Does Australia’s values test have a future in Canada? Konrad Yakabuski

2017/05/15 Leave a comment

Yakabuski asks the valid question: could Australian dog whistle politics happen here?

To a certain extent, they already have: the use of the niqab and “barbaric cultural practices” tip line in the 2015 election, the Kellie Leitch and Steven Blaney leadership campaigns. As he notes, survey questions highlight an underlying concern about immigrant values.

That being said, while we naturally enough see the similarities with Australia – immigration-based countries, large number of foreign-born voters, considerable diversity – we often fail to see some of the differences:

  • Indigenous/white settler dichotomy in contrast to the more complex Canadian Indigenous/French settler/British settler background and a history, albeit highly imperfect, of accommodation and compromise;
  • a political system that provides greater opening for far right extremist voices;
  • a political system that results in fewer visible minorities being elected than in Canada; and,
  • a generally harsher political culture.

So while we always have to guard against complacency, we also need to keep in mind that national elections are largely fought in the 905 and BC’s Lower Mainland, where new Canadian voters, mainly visible minority, form the majority or significant plurality of voters.

The Liberal success in these ridings (they won 30 out of the 33 ridings where visible minorities are the majority) suggest that values or identity-based wedge politics are a losing, not winning, strategy:

When Malcolm Turnbull staged an internal Liberal coup to replace an unpopular Tony Abbott as party leader and Australia’s prime minister in 2015, it was hailed as victory of the moderns and moderates over the ultraconservative ideologues and their nasty dog-whistling strategists.

Guess who’s blowing dog whistles now?

The plan Mr. Turnbull unveiled last month to screen immigrants for Australian values (sound familiar?) and make it harder to obtain Australian citizenship represents a crass U-turn for a Prime Minister who only a few years ago attacked a then-Labor government for seeking to cut the number of temporary foreign workers entering the country. “If you support skilled migration and a diverse society, you don’t ramp up the chauvinistic rhetoric,” he tweeted in 2013.

Now, it is Mr. Turnbull’s turn to target the so-called 457 visa, replacing it with a program that puts new restrictions on foreign workers. The Prime Minister says the immigration changes are all about “putting Australians first.” But they are really about exploiting largely, but not exclusively, working-class resentment toward visible minorities, especially if they’re Muslims.

“If we believe that respect for women and children and saying no to violence … is an Australian value, and it is, then why should that not be made a key part, a very fundamental part, a very prominent part, of our process to be an Australian citizen?” Mr. Turnbull asked last month.

Well, for starters, because it demonstrates an astonishing degree of contempt for the very values that liberal democracies such as Australia purport to champion.

Is it really necessary to ask immigrants “under which circumstances is it permissible to cut female genitals” to convey the unacceptability of excision, which is already illegal? You can only answer yes if the real objective of such a measure is to pander to a substantial, but misguided, group of voters who seeks to alleviate their own insecurities by humiliating others.

You’d almost think this cockeyed plan was something cooked up by Sir Lynton Crosby, the Australian political strategist who may or may not have been behind the 2015 election promise by former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to set up a “barbaric cultural practices” hotline. But Sir Lynton – the knighthood was bestowed by former British prime minister David Cameron after the so-called Wizard of Oz helped him win the 2015 British election – is currently too busy exercising the political dark arts in aid of Tory PM Theresa May’s election bid.

Sir Lynton’s business partner, Mark Textor, however, happens to be Mr. Turnbull’s chief pollster. And what the polls are telling Mr. Turnbull is that white, working-class voters in Australia are increasingly turning sour on immigration. This is something of a paradox in a country in which 28 per cent of the population is foreign-born, compared with about 21 per cent in Canada, and that has long been held up as a model multicultural society.

The truth is that both the Liberals (who are actually conservatives) and the Labor Party now only pay lip service to multiculturalism. Both are seeking to scratch an itch among white working- and middle-class voters. Labor recently ran an ad in Queensland promising to “build Australia first, buy Australian first and employ Australians first.” All of the dozen or so workers in the ad were white.

Support for the current policy of turning back boats of asylum seekers, or detaining them on islands off the Australian coast, remains strong, even among Labor voters. Hence, the dilemma for Labor Leader Bill Shorten, trapped between his party’s white working-class base and the urban progressives and immigrant voters Labor needs to win elections.

Mr. Turnbull, meanwhile, is looking over his shoulder at a renewed threat from the far-right One Nation party and Mr. Abbott, who appears to be angling for his old job. He just gave a speech denouncing the “cultural cowardice” of the elites, including the folks at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and their “pervasive ambivalence verging on hostility to our country and its values.”

Does Australia represent the ghost of Canadian politics yet to come? Polls show Canadians from across the political spectrum really like Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch’s idea of screening immigrants for Canadian values. She’s sticking to her guns, no matter how many old Red Tory friends she loses.

Hey, if Australia can go that low, why can’t we?

Source: Does Australia’s values test have a future in Canada? – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Government, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Quebec can’t keep politics out of the identity debate

2017/02/17 Leave a comment

Depressing how the cycle repeats itself:

Now, even Prof. Taylor agrees. Conceding that he never really believed in his report’s principal recommendation – that individuals invested with the “coercive” powers of the state be prohibited from wearing religious symbols – the esteemed philosopher said this week that the events of the past decade have convinced him that Quebec should abandon the idea of legislating in this area altogether. Any such law would probably be unconstitutional anyway. More important, the stigmatization of the province’s Muslim minority in the debates that followed his report, and the subsequent Parti Québécois government’s attempt to adopt a charter of Quebec values that would have extended the ban on religious symbols to all state employees, gave licence to a xenophobic minority of Quebeckers to act on their discriminatory views, Prof. Taylor said.

The 85-year-old philosopher concluded that the recent attack on a Quebec City mosque that left six worshippers dead prompted a rare expression of solidarity that must not be squandered by reopening divisive debates over Muslim headgear. It’s time for Quebec to move on – and heal.

Unfortunately, Prof. Taylor’s words of wisdom will be all but ignored, in part because the co-author of the Bouchard-Taylor report profoundly disagrees with them. For Prof. Bouchard, a sociologist and the brother of former PQ premier Lucien Bouchard, it is precisely the failure of politicians to act on his report’s recommendations that led to an increase in hate crimes and discriminatory attitudes toward Muslims. For him, it’s “urgent” to legislate the rules of religious accommodation now to prevent this debate from boiling over again in the future.

Prof. Bouchard’s point of view reflects one of his report’s fundamental observations. Though a majority in their home province, francophone Quebeckers with Catholic roots still consider themselves a threatened minority and expect newcomers to understand this. “What’s just happened in Quebec,” the 2008 report noted, “gives the impression of a face-to-face between two minorities, each asking the other to accommodate it… We can conclude that Québécois of French-Canadian ascendance are still not very comfortable with the cumulation of their two statuses – majority in Quebec, minority in Canada and North America.”

A decade later, not much has changed. The current Liberal government of Premier Philippe Couillard, which depends on the overwhelming support of the province’s anglophone and immigrant populations to win elections, once again finds itself awkwardly trying to prevent an unresolved identity crisis from again becoming a political one. It has proposed legislation establishing the parameters of the state’s religious neutrality that would ban face coverings among those who dispense or receive government services.

The opposition PQ and Coalition Avenir Québec naturally think the Liberal legislation is too timid and, barely a week after the Quebec City shooting, said they would only support it if it also included Bouchard-Taylor’s proposal to ban police officers, judges and prison guards from wearing religious symbols. Coalition Avenur Québec Leader François Legault called the idea a “compromise.”

Indeed, the opposition is attempting to exploit divisions within the Liberal caucus itself. Liberal MNA’s from outside the Montreal area are worried that a failure to address the debate over religious accommodation could lead to their defeat in the 2018 election, just as it did in 2007. Hence, Mr. Couillard’s government reportedly considered adopting Bouchard-Taylor’s recommendations after the Jan. 29 mosque shooting. But the Premier ultimately could not stomach the idea. Prof. Taylor’s volte-face vindicates Mr. Couillard. But it is a small consolation for the Premier. A decade after Bouchard-Taylor, Quebec is still no closer to reconciling its religious past and present.

Source: Quebec can’t keep politics out of the identity debate – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Interculturalisme, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

There is room in our circle for Joseph Boyden: Kinew

2017/01/04 Leave a comment

There has been considerable commentary on Boyden’s ancestry and claims to an aboriginal voice, ranging from defenders (Konrad Yakabuski’s Attacks on Joseph Boyden’s identity should set off alarm bells) to critics (Hayden King’s Joseph Boyden, where are you from?, Denise Balkissoon’s Why the facts behind Joseph Boyden’s fiction matter from the broader cultural appropriation perspective).

Wab Kinew emphasizes a more reconciliatory approach, one that recognizes better the complexity of identities and belonging:

…Today my friend Joseph Boyden is the one in the centre of our circle being stripped of an identity. Though his disrobing is happening in the feedback loop of social media instead of a traditional arbour, as with the man at the sundance, many of the questions asked are legitimate.

Joseph Boyden will be changed by this. He owes some of our friends apologies for apparently misleading them. Media outlets will lose credibility if they present his as the voice of indigenous peoples. When he promotes his next book, he will be asked about his identity and this episode.

Already some non-indigenous readers are asking if they should read his work. His novels remain powerful. But they were always the work of a talented outsider. Even if he is Anishinaabe, he is not a member of the nations he wrote about – the Mushkegowuk, the Huron, the Haudenosaunee. Recognizing the distinctions will inform readers. So, yes, read Joseph Boyden. But also read authors who have lived a more indigenous experience.

The indigenous community also has questions to consider. First, why did we so quickly embrace someone who has long said he has little biological connection to us?

Our community hungers for reasons to celebrate, so when a brilliant artist claimed us, we claimed him. I am not sure this cost us much. While he should not accept award money meant to encourage writers who experience the very real challenges of growing up indigenous in Canada, his success did not prevent a half-dozen indigenous authors from releasing bestsellers in the past few years.

The second, and perhaps more important question, is what does it say that many of us have so quickly turned on him?

I am reminded of the man at the sundance. It could not have been easy, but he has returned year after year since his shaming. In the countless ceremonies since, all participating have repeated the prayerful Lakota words Mitakuye Oyasin (all my relations). The Anishinaabe and other peoples recite similar maxims. These axioms articulate the belief that every being is related to one another.

If we are to live this ethos, then perhaps the issue of how Joseph Boyden gained access to our circle does not matter as much as the fact he is present in our community now.

His place among us was built by writing about, giving back to and befriending us. Some, such as myself, continue to claim him. I can not give him a status card or confer on him the right to identify as Anishinaabe. But I can tell you if he keeps coming back, he will have a place in our circle.

I say this wishing he behaved differently. I want him to rescind the UBC letter, apologize for his comments about missing and murdered women, and be direct with us about his ancestry. If he is not native, he should confess. If he has one ancestor generations back, he should explain who they were.

Not long ago, a Lakota grandmother and I were teasing each other about that man from the sundance. “He’s your relative.” “No, he’s your relative,” we said to one another. But when the conversation turned to the now ailing man’s health the woman surprised me with her genuine sadness. The man was imperfect. He made us cringe sometimes. Yet, he was still a part of us.

There is room in our circle for everyone, even those who do not behave as we would like. We include them not just to make our circle bigger. We love one another as relatives because it frees our hearts from hurt and allows us to embrace the goodness in each of us. When we do that, we are stronger.

All my relations.

Source: There is room in our circle for Joseph Boyden – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Aboriginal, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Why Atlantic Canada risks losing its seat on the Supreme Court bench

2016/08/05 Leave a comment

David McLaughlin’s concerns on regional representation, where the comparative lack of diversity among Atlantic judges comes up against overall objectives for a more diverse Supreme Court):

The requirement that the Atlantic provinces have a guaranteed Supreme Court seat is a clear matter of convention, custom, practice, and tradition. How do we know? Because it has been the case since Canada existed. It is not an explicit legal obligation. A convention, with higher legal consequence, is not a custom, which may simply be a long-standing practice or tradition. A convention is not sacrosanct. Political actors can change it. That is how societies evolve.

Under the failed 1992 Charlottetown accord, the federal government would have been required to name judges from lists submitted by provinces and territories. This was a contemporary recognition of what might be termed the “regionalization” requirement of Supreme Court representation. It hewed closely to the original precepts of Confederation. The accord also called for formal consultation by provinces and territories with aboriginal peoples in the preparation of such lists.

Mr. Trudeau’s process inserts a more explicit “diversification” requirement for Supreme Court representation. The court should mirror Canadian society more visibly and directly as it pronounces on law that affects people.

This is all to the good. Except when it is not. This new process contemplates a clear tradeoff between historic convention and contemporary correctness. Since this convention is well known and established, there is no question that Mr. Trudeau is being deliberate, if not exactly forthright, about his intentions.

Justice Cromwell has not yet been replaced. Another judge from Atlantic Canada may yet be named. But this is no longer guaranteed. And that should exercise residents and governments in those four provinces.

Source: Why Atlantic Canada risks losing its seat on the Supreme Court bench – The Globe and Mail

And Konrad Yakabuski notes, I think correctly, that diversity is likely not to include much ideological or philosophical diversity (although I would not characterize it in the dark tones he does – really, seeing discrimination “lurking in every crevice of society”):

Canadians are lucky that, in Jody Wilson-Raybould, Mr. Trudeau has the most qualified Justice Minister in recent memory. As an aboriginal and former adviser to the B.C. Treaty Commission overseeing treaty negotiations between First Nations and the Crown, she is sensitive to the balancing act involved in governing and not prone to political pandering. She can be counted on to recommend judges of the highest calibre, regardless of their origins.

Just don’t expect Mr. Trudeau’s definition of diversity on the bench to include ideological or philosophical variety. The process he has put in place pretty much ensures the selection of liberal judges. Three of the advisory body’s seven members are Liberal appointees. Even if you might expect former Progressive Conservative prime minister Kim Campbell to argue for ideological diversity on the court, it’s an argument she’s likely to lose.

To be sure, the Liberal government has an interest in appointing judges that will uphold its laws, including its controversial legislation on assisted dying. But Mr. Trudeau has a greater political interest in naming judges that tick off his diversity boxes.

And with a majority of his advisory body’s members chosen directly by the legal profession – with the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Judicial Council, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the Canadian Council of Law Deans each getting to pick a member – the short list of potential top court judges Mr. Trudeau receives will reflect a liberal activist bent that sees discrimination lurking in every crevice of society.

 Diversity yes, but don’t expect big changes on Supreme Court 

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Why Quebec needs more immigrants: Yakabuski

2016/05/17 Leave a comment

Konrad Yakabuski on the demographic and immigration challenges of Quebec. Not sure whether the data shows longer term economic outcomes in Quebec are as rosy as he indicates in comparison to outcomes elsewhere:

But while it’s true that immigrants to Quebec have initially tended to face more difficulty integrating into the work force – employer discrimination and lack of English-language skills being among the main reasons – they also tend to catch up by the five- or 10-year mark. And Quebec’s new policy of choosing immigrants in line with qualifications and labour market requirements will only hasten the integration of newcomers.

Besides, immigration is the opposite of a short-term policy. It is a long-term investment in a society’s future dynamism and prosperity. A community that invests in its immigrants will see its immigrants, and their descendants, invest in it. If Canada is an example of anything, it is this.

Slow or zero population growth is a recipe for decline – economic, social, cultural. Choosing this path out of the fear that more immigration might not only change the face, but the fibre, of Quebec society would be to condemn the province to increasing marginalization within Canada and the world.

As much as Quebec sometimes feels closer to Europe than to the rest of Canada, Europe would be the wrong model for Quebec on immigration policy. A quarter of all immigrants who arrived in Quebec in the decade up to 2013 subsequently left the province, some because they sensed an unwelcoming environment. Quebec needs to devote more resources not only to attracting immigrants, but to retaining them after they arrive.

So what if it means some will need to learn English (in addition to French) to successfully integrate into the workplace? That is a reality faced by most Quebeckers, whether native-born or not. Most professions these days, especially if they involve technology, require some functionality in English.

No francophone Quebecker I know considers unilingualism an asset, yet the suggestion that immigrants should learn both of Canada’s official languages sparks howls of protest from the PQ and CAQ, which seek to make political hay out of Quebeckers’ insecurities. It’s an insult to the resourcefulness of Quebeckers who, over four centuries, have maintained their linguistic identity in the face of far bigger cultural threats than the presence of bilingual immigrants.

If anything, Quebec needs more of them.

Source: Why Quebec needs more immigrants – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

The York mural controversy: when art and politics collide – Yakabuski

2016/01/30 Leave a comment

Yakabuski on the YorkU mural controversy:

It is entirely legitimate to criticize Israel’s defiant construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moonagain this week called “an affront to the Palestinian people and the international community.” But there is nothing uncomplicated about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, yet the terms “apartheid,” “racism” and “war crimes” steamroll over its discussion on campus.

The settlements are an obstacle to peace and the creation of a Palestinian state. They call into question Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to a two-state solution. But the settlements are not the cause of the conflict. And, as the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, reminded the Security Council this week, “settlement activity can never in itself be an excuse for violence.”

Only the mural’s artist, Ahmad Al Abid, knows what he intended to convey in his painting. Personally, I see Palestinian frustration and impotence more than the “purely anti-Semitic hate propaganda” Mr. Bronfman sees. But since he’s far from alone in his view, York should seize on this controversy to do what universities are supposed to do: open minds.

“The response of college officials can make a difference,” Prof. Saxe [Brandeis University Jewish Studies professor whose survey of 3,000 Jewish students revealed hostility towards Jews] explained “Each incident should be seen as an opportunity to educate students, not merely referee a dispute.”

Source: The York mural controversy: when art and politics collide – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

How France’s diversity problem became a security problem

2015/11/20 Leave a comment

Konrad Yakabuski on the failure of France to integrate Muslim youth:

But eradicating the Islamic State, were it possible, would not end the alienation that has turned so many young French Muslims into violent jihadis. While the immediate imperative remains combating one particular brand of terrorism, Mr. Hollande’s efforts cannot end there. Unless Muslim youth can envision a future of semi-equal opportunity in France, one violent cause will simply replace another.

“A more nuanced response than total war is needed to deal with the underlying rage that fuels this confrontation. And that is almost impossible to imagine in the current atmosphere,” American University professor Gordon Adams wrote this week on the Foreign Policy website. “Islam has not been welcome in France, and the hostility of non-Islamic France is only growing.”

Source: Hollande faces the enemy from within – The Globe and Mail

Dana Wagner digs deeper:

Tidjane Thiam couldn’t get a job in France. Mr. Thiam is an Ivory Coast native who studied in France at the elite INSEAD business school. After failing to advance his career in France, he left for an offer in Britain, and in March became chief executive officer of Credit Suisse. The problem was not Mr. Thiam.

It’s unknown how many other visible minorities are unemployed or underemployed in France. The country doesn’t count. It’s against the law to collect data on race or ethnicity – liberté, egalité, fraternité.

But gender gets counted, as does disability. And in business, what gets counted gets done. Some French employers have found creative ways to count and improve work force diversity, using proxies such as names or home neighbourhoods. But in general, there is no counting, no target, no change.

The reluctance to count has made important subjects taboo. Ask a group of employers to a talk about immigrant and visible minority employment and few will show up. The very subject of race is an offensive topic of conversation. Affinity groups (Vietnamese professionals, Indian women, Algerian engineers) are considered insulting.

This summer, I met with staff of organizations that help disadvantaged young people get jobs. Most clients are poor and non-white. One manager I spoke with knows that the qualified young people he works with have worked twice as hard to get where they are. And still, hiring managers often express surprise at how well dressed they are, without the slightest awareness of how patronizing their comments are.

If this is what France’s educated, skilled visible minorities can expect, imagine what it’s like to be someone less privileged than that. Imagine knowing that you don’t stand a chance.

This is the undercurrent we will hear about in coming weeks: French people who don’t see themselves in France’s face or future. The integration problem has become a security problem that better intelligence will never solve.

 How France’s diversity problem became a security problem 

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with , ,

The Grits are back in charge, all’s right in Ottawa: Yakabuski

2015/11/06 Leave a comment

While there are elements of truth in Konrad Yakabuski’s piece (as I covered in Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism), he over simplifies the reasons for the collective sigh of relief felt by the public service.

It is not driven by an incestuous ‘gene pool’ between Liberal politicians and public servants. It is more driven by education and related experience. We know from polling data that the university-educated are the group that supports the Conservatives the least (government policy analysts are all university-educated). And this support is driven more by small ‘l’ liberal values than big ‘L’ affiliation.

The sharper ideological edge of the Harper government compared to previous Conservative governments, along with a general distrust of evidence in favour of anecdotes and a general less inclusive approach, accentuated the tension between the government and public servants.

Greater alignment between the values of the Liberal government and the public service, along with the latter’s more inclusive approach and support for evidence-based policy, will make for a smoother relationship.

However, the public service needs to be more mindful of its own biases and values in its formulation of policy advice given that it will be less challenged than it was under the Conservatives:

Stephen Harper’s parting thank-you note to the bureaucrats – telling them in a Monday missive that he “will always be grateful for the support of Canada’s world-class public service” – was promptly used by its recipients to line the bird cages of the capital.

The civil servants are already banking on retrieving the sick days the Conservative government had tried to take away from them; the scientists are savouring the prospect of being free to speak out, even if it’s against government policy; the diplomats are yearning to show off a kinder, gentler foreign policy to a world that, Harper critics contend, has been wondering, “What happened to Canada?”

Among public servants, there is a natural preference for Liberal governance. It stems in part from previous long Liberal stints in power during which most of the senior bureaucracy moved up the ranks. In the tiny company town that is Ottawa, decades of intermarriage among bureaucrats, journalists, lobbyists and Parliament Hill staffers have left a gene pool that leans predominantly (L)iberal.

The Ottawa elites share a similar world view, one that squares with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise of activist government. They also share a bias, acknowledged or not, in favour of a government-driven economy. A bigger state and more regulation enhances the prestige, power and bank accounts of this cozy cohort of Ottawa insiders.

Mr. Harper was not the first outsider to see this. As a candidate for the Progressive Conservative leadership in 1983, Brian Mulroney vowed to hand out “pink slips and running shoes” to a bureaucracy he considered to be infested with Liberal sympathizers. But in Ottawa, he found he needed to get the bureaucracy onside to get anything done.

Though he purged Liberal appointees at government agencies and Crown corporations, Mr. Mulroney trusted, and in turn succeeded in winning the trust of, most of the senior bureaucrats he inherited. His one high-profile ouster of a senior mandarin (Ed Clark, an architect of Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program, who went on to become chief executive officer of TD Bank) was an exception to the rule.

Source: The Grits are back in charge, all’s right in Ottawa – The Globe and Mail

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Yes, minister, no more: Today’s bureaucrats have a different attitude: Yakabuski quoting Paquet

2015/09/29 Leave a comment

Yakabuski presents one side of the debate on the political-bureaucratic relationship, that of Gilles Paquet and his followers, which emphasize ‘loyal implementation’ at the expense of  ‘fearless advice.’

Many others take the contrary view, flagging the rise of ideology and the decline of ‘fearless advice’ (e.g., among the former public servants fingered by Paquet and his acolytes, Mel Cappe on ideology over evidence, Ralph Heintzman: Creeping politicization in the public service, Kevin Page delivers a warning to the public service, among academics, Boundary between politics, public service is ‘no man’s land’: Donald Savoie, David Zussman quoted in Ideology, minority rule, distrust shaped Harper government’s relationship with public service).

As I argued in my book, Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism, written from my perspective working to implement change by then Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and CIC Minister Kenney, the public service failed to provide impartial ‘fearless advice’ and recognize its own ideologies and biases, and was not quick enough to shift to ‘loyal implementation’ once the advice had been given. (Disclosure: I had worked with Paquet and his press on Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias but our divergence of views was too great).

Canadians need to understand better how the balance between the bureaucratic and political roles plays out in the related debates over evidence-based policy (and which evidence), the decline of government policy expertise and data and other issues.

While academics and some journalists can and do raise these issues, former public servants should also contribute to discussions on the role of the public service and the political-bureaucratic relationship given their on-the-ground experience.

While such contributions run the risk of having a partisan element in their critique of Conservative government actions (and certainly being perceived this way), it is also non-partisan in that such contributions also form advice to any future government on both framework and specific policy issues (which of course, it would be free to accept or refuse).

And of course, the sharper ideological edge of the Conservative government compared to the more centrist public servant perspective accentuates distrust on both sides:

This view is echoed in a March article in Optimum Online, a public-sector management journal that Prof. Paquet edits. The article, by a senior Ottawa-based policy analyst using a pseudonym, asserts that “many senior federal public servants [develop] a conviction that they are better guardians of basic values of our democracy than elected officials. While this attitude had to be somewhat tamed while they were on active duty, it has become fully unleashed in retirement.”

The author goes on: “This has naturally generated a flow of self-righteous condemnation of current government policies by many newly unencumbered retired senior officials, and has thereby provided immense moral support for those senior public servants still in active duty – former colleagues and friends – to heighten their own passive (or semi-active) opposition to the elected government from within. As a result, the corridor of what has come to be regarded as tolerable disloyalty from within would appear to have widened considerably.”

This trend is nearly certain to outlive the Harper government. Future governments will become even more suspicious of the bureaucracy they inherit. To some extent, such suspicion has always existed. But Canada has always resisted the American practice of administrations stuffing the top layers of the bureaucracy with political appointees. Prof. Paquet worries that will change unless the principles of bureaucratic loyalty and discretion are restored.

“Loyalty breeds loyalty,” he says. “It’s 50-50.”

For my take on the same article, see The Demonization of Stephen Harper.

A review I did on an earlier Paquet article, Super-Bureaucrats as Enfants du siècle, provides further material for this ongoing debate (‘Mental Prisons,’ the Public Service and Gilles Paquet).

Source: Yes, minister, no more: Today’s bureaucrats have a different attitude – The Globe and Mail

And my letter to the editor on this can be found here.

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

Think tanks need to show us the money – Yakabuski

2015/02/10 Leave a comment

Good column by Konrad Yakabuski on think tanks as charities or political actors (see also Miles Corak’s How to think about “think” tanks):

The Fraser Institute raised 15 per cent, or about $6.6-million, of its total revenue from foreign sources in the four fiscal years to 2012. Not to single out Fraser – whose research, like that of its peers, is rigorous but only half the story – but no one could argue that such money has gone toward charity.

“Fundamentally, think tanks on the left and right have been abusing the privilege of being a registered charity,” says Toronto lawyer Mark Blumberg, a leading expert in the field. Since charities are only allowed to devote 10 per cent of their revenue to political activities, “you could argue some of them haven’t been following the rules.”

The line between political advocacy and policy analysis has become increasingly blurred. Three years ago, the Harper government made a big to-do about anti-pipeline environmental groups taking foreign donations. And the CRA has started cracking down on organizations that confuse political advocacy with charity.

Perhaps it’s time we also focused on think tanks. They play a valuable role in democracies, but their research is only as credible as the amount of disclosure they provide. The pro-transparency blog Transparify recommends that journalists add the phrase “does not disclose its funders” when reporting on research produced by such think tanks. It’s advice worth following.

Think tanks need to show us the money – The Globe and Mail.

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