On Government Finances and Debt

In Alberta Views this month, we have a debate column pair about government debt written by economist Trevor Tombe, and former PC finance minister Ted Morton.

There are a number of respects in which I find Morton's arguments are profoundly flawed, and I would like to take some time to address them in more depth than the relative brevity that the magazine format allows for.

Ted Morton's Alberta

Members of Alberta's Progressive Conservative Party may want to think carefully before selecting Ted Morton as their next leader.

Morton doesn't represent anything close to the politics of Peter Lougheed - in fact, in my view he represents a much more mean-spirited kind of politics.

First is the fact that Ted Morton is among those who signed the infamous Alberta Firewall Letter several years ago. At best, the Firewall Letter is a neo-separatist document that attempts to argue that Alberta should isolate itself from the rest of Canada.

Second is his legislative record. As this article points out, Morton hasn't exactly got a record of even-handedness in legislation.

Among his crosses to bear is a controversial law he championed that gives cabinet unilateral control over all land use with little compensation and no judicial accountability or appeals process. The law “extinguishes” individual land rights.

I find that particularly interesting since a long standing hot button issue among those who would be Morton's "base" is property rights. That he would engineer and support a bill that so blatantly undermines property rights in a province like Alberta tells us a great deal about Morton's desires. He isn't a politician with 'grass roots' desires - he's after power and power without consequences or accountability.

On issues like human rights, Morton's track record is equally deplorable. His zombie Bill 208 legislation is so blatantly hostile to GLBT people it's not even funny, and generally hostility to GLBT people also brings with it a parochial view of women which is very limiting to women's ability to participate fully in society.

Morton is (and has been) a polarizing force in Alberta's politics. The PCs need a broad base of support in order to survive the upcoming election - there's a lot of competition emerging on Alberta's political landscape, and polarization will not do the PC's any favours.

Both the Alberta Party and Wildrose Alliance are eating the support bases of an increasingly polarized and fractured PC party. Selecting Morton as a leader will not be favorable to the PCs. (although it will make for one heck of a dogfight with the WRA...)

It's Been A Decade...

Since The Supreme Court ruled in Vriend v. Alberta.

To this day, the Alberta government has failed to explicitly amend its human rights legislation, instead obliging the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission to leave the following proviso posted on their website:

Although it is not expressly stated in the Act, as of April 2, 1998, sexual orientation is "read in" to the Act by the Supreme Court of Canada as a protected ground of discrimination in Alberta.

The Stelmach government's response is characteristically vague:

Alberta's culture minister says language explicitly protecting gay rights will be looked at as part of a review of the human rights laws.

Uh-huh. I can just imagine how swimmingly that's going to go. You're going to hand one of the most publicly volatile legislative topics to the most inexperienced minister in cabinet? Unless I miss my guess that leaves Minister of Culture Blackett very subject to the influences of such people as Ted Morton (whose attitudes aren't exactly an improvement on Craig Chandler, IMO. What could possibly go wrong?

The Zombie Bill

[Update 9/3/07]
It seems that Burke has changed his mind - I wonder if he started to actually think about the laws of the land a bit further.
[/Update]
I really must be more careful about mentioning certain people in my blog - it seems as if within days of the somewhat snarky mention of Ted Morton, we find out that he's being channeled by other legislators - this time in New Brunswick.

It seems that Conservative MLA David Alward is proposing legislation that would "grant rights to commissioners who are opposed to same-sex "marriage" on religious grounds. ".

New Brunswick Attorney General T.J. Burke spoke out in support of the amendment, saying he saw no conflicts with the Charter of Rights an Freedoms regarding same-sex equality issues.

"We're not going to oppose the bill. The bill provides preference in choice for individuals who wish to perform same-sex marriages and who wish to decline. There's nothing really that's going to change with respect to the amendment," Burke said.

Ummm...let me put this in one word - BullSh!t.

As soon as you put a bill like this into law, you create a situation where someone acting as an agent of the secular government (and thus, the government itself) is able to discriminate against someone on religious grounds. Although less sweeping than Ted Morton's Bill 208, this amendment to the marriage law in New Brunswick still ultimately enacts legalized discrimination by the state.

Now, last I checked, Section 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms reads:

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Last I checked, there was a considerable body of case law established since 1983 that severely curtails the government's right to act in a discriminatory fashion. Remember that Marriage Commissioners are performing Civil Marriages, not religious marriages, and thus are acting not as agents of a church, but as agents of the State. I don't know how much law background Attorney General Burke has, but I suspect his understanding of the interpretation of the Charter in the courts is somewhat weak. (Or either that, like Ralph Klein, the man is fundamentally hostile to the equal treatment of GLBT citizens under the law)