Pierre’s Libertarian Economy

So, putative CPC leadership front runner Pierre Poilievre wants to rejig our economy and monetary policy to use cryptocurrency. In Poilievre’s mind, central banks have “too much power”, and expanding the role of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in our monetary system would start to break that power down. 

In particular, Poilievre keeps claiming that the quantitative easing policy was equivalent to “printing money” to finance the government.  This isn’t really the case, but it’s an easy, pithy thing for him to say, and a lot of people simply don’t understand enough about government finances and the interacting systems in the markets that are involved, so they will gravitate towards his simplistic explanations. 

The most recent arguments are that somehow cryptocurrency can be a hedge against inflation. There are certainly lots of cryptocurrency advocates that argue that in fact cryptocurrencies can act as a hedge against inflation.  However, we have to recognize that in order to act as a hedge against inflation, cryptocurrencies have to maintain a general valuation that is ahead of the pattern of inflation. The problem here is that cryptocurrencies have been incredibly volatile for the last several years, so the argument of any one cryptocurrency - or even all of them - being an effective hedge against inflation. 

Then we come to an interesting problem with crypto:  vulnerability. Because blockchains are highly distributed, they are highly vulnerable to hacks - and unfortunately, it can be weeks before somebody notices. In so many ways, crypto returns us to the proverbial days of the “Wild West”.  The potential for this to make crypto theft an avenue for attacking a rival nations’ finances really should make us all nervous. 

Lastly, we should take a long look at El Salvador’s experiment with making cryptocurrency part of its national money policy. To call it a disaster is a kind description. At this stage in the development of this technology, I don’t believe that there is sufficient expertise in policy or in securing the technology domain to make it safe to incorporate into the money policy of a nation. 

An Open Letter From Academics on Bill C-23

Published in The Globe and Mail.

Highlights:  (much of which have been discussed in more depth on this blog)

Investigating electoral fraud. Bill C-23 fails to provide the Commissioner of Elections power to compel witness testimony in investigating systematic electoral fraud such as the 2011 “robocalls” scandal. Witnesses with knowledge of fraudulent activity can – and regularly do – refuse to provide information to investigators. The bill’s proposed voter contact registry will not greatly enhance the capacity to prosecute fraud, and its increased penalties for fraud do nothing if investigators cannot prove crimes. 

Polling supervision. Under Bill C-23, winning parties will appoint election poll supervisors – a further intrusion of partisanship in the electoral process, and one that creates an advantage for the incumbent party. The government has not addressed objections to this measure, and there is no sound rationale for it. 

Voter turnout. With the sole exception of school programs, such as Student Vote, the Senate amendments retain the gag on Elections Canada’s efforts to encourage voter turnout. Senator Linda Frum has asserted that Elections Canada is in a “conflict of interest” when it promotes turnout, claiming that heightened participation comes at the expense of electoral integrity. This position is unjustified in both fact and logic. Public outreach that encourages all citizens to vote – not just those who support one party or another – is central to the mandate of electoral commissions worldwide, such as those in Australia, India, and New Zealand. 

The Charter guarantee of the right to vote. By eliminating vouching and refusing voter information cards as proof of address, the bill undermines the right to vote protected by Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a constitutional entitlement so fundamental that it cannot be limited by the Charter’s “notwithstanding” clause. Where governments require voter identification, international best practices require that governments issue free ID to all eligible voters. This bill does the opposite: it takes away existing forms of cost-free ID. The Senate’s proposed requirement of “letters of attestation” from First Nations, homeless shelters and elder-care facilities would offload government responsibility onto under-resourced communities without resolving the underlying constitutional issues. There is no doubt that the bill’s voter ID restrictions will be challenged in court for violating the constitutionally protected right to vote. By insisting on these measures, the government invites costly legal battles for no clear public end. 

Elections Canada. As former auditor-general Sheila Fraser has persuasively argued, Bill C-23 undermines Elections Canada, an internationally renowned non-partisan agency. The damage done by the government’s gratuitous public attacks against Ms. Fraser and the Chief Electoral Officer goes even deeper. By casting doubt on the non-partisanship of independent officers of Parliament, the government unsettles the delicate balance of powers that secures our democratic system of government. 

The Senate committee has failed to respond adequately to the many legitimate criticisms of the other features of Bill C-23. These include campaign finance rules, the Treasury Board’s veto power over Elections Canada’s appointment of specialized staff, and the failure to require political parties to provide receipts for electoral expenses (even though they are reimbursed more than $30-million at taxpayer expense).

Bill C-23 is the most horrid piece of legislation that I have ever seen a government put forward.  Other governments in the past have pushed through legislation which has been seen as an attack on one region of the country or another.  Never have I seen a government attack the fundamental basis of democracy in Canada.

Democratic rights of citizens 

3. Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.

The right to vote is central to Canada's democracy.  The government exists at the collective will of the people, as expressed through voting.  Never before has the government attacked the right of Canadians to vote so blatantly, nor in a manner so clearly designed around achieving some kind of partisan advantage.

This is Canada, not Baathist Iraq under Sadam Hussein.  We deserve better than this from our government.  Instead we get deafening silence from the PMO, and blustering stupidity from the minister responsible for this piece of legislation, Pierre Poilievre.

Con$ Only Want Cons To Vote

Bill C-23 is an appalling piece of legislation.  It is filled with more underhanded deceitfulness than any piece of legislation should ever contain.  If there ever was any doubt about the motivations of the Harper Government in tabling this piece of poison, I think Senator Linda Frum's comments on Twitter yesterday did that in:

Wait a second, the argument basically becomes "a fair election is one where the motivated voters win".  That is, of course, far from the truth.  In our democracy, it is a plurality of votes cast that wins. In the hyper-partisan world of The Harper Government, it is instinctive for the Con$ to argue that getting out the vote is necessarily a "partisan" activity.  If you aren't a Con$ supporter, they would really much rather that you stayed home.

Elections Canada encouraging _all_ voters to get out and vote works against the Con$ - they know full well that historically, the majority of Canadians will vote against them if they actually vote.  So, they claim that it is a "conflict of interest".  Elections Canada however, rightly recognizes that there is a threshold voter turnout below which the legitimacy of an election's outcome becomes questionable in the collective minds of Canadians.  I'm not sure what that line is, but I would imagine that if only 20% of the eligible voters turned out, that the 80% who did not vote might rightly argue that the government elected has no legitimate mandate to govern.  

A free and fair election is one not only where a government is elected, but that it is seen to be legitimately elected by a plurality of the eligible voters casting their ballots.

We all know that parties spend huge money on their GOTV efforts on voting day.  We also know that the Con$ in particular go out of their way to get out _their_ vote and if they can discourage non-supporters from voting (e.g. Robocall Scandal), they will do that too.

In an election, parties have a natural desire to ensure that their supporters vote.  However, party supporter lists do not include all voters, and _all_ voters have the right to vote and should be encouraged to do so.  

The fact that the Harper Government thieves are arguing that a non-partisan GOTV effort is a "conflict of interest" tells us that in their mind that their interests are purely to discourage those who are not partisan supporters from participating in our democracy.  This is NOT democratic.

Bill C-23: Accountability for Thee Not For Me

It's not exactly news that Harper has never liked Elections Canada.  In fact, it's less than news.  His outraged utterances about Elections Canada when he was head of the National Citizens Coalition (NCC) in the 1990s set the tone for the content of Bill C-23.

“The jackasses at Elections Canada are out of control.” 

In 2001, Stephen Harper was president of the National Citizens Coalition. That was his opening line in a fundraising letter. 

His loathing for the election overseers was almost pathological, recalls Gerry Nicholls, the conservative commentator who worked with Mr. Harper at the NCC. It was a “blood feud,” he says, one that appears to be “never ending.”

One would have to be blind not to see the blatant and partisan attack on Elections Canada that Bill C-23 so clearly embodies.  It is designed to render it all but impossible for Elections Canada to investigate electoral fraud - in particular of the kind that has been perpetrated by the Harper Conservatives; it constrains the ability of Elections Canada to communicate with the people of Canada at all; it makes the appointment of polling station overseers the domain of incumbent MPs.

There is no coherent response to these criticisms from the Harper Government.  In fact, when so many knowledgeable and experienced people have criticized this bill for the obvious problems in it, it comes as no big surprise that the Conservatives have turned to attacking the message bearers:

“His recommendations really boil down to three broad requirements for him,” Poilievre told the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee as it launched a “pre-study” of the bill before the House of Commons considers amendments or passes it. 

“He wants more power, a bigger budget and less accountability.”

Considering the damage that this bill does to holding our politicians and their parties accountable for their antics during an election, it seems more and more clear that the party who promised Canadians greater accountability and transparency in government is in fact delivering quite the opposite.

Bill C-23 - Stealing Democracy Part IX: The Shackles On Elections Canada Advertising

Ever since Bill C-23 was tabled, I have been baffled by the fact that the bill so viciously curtails the ability of Elections Canada to advertise and communicate with voters in S18:

18(1) The Chief Electoral Officer may provide the public, both inside and outside Canada, with information on the following topics only: 

(a) how to become a candidate;
(b) how an elector may have their name added to a list of electors and may have corrections made to information respecting 35  the elector on the list;

(c) how an elector may vote under section 127 and the times, dates and locations for voting;

(d) how an elector may establish their identity and residence in order to vote, including the pieces of identification that they may use to that end; and
(e) the measures for assisting electors with a 5  disability to access a polling station or advance polling station or to mark a ballot.(2) The Chief Electoral Officer shall ensure that any information provided under subsection (1) is is accessible to electors with disabilities.
(3)  The Chief Electoral Officer shall not provide information under this section by the use of calls as defined in section 348.01, that are unsolicited.

The obvious intent is to hamstring Elections Canada, especially in terms of tackling broad based issues like trying to get the voter turnout improved on election day.  But why?  What on earth is bad about encouraging people to vote?

Well, we know that in part, the Conservatives have no love for anyone who doesn't vote their way - as evidenced by the Robocalls scandal, where a bunch of calls were made to divert voters who weren't likely to vote Conservative away from the correct polling stations.  So voter suppression is part of the discussion.  But it doesn't fully explain things for me.

In today's Hill Times, we get a little more insight into what the government's motives are:

The 2008 video that did not run begins with a sketched portrayal of a ballot being cast, then a moving sketch portrayal of a lively rock concert crowd and electronic music, as the images change to include a recycle symbol, with a backdrop of freeways, industry chimney emitters, and then a quiet forest. The brief clip ends with the printed words 'Vote. Shape your world.' 

The ad and two other Elections Canada videos uploaded to YouTube in October 2008, also were cancelled and not aired, said John Enright, communications director at Elections Canada. 

“This advertising campaign was developed for the 2008 federal general election,” Mr. Enright said in an email. “However, the campaign was cancelled by Mr. Mayrand when he became Chief Electoral Officer. The ads were never aired by  Elections Canada.”

This tells us a lot - it basically boils down to the fact that Elections Canada started to create an advertising campaign to encourage younger voters to participate, and did so by playing on issues that the Conservatives don't like - the environment and climate change at the top of the list.

In short, the CPC doesn't like the fact that the Elections Canada ad would have encouraged voters who are more likely to vote against the party dogma.

Just as the Conservative government has been strangling Environment Canada gradually since 2006, and science in general in this country, they will be mightily offended by any department of the government who doesn't toe the party line on a particular subject - regardless of the evidence.

Like the rest of the very dubious provisions in this legislation, it comes down to the Conservatives working very hard to dismantle the very apparatus that ensures that elections in Canada are in fact free, open and fair.  It makes voting against the CPC not merely a vote against them, but rather makes it an act of subversion.

Stealing Democracy: Part IV - Marc Mayrand Responds

When it comes to reviewing Bill C-23, as much as I enjoy exploring the labyrinthine language of legalese, I am also interested in what the current head of Elections Canada has to say - after all he's spent the better part of the last decade in that space.

Pierre Poilievre, the minister of state for democratic reform, justified the move to strip many of Elections Canada's powers by saying "the referee should not be wearing a team jersey." 

But Marc Mayrand, the chief electoral officer, told reporters that if he's wearing a jersey, it only has black and white stripes. 

"What I note from this bill is no longer will the referee be on the ice," Mayrand told reporters after a committee hearing on another matter on Parliament Hill. 

"The referee won't be able to call an offside." 

Mayrand told reporters he is concerned the bill, the Fair Elections Act, prevents him from adequately communicating with Canadians, limits citizens' ability to vote and may hamper investigations into major election breaches. 

"I can't talk about anything other than where, when and how to vote," Mayrand said.

This is important.  When Marc Mayrand says this, it should be alarming.  He's basically pointing out that the act guts the ability of Elections Canada to investigate electoral cheating.

Minister Poilievre's quip about "wearing a team jersey" implies that Mr. Mayrand is somehow "partisan" in his conduct - an accusation that makes little or no sense.  But then again, it has been the CPC which has been repeatedly under investigation for violating various aspects of the existing legislation - from individual candidates breaking spending limit rules to the Robocalls scandal.  The Conservatives have tried to violate Canada's elections laws at every turn for years, and then they have complained loudly that they are being "picked on" for "partisan" reasons.

I think the truth is far, far bleaker than that.  The CPC under Stephen Harper is rewriting the rules now so that they can do whatever they wish and not be held accountable for it.   

Bill C-23: The Theft Of Canada's Democracy Part II

I have not by any means finished my analysis of this bill and what it is setting up.  However, a lot of other smart writers have been going over the bill too, and they have much to say which bears summarizing and considering.

First, over at the Toronto Star, Chantal Hébert has pointed out that the limitations the government is placing on Elections Canada in terms of its ability to inform the electorate of their right to vote and where they can vote fundamentally plays to Harper's desire to promote electoral apathy:

Under this bill Elections Canada would be allowed to tell voters where and when to exercise their franchise but forbidden to launch outreach campaigns to encourage them to actually vote. 

The government argues that such campaigns have no measurable impact on voter turnout. Yet it is a field that many provinces as well as comparable democracies such as Great Britain and Australia still deem worth exploring. The trend overall is to increase efforts to promote voting, not to force organizations that oversee elections to stand down. 

In the same spirit more than a few countries are looking to remove some of the practical constraints that are said to be keeping voters away by adopting alternative voting methods. One increasingly considered option is electronic voting. The bill shortens Elections Canada’s leash on that score.It would require that both houses of Parliament — and not just the committees that usually deal with election-related matters — give the green light to any pilot project that involved electronic voting. 

That means for instance that even if — after the 2015 election — a possible Liberal or a New Democrat government agreed that Elections Canada should road test electronic voting it could not do so without the permission of a Conservative Senate majority. 

Finally the bill tightens up voter identification rules — making it harder for a number of not usually Conservative-friendly constituencies to vote. The latter include younger voters. 

According to Elections Canada the 2011 turnout rate among voters aged 18 to 24 stood at a dismal 38.8 per cent. Across Canada some of the outreach campaigns that the bill would outlaw federally are specifically tailored to them. 

Given that each new cohort of voters is more wired than the previous one, an electronic voting system could have more impact on the voting pattern of the younger cohort that on their elders.Finally, younger people tend to move more often. As a result the deterrence effect of the more stringent ID requirements stands to be higher among the lower age group of voters.

This is a damning indictment of the breadth of this legislation.  If it were just Ms. Hébert saying it, you could be excused for assuming that it was the Toronto Star's natural dislike of the CPC and Mr. Harper speaking.  Fortunately, it isn't.

I'm not saying that all of the act is bad news, but rather that there are key features of the bill which are designed to stack the deck in favour of the CPC.  Yes, electoral reform has been needed for some time, but sticking escape hatch clauses in the bill that exempt parties from decisions of the Chief Electoral Officer, taking pages out of the "Voter ID" laws in the states which are used to deny many people the right to vote and other pieces of the equation which clearly limit the ability for the electoral oversight bodies are sufficiently despicable that they call into question the overall balance of the bill as a whole.

Perhaps above all else, the other clear sign of the Harper Government's motives in tabling this bill is that they have just announced that they are going to limit debate on the massive bill.

Why Harper Will Never Reform The Senate

Protestations aside, Harper will never reform Canada's Senate.

Harper's 45-minute remarks included only a brief reference to the main political headache that has shaken his party since May, the Senate expense scandal. He did not acknowledge the coverup allegation that has kept the controversy in the headlines. 

The party leader blamed the "courts" for standing in the way of Senate reform. He appeared to be referring to a recent Quebec appeal court ruling — the Supreme Court of Canada has yet to give its opinion on how to achieve change in the upper chamber. 

The appeal court said last month that the federal government had no right to create Senate elections and set term limits without seeking provincial approval.

The problem is that Harper will NOT engage with the provinces.  He has avoided the conferences between Ottawa and the Premiers like the plague since day one.  Yet, to make any material changes to the Senate, he must do this.  The amending formula in the Constitution is quite clear on the matter.  (To the point of obviating the need for the current reference question before the position)

General procedure for amending Constitution of Canada

38. (1) An amendment to the Constitution of Canada may be made by proclamation issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada where so authorized by(a) resolutions of the Senate and House of Commons; and(b) resolutions of the legislative assemblies of at least two-thirds of the provinces that have, in the aggregate, according to the then latest general census, at least fifty per cent of the population of all the provinces.Marginal note:Majority of members 

(2) An amendment made under subsection (1) that derogates from the legislative powers, the proprietary rights or any other rights or privileges of the legislature or government of a province shall require a resolution supported by a majority of the members of each of the Senate, the House of Commons and the legislative assemblies required under subsection (1).Marginal note:

Expression of dissent(3) An amendment referred to in subsection (2) shall not have effect in a province the legislative assembly of which has expressed its dissent thereto by resolution supported by a majority of its members prior to the issue of the proclamation to which the amendment relates unless that legislative assembly, subsequently, by resolution supported by a majority of its members, revokes its dissent and authorizes the amendment.Marginal note:

Revocation of dissent(4) A resolution of dissent made for the purposes of subsection (3) may be revoked at any time before or after the issue of the proclamation to which it relates.

If you go back and take a look at The Harper Government(tm) factum, much of their approach to the questions is essentially to ask the Supreme Court if the proposed amendment can be done without resorting to the General Procedure.  I may not be a lawyer, but I don't believe that any substantive change to the Senate, including abolition as Pierre Poilievre was musing about.

Poilievre said if the Supreme Court rejects the reform bill, then it will be up to the provinces to make changes. 

"The provinces have to pursue abolition. If that's the option, we believe seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the population have the power to pursue abolition, and we would not stand in their way if they should so decide."

Harper's unwillingness to engage with the Premiers is at the core of the problem for him.  While he is willing to meet with premiers individually, in a conference setting he knows full well that he cannot foster the kind of consensus needed to get an agreement on a constitutional amendment.  Harper is not exactly the kind of leader who builds consensus - he dictates what he wants.

In short, if he can't do it by a straight act of Parliament where he can hold a substantially large club over the votes of his caucus to get his way.  He has always been "my way or the highway", and he whines like a stuck pig when something happens like the courts ruling against him.

Unless Harper can build real consensus among the premiers, he will get nowhere on Senate reform.  Poilievre's musings about abolition are interesting in that he is basically saying that the provinces will  "pursue abolition" - pushing away responsibility for the Federal Government's role in this matter.  Abolition is the simple question, but I think that the legal advisors to any premier would correctly point out to the premiers that moving to abolish the Senate would naturally entail additional changes to ensure that the legislative and executive branches of our government are appropriately held in check - especially in an era where so much power has become concentrated in the PMO.

The second problem that would show up almost immediately is that the required legislation still has to be drafted by and passed in Parliament, as well as in the provinces.  For those of us who remember the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, which were be far less contentious than Senate reform would be, getting that passed at all levels required is a process that requires significant involvement at all levels of government.

Harper is simply not capable of fostering the kind of environment needed to achieve this.

Cabinet Shuffle ... More Of The Same With A New Focus

So, yesterday Stephen Harper rolled out his old-new cabinet.  Colour me unimpressed.

The the first scandal to escape this new cabinet was that the PMO instructed ministers who are leaving / moving to new offices to create transition documents which contain a list of "enemies" in the bureaucracy.  This is serious simply because it tells us that we have a political government which after seven years in power still has not learned to work with the stakeholders and bureaucrats who are assigned with carrying out the government's wishes.  Unsurprising though, when you consider that this was the same government who issued a manual to MPs in 2006 about how to disrupt the business of parliament.

The restructuring of cabinet however, does not signify any of the things that Canadians might have been seeking.  Harper left Peter van Loan in his existing role, and brings Pierre Poilievre into cabinet.  For those who were hoping to see a less combative government in the second half of its tenure, this is a disappointment.  For the rest of us who long ago recognized that Harper's approach to things is pugilistic because the man is himself a bully, this comes as no real surprise.

Much has been made of the number of women in Harper's cabinet.  Frankly, I am unimpressed.  Harper has pushed out his most senior women who could effectively hold senior cabinet posts, and brought in a few more youthful women into junior posts.  The message is clear enough - if you are female, you don't have what it takes to run a senior portfolio - that space is reserved for the boys.

The most interesting appointments in cabinet, in my view, are Jason Kenney and Pierre Poilievre.  Jason Kenney moved from Immigration to the Minister of Employment and Social Development, and Poilievre to Democratic Reform.

Given recent changes to programs such as EI, I'm going to guess that Harper is about to unveil the next phase in his war on Canada's middle classes.  He wants Kenney there because like the heavy-handed reforms Harper/Kenney rammed through Canada's immigration system, Harper knows that he can trust Kenney to be just as mean-spiritied as Harper himself. 

Since 2006, Harper has systematically attacked Canada's middle classes on several levels.  First has been a continual increase of the number of "Temporary Foreign Workers" that are allowed into the country.  No matter how I look at this, it has become a tool for employers to drive down wages across the board.  Concurrently, they have turned Employment Insurance into something that is far less available to Canadians and pushes those seeking work into jobs regardless of whether the individual is suited to them.  Again, this has the effect of pushing down earnings and places workers at the mercy of employers whose sole interest is ultimately to minimize their costs.

As for "democratic reform", this portfolio seems to have been fundamentally a placeholder.  A way for Harper to claim that he is doing something about the democratic deficit issues in Canada and thereby keeping an old promise.  The reality is that he is far more likely to be taking apart Canada's democracy, and any changes that a minister in this position will be allowed to make will exist for the sole purpose of ensuring that the Conservatives are "the natural governing party", or that another party will be so hamstrung that undoing much of what Harper has wrought will be next to impossible.

In short, this is a cabinet shuffle which hints at some new directions for the Harper Government, but it does not signal a change in the government itself - it will remain ugly and hostile to the interest of average Canadians.

Irony ... As It Is Done

The NDP is demanding that Conservative Senators should step aside until "In-and-Out" Charges Resolved.

I'm not sure that there's actual parliamentary precedent for such a move, but I applaud the sentiment of the NDP's demand here.

However, it is this comment that really gets me going:

"The two gentlemen in question have an impeccable record of honesty and integrity," said MP Pierre Poilievre.

"They have conducted themselves admirably throughout all of this and we're proud to have them as part of our team."

Hmmm... Poilievre? Oh - that Poilievre. It's not like he's exactly the most well-informed MP out there in the first place.

More seriously, the fundamental issue in the "In-and-Out" Scam is that the Conservatives were engaging in nothing less than a money laundering scheme - and a poorly thought out one at that. It leaves one thinking that these amateurs were tossed out from organized crime for good reason ... and went into politics as a second career choice.