoral system and continue to give representation solely on a geographic basis. In the age of the Internet, we prioritize the representation of rocks and trees over people who live and communicate in a network of shared common interest.

But that's not what strikes my curiosity.

What I found completely aberrant was that we could have an extreme weather event, a heat wave in Central Canada in March, breaking all time record highs by more than ten degrees Celsius repeatedly and the best that the national media could do was to call it "wacky weather."

Let's put this into perspective. Extreme temperatures vary over time and it is not unusual to have a record cold or hot day. However, the new record usually means an increase in the range of less than one degree. More than ten degrees is off the charts. Never mind a black swan, it was a fricken flock of them.

To be expected, the event was normalized and I was treated to the typical images of young bikini clad women sunning themselves as I scanned reports in the National media.

Come on, it's not that difficult to connect the dots between extreme weather and climate change. Kids in elementary school can do it.

Indeed, there are intense discussions taking place in scientific journals. For example,
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1452.html

But that's where the gatekeeper function comes in.

Monied interests are lobbying furiously for a pipeline to carry tar sand oil from land-locked Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico or a Pacific port. Environmentalists are resisting effectively and the last thing that is needed is to give them any ammunition for the fight for public opinion.

The easiest way to prevent people from connecting the dots is not to frame the extreme weather event as an incidence of climate change and to continue filling peoples minds with the latest news-related psychodrama.

The Gatekeepers wouldn't be able to do this if the number of Greens in Parliament corresponded to the level of support they find in the electorate. A single Green MP can be marginalized. Not so for a group of twenty or more.

Not giving a balanced report of events that give credence to ecological concerns is similar in vein to broadcasters shutting out the Green leader from participating in the leaders debate.

Out of sight, out of mind.

No wonder it ain't easy being Green.

Robocalls Show Disdain for Canadians and for Democracy

Slowly, ever so slowly, we are learning about the devious practice of automated phone calls that would prevent Canadians from showing up to the correct polling station to cast their votes.

Underhanded, you say?  It depends on your point of view.  Maybe it's just part of winner-take-all electoral politics and the ends justify the means.

After all our electoral system is not about giving fair and accurate representation to voters.  It's about winning seats in order to form a government that usurps the political power of the majority.  This is not democracy.  It is a feudal system of governance that is a vestige of the British Empire.

So, if you watch Rick Mercer's rant (I suggest that you do just for the humour), keep in mind that Governor Generals and Royal Commissions have nothing to do with democracy.  They are historical anachronisms of imperial power.

Vote Suppression is Systemic in Canada

So many people seem to be in a huff about the automated phone calls that were made during the last federal election in order to confuse voters as to the location of their polling station, thereby making it more difficult to cast their vote.

Scandalous. How could the Tories stoop so low? Canada’s democracy is in tatters!

Blah, blah, blah and more blah, blah, delivered with feigned indignation.

Let’s face the facts. Canada is not democratic. We are ruled by a professional political class. The way who will govern is determined is to play a winner-take-all electoral game in which the candidate who gets the most votes, even if it is less than 50% of the votes cast, is said to have won the electoral district.

Distortions of the popular vote you say? You bet! How do you think a majority government (sounds like the label came from the Ministry of Truth) can be formed with less than 40% of the popular vote?

If your candidate didn’t win, that’s too bad. Better luck next time. So your voice is not represented in Parliament? Don’t be glum. More than 50% of the electorate who even bother to vote can say the same.

If you are so concerned about the quality of democracy in Canada, change the fricken voting system!!!

Vote suppression occurs in every election that is held with the archaic first-past-the-post method.

Chances are that if you thought your preferred candidate had little chance of winning the electoral game in the last general election, you didn’t vote.

But that’s how politics works in Canada. The game is no longer about attracting voters to a political platform. It’s about trying to scare away as many voters from your opponents as possible while hanging onto the party faithful.

And if that doesn’t work, there’s always robocalls.

Canada's GDP Set to Take Off in 2012

"By the end of the year, we expect that we will see a record number of Big Ass Canadians showing up in our analysis of Canada's economic well being."

(Niles Crumbley, Annual Report on Canada's Gross Domestic Posterior)

A new report from the D.V.D. Howe Institute to be released later this year paints a rosy picture for Canada's economy in 2012 as researchers have come up with a new method to calculate the health of the economy by adjusting what is meant by GDP.

Spokesperson for the Institute, Niles Crumbley, stated that the old fashioned way of adding up all the commercial transactions regardless of their impact upon the society to obtain what is referred to as the Gross Domestic Product is no longer a suitable way to measure the economy.

According to Crumbley, "People have finally caught on to the fact that not all the boats rise on the same tide. In fact, there exists a rather large body of research that demonstrates that as the Gross Domestic Product grows, a disproportional percentage of the newly created wealth is skimmed off by the very rich of a society while leaving the vast majority of the population with little or no gain."

"Reluctantly, we have to let go of the traditional approach because people are starting to use GDP statistics to bolster their arguments that present economic policies are, in fact, making the problem of income inequality even worse. This presents a major problem for those who want the status quo to remain. Consequently, we thought the best way to get people to think differently about the economy is to change the way its key indicator is measured."

He went on to say, "We wanted an indicator that would conjure up an impression of a more equitable distribution of wealth, and that's when we hit upon the notion of the Gross Domestic Posterior. After all, having a big ass is a good indicator of material well being since having one means that the person doesn't perform enough physical work to burn off the excessive number of calories he or she has the luxury to consume. Moreover, because of our society's dietary habits, the incidence of having a big butt is distributed more evenly through the quintiles, thus giving the impression that the society is more equitable. In short, although not everybody can be financially rich, anyone can have a big ass in Canada, and as our statistics point out the number of Big Ass Canadians is reaching record proportions. Finally, this new way of measuring the economy has the advantage of not freaking everyone out when the GDP contracts. Who knows, there might actually come a time, when politicians will be evaluated for their capacity to shrink it."

The D.V.D. Howe report is scheduled to be released at the onset of the next economic recession.

Canada's Third Solitude

When I was a boy in elementary school, we would all stand up and sing at the end of the day when "God Save the Queen" was piped over the intercom. Later, as an adult, I moved to Quebec and mastered the French language. It would seem that I would be at home in either of Canada's two solitudes, but, in fact, I do not recognize myself in either one, and, as a result, find myself with a large number of other Canadians living in the third solitude.

In brief, those of us living in Canada's third solitude don't ponder over the significance of who won the battle on the plains of Abraham. We don't care. Abstracted from the historical propaganda that we are force fed in school, it was simply another skirmish fought between two imperial European nations that had been fighting each other off and on for a thousand years.

Yes, there were consequences. We still have a British monarch as our head of state, but at the heart of the matter was a struggle of two rapacious imperial powers that wanted to take control of a populated territory in the interests of a societal elite in each country.

In the words of Canada's cultural icon, William Shatner, otherwise known as Captain Kirk from the spaceship, Enterprise: "O Canada, our home ON native land."

In one of the other solitudes, people get warm and fuzzy feelings when they think that they are the descendants from the winning side. In the other, they get warm and fuzzy feelings thinking that they somehow survived despite being the descendants from the losing side.

In Canada's third solitude, we are profoundly indifferent to either historical narrative and find it oppressive that all the other historical narratives that have transpired here are tossed aside in favor of the means in which Canada's two charter groups proclaim the over riding importance of their respective ethnic origins.

Give me a break!

We are almost all immigrants to a settler state imposed upon an indigenous people against their will. Moreover, an occupied territory the size of a continent necessitates massive immigration if that territory's natural resources are to be exploited for the benefit of a privileged few. Consequently, given the dire conditions that the Industrial revolution brought on for the world's poor, massive migration was inevitable as millions dared to travel to a distant land in order to improve what was often a miserable lot in life.

This is hardly the manifest destiny of a glorious nation.

In the English Canadian version of the meta-narrative, economic gains are distributed on an individual basis and those at the top receive the lion's share. In the Quebec version, economic gain is more widely distributed in order to secure the continued survival of the French language and culture, which is dependent on the continued prosperity of a nation overwhelming comprised of those who share a common ethnic heritage.

In both solitudes, the monoculture of "it's all about the economy" pushes aside and marginalizes other ways of looking at and being in the world as alternative methods of organizing a society.

For example, attempts to transform Canada into a modern democratic state in which its citizens have meaningful participation in the process of self government fail repeatedly. Likewise, environmental concerns over the manner in which the exploitation of Canada's natural resources are exploited do not gain sufficient traction to bring about significant change. It is the received wisdom here that nothing can be done that would harm the economy.

It's important to remember that belonging to Canada's third solitude is not determined by one's ethnic heritage. There are a number of disenfranchised Canadians of Anglo-Saxon and old stock French origins that do not subscribe to the dictates of Canadian monoculture. However, they are not sufficient in number to alter the Canadian Zeitgeist. As well, there are a number of new Canadians who simply accept the prevailing order of things and unquestionably try to fit in by accepting the dominant values of their host country.

Consequently, the third solitude is peopled by Canadians who live their lives outside of the worldview that guides the lives of most Canadians. Some are simply trying to get by. Others manifest life narratives that are wholly divorced from seeking status by the display of conspicuous consumption. They live life by different rules. They create life narratives that fall outside of the mainstream.

My feeling is that at the beginning of the twenty-first century Canada's third solitude is a gathering force. Continued immigration and the inevitable decline of the political force of the baby boom generation will eventually weaken the grip that the two solitudes have in determining what master narratives are in play to guide Canadian society. By the middle of the century, the population of the two Charter groups will be insufficient to hold the country to the historical narratives now in place. Moreover, the rise of the Internet will create sufficient disruption in the prevailing patterns of communication so that the third solitude will gradually emerge to challenge and then subsequently displace the meta-narratives that are rooted in our colonial past.

Connecting the Dots from the Electoral System to Income Inequality

It warms my heart to see how the Occupy Wall Street has taken hold. At long last, people have realized that the politics of economic growth are conceived to enrich the top 1% of the population at the expense of the bottom 99%.

However, one huge question remains: how do you fix the system?

The answer is that you have to change the electoral system that enables a small minority to effectively buy the politicians that will do their bidding. To do this, we have to get rid of selecting our elected representatives by the single member plurality method more popularly known as first-past-the-post.

If ever there was a voting system designed to favor rent seeking, the economic term for buying favors, it is first-past-the-post. I love the name because the horse race allusion captures what happens in the stands at a race track: being able to pick the winner backed by a significant wager pays off handsomely.

Let us remember that there is no greater return on investment in countries that use first-past-the-post than making a financial contribution to a political party coupled with a post election lobbying campaign. In the market, competition is fierce and investments to increase market share or profitability are fraught with uncertainty as competitors try to gain advantage in a zero-sum game. So, instead of trying to tip the entire playing field in one's direction, it is much easier to increase profits by getting those who set the rules of the game to intercede on one's behalf with a government contract, favorable legislation, or fiscal policy.

This is how the top 1% reap the lion's share of the nation's wealth. They hedge their bets, so it doesn't matter who wins the election. Both parties that offer government options to the electorate are funded by or by those who owe their social standing to the one per centers. Consequently, electoral campaigns come and go, focusing on peripheral issues, leaving in place the cumulative gains that the constant lobbying piles up for those in the upper most echelons of the society.

Indeed, accumulating favors is relatively easy to do when polling data tells you where the political parties stand relative to one another and all that is required is to pick which candidate will garner the most votes in each single electoral district. No messy formulas that award seats on the basis of the popular vote. Few surprises with regard to which candidate from which party will get elected. As a result, it is not difficult to identify who needs to be influenced in order to obtain preferential treatment and a cosy symbiotic relationship between politicians and their financiers comes about.

No wonder the anachronistic first-past-the-post resists attempts to replace it with other electoral systems that give better representation of the popular vote. To change the voting system, especially for one that gives proportional representation, increases the uncertainty of the results and consequently increases the risk of getting a return from one's campaign contribution.

In fact, multiparty coalitions are much more difficult to influence since there is no one who can wield authority in a unilateral fashion. Moreover, when everything has to be negotiated, there are no guarantees that the negotiated agreement will deliver the goods. In the process of negotiation, one's preferred outcome may fall off the table in the process of reaching an agreement.

To change the political economy so that there is a more equitable distribution of a nation's wealth, the demos, in other words the 99% who are effectively under-represented, must ensure that the transfer of political power from the electorate to elected officials that occurs as a result of election is done in a truly democratic fashion.

This will not occur as long as the first-past-the-post system is in place. To change the distribution of wealth, people must disable the political institution that enables the concentration of wealth in the first place.

It's Now Up To The Supreme Court of Canada

Seven years later, two refusals to entertain the evidence, we finally arrive at the end point of our journey: applying for leave to appeal our case concerning the constitutionality of the first-past-the-post voting system to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Essentially, the question we are asking of the courts is whether the current voting system respects the equality guarantees laid out in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

That the Quebec Superior Court and the Quebec Court of Appeal did not grant our motion to have the articles of Quebec's Electoral Act that stipulate the use of the first-past-the-post method declared null and void did not come as any surprise. After all, Quebec still hasn't signed the the constitution circa 1982, which establishes the Charter.

Our expert testimony that provides both mathematical and empirical evidence demonstrating the systemic discrimination inherent to the system is barely mentioned in either decision. In the first instance, the judge wrongfully dismissed our case saying that the question was essentially political, and in the second instance the appellate court concluded that although our case was indeed judicable, such egregious democratic anomalies like a political party that received nearly a million votes but was denied representation and political parties that received less votes than another but still went on to form a majority government were not sufficient grounds to demonstrate that first-past-the-post impinged upon citizens's rights to effective representation.

Comments like that blow my mind.

In trying to wrap my mind around such outrageous statements, I can only come up with three explanations. The first is that the Quebec Appeal Court decided to evacuate any democratic norms from the notion of effective representation: being able to cast a vote, become a candidate, and being represented by a deputy is all that is required for representation to be effective. That the result of the electoral process is undemocratic does not matter. The second is that the since the Court didn't understand the nature of the question that was being asked, it consequently opted for the default option and denied the motion. The third is that judges acted upon the notion is that they are there to ensure the continuity of the state as it presently exists and will therefore not grant a motion that would effectively cause a significant rupture with the past.

All three scenarios give us grounds for an appeal.

In the first instance, the application of the Charter is guided by the values belonging to a free and democratic society and not a society that is free from the constraints that democracy imposes. In the second, it appears that it is only at the Supreme Court of Canada that we find the human resources and intellectual rigor to properly render an informed judgment on what is a fundamental question concerning Canada's system of governance. Finally, in the third, it is the primary role of the Court to uphold the rights protected by the Charter not to uphold a government's right to continue an electoral practice that contravenes each citizen's right to participate in a democratic election.

So we now arrive at a moment of truth, a moment that speaks volumes about how this nation-state is constituted.

For the Supreme Court to hear our appeal demonstrates a commitment to the values of a free and democratic society.

For the Supreme Court to decide not to hear our appeal would be an instance of dismissive silence that demonstrates that Canada has not yet evolved from its colonial past as an English settler state.

Our appeal will be filed before November 14, 2011.