Politics is the only free market that matters to Harper: McLaughlin

2014/10/15 Leave a comment

Cutting piece by David McLaughlin on the “shopping for votes” phenomenon and the Government’s approach to maximizing its electoral advantages:

Voters are consumers, not citizens. We are ‘shopped for votes’ by parties as our attachment to the political process waxes and wanes. Market segmentation slices and dices the electorate into micro-chunks of likely and accessible voters resulting in targeted voters being bombarded with direct appeals for support or money. Once captured in a party’s database, the virtuous cycle is repeated as retaining a committed supporter is ‘job one’ of any party.

The Conservative Party’s goal to get their hands on news video clips of their opponents for political advertising through new copyright rules fits with this dynamic. As the country is splintered into hundreds of mini-campaigns targeting specific voter demographics, using this material to craft electoral and fundraising messaging is simply the new normal.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been resolute in using incumbency to advance the political dominance of the party he leads and turn the Conservative Party of Canada into the default governing party. He has double-downed year-after-year on a strategy founded first on a core base vote glued by values and, then second, on a relentless string of election rule changes to give his party advantage over his opponents.

Free market capitalism is sold as beneficial for consumers. Healthy competition leads to more choice, lower prices, better service, and innovation.

But free market democracy is no guarantor of equivalent benefits for voters. After all, the end game of ideas and values in a democracy versus products and services in a marketplace are radically different from each other.

Conservatives instinctively favor free markets. It is striking that for all its populist interventionism and regulation as part of its consumer agenda, the most visible manifestation of free market philosophy in action is taking place in the political marketplace.

Politics is the only free market that matters to Harper – The Globe and Mail.

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Federal election 2015: bringing Quebec back in | hilltimes.com

2014/10/14 Leave a comment

Guy LaForest of Université Laval on the need for Québécois to engage more with Canada:

When I travel in Quebec, I meet many happy, proud, and free people who, though open to the world, have little interest in Canada. Yet content as they are, their exile within Canada is unhealthy. To keep our institutions functioning and avert an impasse, young Quebecers should play a more active role at all levels of Canadian political life.

In early September, I took a walk through Montreal’s university campuses—Concordia, Université de Montréal, McGill, and UQAM—and was struck by the extraordinary vitality of the city’s university life. The young people on its campuses are multilingual, skilled, ambitious and technologically sophisticated. They are optimistic and hopeful, and want to engage responsibly with their society and the world.

Quebec’s best interests will be served if these young people, and the generation preceding them, were more actively involved in Canada’s political life. We need to take an interest in what happens throughout the country, and get involved with associations and political parties as they prepare for the 2015 federal election. To believe in a strong Quebec is to believe that responsible engagement by its citizens will yield positive results.

Federal election 2015: bringing Quebec back in | hilltimes.com.

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New PCO Clerk Charette takes on ‘battered’ PS, reform issues in federal election year | hilltimes.com

2014/10/07 Leave a comment

Lots of positive comment on new PCO Clerk Charette and observations on some of the challenges she faces from previous Clerks, Donald Savoie and others:

“There’s no question the federal public service is crying out for some sense of direction,” Mr. Savoie said. “I think it’s been battered about, not just the past 10 years, but it’s been battered about for the last 20-30 years. In some ways it’s lost its moorings. It’s not anchored like it used to be, in terms of knowing it was there to provide evidence-based policy advice, it was there to deliver programs in a professional manner.”

Part of the problem has been the trend across English-speaking democracies to view “the latest management fad coming out of the private sector as a panacea to dress the public sector to look like the private sector,” Mr. Savoie said, which has undermined the public service’s values.

In his final report as chair of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee on the Public Service, former Conservative and Liberal Cabinet minister David Emerson warned that public servants had to work to remain relevant amid the digital revolution and global economy.

The report recommended pushing authority down in the organization and empowering people to make changes; streamlining business processes; investing in learning and leadership development, especially in middle management; and focusing on longer-term thinking.

Former clerk Mel Cappe, who served under prime minister Jean Chrétien, said keeping the bureaucracy relevant and attracting bright young people will be Ms. Charette’s biggest challenge.

“I think the challenge is going to be adapting to the Twitterverse and modern communications and the transformation that’s taking place in the political world, and keeping the public service relevant to be the privileged adviser to government,” he said in an interview.

New PCO Clerk Charette takes on ‘battered’ PS, reform issues in federal election year | hilltimes.com. (pay wall)

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The perils of the career politician – Donald Savoie

2014/10/07 Leave a comment

Donald Savoie on the implications of having more career politicians with minimal outside experience:

Career politicians also bring a narrow skill set to their governance. They excel at partisan politics and at surviving the gruelling 24-hour news cycle. But they lack the ability to test policy prescriptions against experiences gained outside politics. If commitments aren’t met, career politicians can always blame others the bureaucracy is an easy target, often bypassing their parliaments or legislative assemblies in the process, since traditional and social media have become the stage where the blame game is played out. This explains why career politicians have redefined the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, always so fundamental to our system of government. Supposedly responsible politicians now routinely blame others when things go wrong.

The proliferation of career politicians goes a long way toward explaining the public’s increasing cynicism about our political and administrative institutions. It also explains why those who have achieved distinction in other sectors tend to shun politics, leaving governance to a much narrowed political class. This, at a time when many Canadians are crying out for less partisan posturing, or are giving up on voting.

What is the solution? We could start by returning parties to the rank and file, by making it easier for non-career politicians to enter the political arena, by decentralizing power so that one does not have to sit in the prime minister’s or premier’s chair to make a substantial contribution. We also need to retool our public services by peeling away constraints to good management, and by rediscovering the importance of evidence-based policy advice.

I would say it depends partially on the individual. Some career politicians, like Minister Kenney, do have a breadth of perspective, others, the Polievres of the world do not.

The perils of the career politician – The Globe and Mail.

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Jason Kenney heads to enemy territory and touts plans to wed job creation programs to the private sector

2014/10/04 Leave a comment

Minister Kenney doing what he does best, articulating the rationale for his policy choices, and not just preaching to the converted:

“I stand up in front of business audiences and say: you guys have been, to some extent, freeloading on the public training system,” Mr. Kenney told reporters after his talk.

But given that the crowd actually appeared to join in Mr. Kenney’s enthusiasm, it’s not clear that they’ve come to that realization yet.

It’s all part of the broader Conservative plan to downsize the federal government by eliminating its ability to run a surplus, and thus start up big flashy new programs, and to outsource its programs at every possible turn.

In that vein, Mr. Kenney once again reiterated that his government would be sticking to the low-tax commitments made in its platform. Chiefly, the commitment to, when the budget is balanced — as it very nearly is — to implement income splitting for families.

Asked whether these types of commitments — between lessening government revenue and devolving job training authority away from the federal government — would hobble future government’s ability to launch their own initiatives, the minister laughed, then coyly agreed.

“I would ask the question a different way, which is: If you massively increase spending, how can you give Canadians a tax break?” Mr. Kenney said.“The answer is, you can’t. That’s going to be the choice in the next election.”

Jason Kenney heads to enemy territory and touts plans to wed job creation programs to the private sector | National Post.

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Federal government has spent more than $20M on monitoring massive log of keywords

2014/09/25 Leave a comment

One of the things I miss most about my time in government is having this media monitoring service (media scans). Helpful for officials as well as the political level.

And the expanded monitoring of ethnic and social media made our jobs easier (hard to replicate this completely through services like Feedly):

“News monitoring is conducted to track key public policy issues that impact the government of Canada agenda and to assess the effectiveness of government of Canada communications,” Raymond Rivet, director of corporate and media affairs for the Privy Council Office, said in an email.

“To identify reporting that is relevant to the government of Canada, suppliers use search terms as an aid to identifying reporting that may be of interest.”

Opposition party critics for various portfolios are also part of the media monitoring search terms from several departments, as are the names of dozens of journalists.

And don’t ask the Canadian Security Intelligence Service CSIS about its media monitoring activities. The agency has refused to release details of any contracts, ostensibly for security reasons.

About 300 of the roughly 1,100 pages of media monitoring search terms are from Citizenship and Immigration, and the massive department of Employment and Social Development, whose minister Jason Kenney, is also the minister for multiculturalism.

Of the government’s more than $20-million in media monitoring contracts since December 2012, one of the largest individual contracts was for ethnic media monitoring.

Federal government has spent more than $20M on monitoring massive log of keywords

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Jean Chrétien gave U.K. government advice ahead of Scotland referendum – Politics – CBC News

2014/09/22 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary by former PM Chrétien on the Scottish referendum and the consultations the UK government had with him (and likely others) regarding the Canadian 1995 referendum (the cliffhanger with about 1 percent margin for the no side):

“It’s always more complicated to manage the No side than the Yes side, because the Yes side is appealing to the heart and the nostalgia of the past and so on. And when you deal with the No, you deal with the reality of life.”

“Diving into the dark might be exciting, but you have to find out if there’s water in the swimming pool before diving,” Chrétien said.

Jean Chrétien gave U.K. government advice ahead of Scotland referendum – Politics – CBC News.

For those who have not seen it, the film No, on the Chilean 1988 referendum on whether Pinochet could extend his rule for a further 8 years, recounts a successful positive campaign on the inherent negative of a “no.”

It is a very funny yet serious film and the tension between the activists, who wanted to be serious, and the young advertising executive, who employed marketing methods “we need a jingle” and “allegria” (happiness) to seek the no.

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George Orwell on Writing, How to Counter the Mindless Momentum of Language, and the Four Questions a Great Writer Must Ask Herself | Brain Pickings

2014/09/20 Leave a comment

Always worthwhile reading Orwell on writing now and then, and realize just how much of our discourse suffers from the flaws he so cuttingly points out. Good excerpts from Brain Pickings:

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even yourself.

Shirking is easy, asking these questions and applying them, is not.

“Constant vigilance!”

George Orwell on Writing, How to Counter the Mindless Momentum of Language, and the Four Questions a Great Writer Must Ask Herself | Brain Pickings.

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Could Alberta pass Quebec to become the second-largest province? – Macleans.ca

2014/09/19 Leave a comment

From the latest Statistics Canada population projections for the next 25 years:

The Atlantic provinces aren’t likely to fare well. The population in Newfoundland is likely to drop over the next 25 years. P.E.I. should continue to grow, but most of the growth scenarios StatsCan ran on New Brunswick and Nova Scotia showed the provinces shrinking by 2038.

Under every growth scenario, Ontario will remain the country’s largest province, driven largely by immigration.

Quebec’s population would grow over the next 25 years under all the scenarios, with most of the gains coming from immigration, but because its rate of growth is almost certain to come in lower than the Canadian average, its demographic weight, or share of the total Canadian population, will slide.

Under most scenarios, Alberta’s population will surpass that of British Columbia by 2038. It’ll be the youngest population, too, with the lowest proportion of seniors in the country.

Jason Kirby’s unscientific projections show Alberta’s population possibly becoming larger than Quebec’s some time in the early 2050s.

Economically, this shift will happen sooner:

But population growth is one thing. When people talk about provincial rankings, there’s a good chance they’re referring to the size of their economies, as opposed to how many folks live where. It’s certainly the metric any politician boasts about first, come election time. So, to take our Quebec-Alberta match to the next level, here’s another look into the future, this time using 10-year GDP growth rates. Will Alberta’s economy overtake that of Quebec? Barring some pretty massive changes in provincial fates, that could happen as early as 2016, some three decades before Alberta’s population ever catches up to Quebec’s—which pretty much says everything you need to know about how grim the economy is in la belle province.

Could Alberta pass Quebec to become the second-largest province? – Macleans.ca.

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Ignorance is cheap – but parliamentary knowledge costs – Globe Editorial

2014/09/19 Leave a comment

Globe editorial on ignorance and the Government’s (or at least of some of its MPs) wish to be less open and transparent:

Mr. Wallace posed his own written question asking for the estimated cost to the government of answering Order Paper questions. The answer he got, based on a formula that is dubious at best, was $1.2-million for 253 questions. “Are we sure we’re getting value for the dollar?” Mr. Wallace asked.

Well, let’s think about that. What value do Canadians place on knowing: the percentage of Employment Canada benefits applications that are rejected and how many people have to wait longer than 28 days for a response; which government department is responsible for monitoring the transporation of fissile radioactive material inside our borders; how much money Ottawa has spent developing software since 2011 and what the software actually does; and the amount the government spent on travel expenses while negotiating the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union.

These are just some of the opposition questions currently on the Order Paper, and all of them deserve an answer. Mr. Wallace’s suggestion that MPs should ask fewer questions, because ignorance is cheap, is pretty much one of the dumbest things a parliamentarian has come up with in recent memory.

And as most of us know from personal and professional experience, ignorance is expensive given the implications of bad and faulty decisions.

Ignorance is cheap – but parliamentary knowledge costs – The Globe and Mail.

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