Canadians living abroad should be allowed to vote: Editorial | Toronto Star

2016/04/18 Leave a comment

I disagree.

Long-term (over 5 years) expats may or may not remained connected to Canada (the various imperfect data sources I am looking at present a varied picture) but most  do not pay Canadian taxes and are disconnected from the day-to-day issues (e.g., healthcare, transit) that often drive elections and voters:

The rule used to deny the vote to Canadians who have lived abroad for longer than five years actually dates back to 1993. But it was only enforced by the government of former prime minister Stephen Harper after 2007. The decision was based on a claim that it was unfair to give equal voice to Canadians living abroad and those who live in the country because expatriates won’t live with the consequences of their choice.

It’s a flawed argument and one rejected by most other democracies, which place fewer restrictions on expatriates. Canadians abroad who are passionate about this country’s affairs — to the extent that they’re determined enough to vote — should have a say in the affairs of their homeland.

Given the vast information resources available online and the ease of international travel, Canadian expats can easily keep up to date with what’s going on at home. And their opinions have real value. Indeed, it can be argued that it’s in the national interest to allow these well-travelled and typically well-educated citizens a hand in the political process.

As reported by The Canadian Press, the constitutionality of existing law is being challenged by plaintiffs Jamie Duong and Gillain Frank, both Canadians working in the United States. Frank, from Toronto, teaches at Princeton University, and Duong, of Montreal, works at Cornell.

They won before the Ontario Superior Court in 2014; lost when the government appealed last July; and then took the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada, which has agreed to hear their case.

The court would do well to overturn an unfair law and bring Canada’s rules more in line with international practice.

Britons living abroad are allowed to cast a ballot if they’re citizens and had registered to vote within the last 15 years. Americans can vote all their lives, regardless of where they happen to live. And Italy goes so far as to set aside seats in parliament specifically to be filled by citizens living abroad.

It’s estimated that more than a million Canadians living outside the country are blocked from voting by the current rule. That constitutes a large-scale disenfranchisement and it’s manifestly unfair. If these people want a say in the affairs of their homeland they should be allowed to have it, regardless of how long they’ve been away.

Source: Canadians living abroad should be allowed to vote: Editorial | Toronto Star

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Canadians’ response to refugee crisis, niqab debate showed ‘who we really are,’ GG says

2016/04/15 Leave a comment

Although the Twitterverse correctly noted that the political aspect of these remarks is inappropriate for a Governor General, nevertheless hard to disagree with the substance:

Gov. Gen. David Johnston says he was initially worried that the niqab debate and the tone of the discussion about the Syrian refugee crisis during the election would hurt Canada’s reputation as a fair and inclusive society.

Johnston made the comments in an exclusive interview with CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge for The National, explaining that ultimately he was reassured by the way Canadians responded.

“Look at the outcome of those two, quote, crises,” Johnston said. “Look at how Canada has managed the Syrian refugee crisis in an exemplary way.

“And look at the debate with respect to the niqab. I think Canada showed its strength, that that should not be, should not sidetrack us from who we really are.”

Johnston added that even though the niqab debate has passed he remains concerned about the possible introduction of ideas that would hurt Canada’s reputation.

“I continue to worry about any initiatives that would cause us to be small-minded, and to lose that sense of A, inclusiveness, B, fairness, C, equality of opportunity,” Johnston said, while warning against any sense of complacency.

“I think we must work constantly to overcome that and to have the larger view, but I’m very optimistic that those voices, those ideas are by no means scarce in Canada. I find them abundant,” he said in the interview airing tonight on The National.

Source: Canadians’ response to refugee crisis, niqab debate showed ‘who we really are,’ GG says – Politics – CBC News

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Canada can do better on getting more women elected, 60th place in world right now

2016/04/12 1 Comment

Election 2015 - VisMin and Foreign-Born MPs.002Nancy Peckford and Grace Lore of EqualVoice argue for a gender-based lens with respect to evaluating electoral reform proposals. Women who are now more under-represented than visible minorities, where all parties have made major and successful recruiting efforts:

But, it is crucial to understand that “proportional representation” is not one thing and neither is “women’s political representation.” Proportional representation systems vary widely in how individuals become candidates, how votes are cast, and how those votes are translated into seats. UBC political scientist Grace Lore, and EV’s senior researcher, has just finished a multi-country study of electoral systems in Europe and North America with a specific focus on their effect on women’s representation. The data from that research strongly reveals that while the number of women elected is an important indicator of success, so is the ability of these women to act to represent their constituents, including women.

In ‘closed list’ PR systems, parties determine a set list of pre-approved candidates and voters simply pick a party and, de facto, accept the list of candidates in the ordered that is proposed by the party. In ‘open list’ systems, voters have the opportunity to indicate preferences between candidates. In some countries that use open list proportional representation, voters can even indicate a preference for candidates from multiple parties. Like open list proportional systems, alternative vote systems give voters the chance to rank parties instead of just indicating their top choice.

These are not minor or mechanical details—they matter greatly to how one participates in the democratic process. The nuts and bolts of each system also shape the role of parties and the choices available to voters, including the possibilities for women’s political representation. Some features of electoral systems, whether based on proportional representation or not, lead to the election of a greater number of women, while potentially reducing women’s capacity to represent women’s and other interests once they are in office. Other features improve the power of individual women to have influence, but do not maximize the possibilities for the sheer number of women elected. Lore’s extensive research of electoral systems on two continents and 15 countries underscores that if women representatives are more beholden to a political party for their election (versus having a direct relationship with constituents), their lack of independence frequently prevents them from effectively advocating on behalf of other women.

In short, proportional representation is neither necessary nor sufficient to ensure women’s equal representation. Political culture matters significantly, i.e. voters and parties need to seek more women to appear on the ballot and create the conditions for their participation. More women also need to choose politics as the place to dedicate their time, energy, and skills. If we do not also tackle other systemic barriers, including inequality in access to political resources and the uncertainty of the nomination processes, we cannot count on this happening. These concerns can and should be part of the electoral reform discussion. Revisiting the rules around financing and timing of nomination races are two key areas where there is much room for improvement.

Canada can do better than its current 60th place in the global community for its representation of women. Open discussion around electoral reform provides us all—voters, parties, MPs, and organizations, with an opportunity to take action. Action, however, must be thoughtful and evidence based. A consideration of the impacts on women in politics should be incorporated at every stage of the process—from broad principals to basic mechanics.

Source: Canada can do better on getting more women elected, 60th place in world right now |

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Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai: New Rules Turning Tories Into ‘Elitist And White-Only’ Club

2016/04/09 1 Comment

Interesting – and a major risk for the party given the importance of new Canadian voters:

A longtime Conservative MP is blasting his own party for becoming an “elitist and white-only” club.

Calgary MP Deepak Obhrai, the dean of the Tory caucus, told The Huffington Post Canada he is deeply frustrated by new rules the party imposed earlier this year that raised the annual Conservative membership fee to $25 — “the highest of any party” — and set the entrance fees for leadership contestants at $100,000. 

deepak obhrai

Deepak Obhrai and former prime minister Stephen Harper celebrate Diwali by lighting a candle on Parliament Hill on Oct. 8, 2009. (Photo: Pawel Dwulit/Canadian Press)

“Since we lost power in 2015, I have become very concerned about the direction my party has taken,” he told HuffPost over the phone on Thursday.

“These actions, in my view, have disenfranchised a vast majority of Canadians. Newcomers, immigrants, low-income Canadians, and those economically challenged will be turned off and walk away because they can’t afford these high fees…

“What is concerning me is that, unfortunately, [the Conservatives] will be seen as an elitist and white-only party,” he said.

Ethnic communities’ outreach

Since his election in 1997, Obhrai said he’s been working his “butt off” to bring immigrants to the party, a job that was subsequently taken on with great fanfare by former cabinet minister Jason Kenney. Success in connecting with ethnic communities culminated in the Tories’ majority election win in 2011, Obhrai said.

But that work has been dropped as a priority for the Conservatives under the leadership of party president John Walsh, Obhrai said. He added that the party has lost touch with grassroots members and pointed out that the caucus was not consulted.

“This party has become a party that is seen [to be only] for like rich people, I ask why? Why only for those who can afford it? Why the rich?

“For a family of four, it’s like asking them to give $100, and then also asking them to give through a credit card, which many don’t have. I have had these problems and my EDA [electoral district association] passed a motion telling the national council that we are unhappy with these rules,” the Calgary MP told HuffPost.

Source: Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai: New Rules Turning Tories Into ‘Elitist And White-Only’ Club

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Almost 300 people nominated under new senate appointment process

2016/04/06 Leave a comment

Senate Appointments - with nominations.001Strong level of diversity among those nominated to fill Senate vacancies in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. But Quebec had a surprising low-level of nominations: only 39 compared to Manitoba’s 51 and Ontario’s 194:

Almost 300 Canadians were nominated to become the first senators appointed under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new process aimed at turning the Senate into a less partisan, more independent chamber of sober second thought.

Trudeau named seven new senators last month, all chosen from a short list of 25 recommended by a newly created, arm’s length advisory board.

In its first report on the fledgling process, the board says it received 284 nominations from a host of groups representing a broad cross-section of Canada’s diverse population.

The nominees were 49 per cent female, 51 per cent male; 10 per cent identified themselves as indigenous, 16 per cent as visible minorities and four per cent as disabled.

The board’s first batch of recommendations were for vacancies in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba.

Overall, 72 per cent of the nominees were anglophones but the vast majority of nominees for the open Quebec slots were francophone.

However, the report suggests interest in the new Senate appointment process was lowest in Quebec: just 39 nominations were to fill vacancies in that province, compared to 51 for Manitoba and 194 for Ontario.

Source: Almost 300 people nominated under new senate appointment process – Macleans.ca

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Canada’s head bureaucrat makes mental health in the workplace a top priority

2016/04/06 Leave a comment

Curious to see how will this be measured beyond the regular public service survey, given the performance management commitment:

Canada’s top bureaucrat is making mental health in the workplace a top management priority in this year’s performance contracts for all deputy ministers.

Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick has notified deputy ministers that they will be assessed on the health and well-being of their departments. That means a portion of their performance pay will be tied to how well their departments are faring in building a “respectful” workplace.

It’s the second year in a row that the public service’s top bureaucrat has made mental health a management priority, which advocates say is key to driving the rollout of a much-anticipated strategy on how to make the public service a healthy workplace.

It’s unclear when the new strategy will be completed but officials say within months.

Mental illness — particularly depression — is now recognized as one of the most significant public-health issues of the 21st century. It is the leading cause of disability worldwide, hitting working populations in their prime.

The federal government has faced rising rates of mental illness among employees over the past decade. Mental-health claims, driven by depression and anxiety, account for nearly half of all health claims.

Mental Health International chairman Bill Wilkerson, who is heading a pan-European campaign on depression in the workplace, has been an outspoken critic of the federal government as one of the country’s worst employers for chronic job stress.

But Wilkerson said he believes the government has reached a “turning point,” and will come up with a plan to rid the workplace of the management and organization practices and policies that contribute to stress and depression of employees.

“Putting this in performance agreements is an important step forward because it will force deputy ministers to address the performance issues that are adversarial to good mental health for the people working in government,” Wilkerson said in an interview.

Source: Canada’s head bureaucrat makes mental health in the workplace a top priority | National Post

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Can the Liberals resist omnibus bills? – Adam Dodek

2016/04/05 Leave a comment

Will be an early test of the Liberal government and more independent Senators (and the Senate):

Until recently, budget bills were a rather drab affair. Parliamentary expert Ned Franks found that between 1995 and 2000, the average length of budget bills was 12 pages. In 1994, Reform MP Stephen Harper complained about the omnibus nature of the Liberal government’s budget implementation bill, which was 24 pages.

Omnibudget bills began under the minority government of Prime Minister Paul Martin with bills of more than 100 pages and grew to mammoth proportions under Prime Minister Harper: The most egregious topped 800 pages. The Harper government went beyond the accepted understanding of an omnibus bill by tacking on subjects to its budget bills that had nothing to do with the budgets (such as changing the Supreme Court Act in the face of the challenge to the government’s nomination of Marc Nadon in 2013).

These bills are an affront to parliamentary democracy because they prevent the House and the Senate from doing their job to adequately scrutinize legislation. The bills arguably infringe on the privileges of individual MPs, despite rulings to the contrary by successive speakers of the House. Instead of standing up for the rights and responsibilities of individual parliamentarians, successive speakers have allowed omnibus bills to persist and grow to offensive proportions.

Fortunately, unlike many other desperately needed democratic reforms, fixing omnibus bills is relatively easy: It doesn’t require a constitutional amendment, a referendum or even a law. All that is required is for the government to take the initiative and change the House of Commons rules of procedure to restrict the use of omnibus bills.

That’s the easy answer. But there is also a brave solution and a bold one as well.

The brave solution would be for a speaker to stand up for the rights of parliamentarians and draw a line in the sand at omnibudget bills and rule them out of order. The bold solution would be for a newly independent Senate to assert its independence and refuse to consider omnibus House legislation that cannot be properly scrutinized. I doubt that is the sort of independence the Trudeau government desires from a reformed Senate. However, it may be reason enough to spur the government into acting, sooner rather than later.

Source: Can the Liberals resist omnibus bills? – The Globe and Mail

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I’ll be ‘proud’ when Canada achieves justice for all: Denise Balkissoon

2016/04/02 Leave a comment

A needed broader perspective on the justice system than provided by Ghomeshi defence lawyer Marie Henein:

I don’t expect defence lawyers to be nice, and so I didn’t have any beef with Marie Henein until this week. Then she said that our legal system is one “we should all be proud of,” and now I’m compelled to reply: Don’t be absurd.

It’s one thing to state, as Jian Ghomeshi’s ferociously successful lawyer also did in her CBC Television interview, that justice was “absolutely” served when her client was acquitted. That proclamation refers to a single case – specific circumstances of evidence and reasonable doubt, one set of police officers and Crown attorneys, one particular judge.

But to say, as she did, that the Canadian justice system is impartial “each and every single day,” well that’s simply wrong. Training and intellect might help Ms. Henein skillfully navigate the system, but that doesn’t mean the system itself is admirable.

After Mr. Ghomeshi’s acquittal on multiple charges of assault and sexual assault, an unhappy group marched north from the courthouse to the Toronto Police Service headquarters on College Street. There, it merged with Black Lives Matter Toronto, justice advocates who have been sleeping outside the police HQ for almost two weeks now. Native Child and Family Services of Toronto is right next door, and indigenous demonstrators were soon in the mix as well.

Emotions were extremely high and the number of criticisms levelled at the Canadian justice system was overwhelming. Many of them were also valid, and reflective of my own personal list.

For example: A quarter of federal prisoners are aboriginal, even though just 4 per cent of the population is indigenous. Black Torontonians (and non-white Canadians across the country) are much more likely to be “carded,” meaning stopped randomly by police and asked to submit personal information despite not being accused of a specific crime.

Justice is expensive and the more impoverished you are, the less likely you are to receive it. The Legal Aid cutoff for a single person in Ontario is $14,000 a year, or about half of working full-time for minimum wage; Ms. Henein’s fee is rumoured to be up to $1,000 an hour. Lawyers who work with low-wage clients talk about the scourge of “pleading out” – when innocent defendants make deals, acquiring criminal records because they lack the resources for endless, unpredictable court dates.

If Ms. Henein truly considers herself a feminist, as has been endlessly discussed, a recent Criminal Lawyers’ Association report must surely upset her: Female lawyers are dropping out in droves, in part because of sexist treatment by police, court staff and judges. There are many ways that the law disappoints Canadian women – please also do not forget the hundreds of native women and girls whose disappearances and murders have been virtually ignored for decades.

To say, as Ms. Henein did, that justice in Canada is “very, very good,” is to consider all of these problems acceptable. It’s an attempt to write off dissenters as a motley crew with aimless complaints, when in reality many legal critics have clear, concrete suggestions for change.

For example, Black Lives Matter Toronto wants transparency around police violence toward civilians; this includes tracking the race of those killed by police and an inquiry into the death of Andrew Loku, a mentally ill father of five shot in his hallway last year.

One wish of many indigenous lawyers is increased application of the Supreme Court’s 1999 Gladue decision: When sentencing indigenous offenders, the focus is meant to be on rehabilitation, not punishment, with true consideration of the impact of residential schools and other historical inequities.

And advocates for sexual assault survivors have a number of ideas worth considering, such as greater use of the civil system versus the criminal courts, and increasing complainants’ access to legal support and information.

The list of proposed solutions is as long as the list of problems, and that’s good. A growing, evolving justice system is something we should all want, and I think we do. A 2014 Angus Reid Survey found that only about 60 per cent of Canadians said they trusted the police, while a mere 40 per cent said they had confidence in the criminal courts.

Victorious defence lawyers might be proud of our justice system, but the rest of the country has doubts that are more than reasonable. I guess winning is a heady drug, and intoxicants do tend to interfere with one’s sense of reality.

Source: I’ll be ‘proud’ when Canada achieves justice for all – The Globe and Mail

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Trudeau government asks for ideas on open government

2016/04/02 Leave a comment

Where do I begin?:

The Liberal government is asking Canadians for their ideas on making government more open.

Treasury Board President Scott Brison announced the national consultation today.

Brison says the transparency bus has left the station.

The minister says he believes that an open government is a more effective government.

Beginning today, people can go to open.canada.ca to offer their views on what should be in the next federal strategy on open government.

Officials will also hold in-person discussions across the country and the resulting plan is to be released this summer.

 Some initial thoughts on my short list:
  • The hardest issue of all: changing the culture and enforcing a default obligation of openness;
  • Provide information in electronic formats that allow manipulation for analytical purposes. The previous government only released public opinion research data tables in pdf format, rather than in spreadsheets. More recently, PCO was unable (or unwilling) to export its database of GiC appointments in spreadsheet format, requiring me to recreate this already public information;
  • Expanded data sets, issued regularly in a timely fashion. My initial list, starting with citizenship:
    • in addition to top 10 (consider top 25)  countries of birth, have complete table or one mapped to IRCC operational regions (top 10 only covers about 50 percent of new citizens)
    • naturalization rate after 6 years of permanent residency, broken down country of birth mapped to IRCC operational regions
    • naturalization rate after 6 years of permanent residency by immigration category, gender and province
    • citizenship test pass (language and knowledge) results by country of birth mapped to IRC operational regions
    For passports, numbers related to:
    • top 25 countries of birth (all)
    • top 25 countries of birth (foreign-born)
    • number of passports issued abroad mapped to IRC operational region (to give sense of Canadian expatriates)
    • breakdown by country of birth of passports issued abroad

    Appointments: regular employment equity type reporting for all GiC appointments.

Source: Trudeau government asks for ideas on open government – Macleans.ca

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Liberals push Access to Information overhaul back to 2018

2016/04/02 Leave a comment

I am more forgiving of the Government than some of the critics. Better to take some time to get it right, given the policy and operational considerations, but in the meantime, Canadians need to hold the Government to account, provide input to the open.canada.ca consultation site, and continue to provide examples of where the system is not working (my experience under the previous government can be found in my  ATIP Delay Log):

The Liberal government is pushing their pledged overhaul of the outdated Access to Information system to 2018, Treasury Board President Scott Brison revealed Thursday.

The government will still move within a year to make some smaller changes to the 33-year old system, which allows Canadians to obtain government information for a $5 fee.

But the larger reforms to address well-documented problems such as delays and aggressively applied secrecy provisions will have to wait two years.

“This act hasn’t been updated since 1983. Getting it right is really important,” Brison told reporters Thursday.

“We feel we can move forward with some specific changes over the next several months . . . but that doesn’t obviate the need to do a deeper consultation in 2018, which will look at other areas of improvement.”

Once a world-leading law, the Access to Information Act has been allowed to decay under successive Liberal and Conservative governments. It has not been substantially updated since the early 1980s, when most government business was conducted on paper.

The situation reached a point where, in 2015, Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault was forced to call the system a “shield against transparency.”

In their election platform, the Liberals pledged to make government information “open by default” — the principle being Canadians ultimately own their government’s work, and should be able to access it unless their government has a compelling reason to keep it secret.

The government also promised to eliminate the sometimes exorbitant fees departments charge for searching for and photocopying documents to release.

While those changes will have to wait, Brison’s department is moving forward on other commitments: applying the system to ministers’ offices, including the Prime Minister’s Office, administrative bodies in Parliament and federal courts, as well as giving Legault’s office the ability to issue binding orders for departments to release documents.

Treasury Board is expected to unveil legislation incorporating those changes, and potentially others from a parliamentary committee and public consultations, either in 2016 or 2017.

Fred Vallance-Jones, a journalism professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax, said the government appears to be moving in the right direction. But he questioned why more dramatic changes need to wait.

“I don’t think there’s any lack of advice that’s been given to the federal government over the last number of years about what is wrong with how the act is working,” Vallance-Jones, who leads Newspapers Canada’s annual Freedom of Information Audit, said Thursday.

“Those kinds of things have been on the table for quite a long time.”

Source: Liberals push Access to Information overhaul back to 2018 | Toronto Star

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