Alberta Diary: Republican failure shows conservative parties must adapt, like Alberta PCs, or die

Psychological/political portraits of Stephen Harper and Barack Obama by Edmonton artist William Prettie. Used with permission. This too shall pass… Now and then throughout history, as with Whigs and Communists, international political-ideological movements of enormous influence wither and disappear, often quite suddenly. It is rarely their call. Neoconservatives – or neoliberals, call them what you …

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calgaryliberal.com: The Katz Katastrophe

The bending of election rules by the provincial Conservatives isn’t new. It’s a regular affair by now. Kevin Taft’s lawsuit against Elections Alberta, the ongoing debacle of large union and corporate donations, and the disproportionate sway that the oil patch has on Albertan democracy, are not new. Daryl Katz is

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Ontario Progressive Conservatives embrace contradictions.

I was browsing through the Ontario Progressive Conservative ‘Party History’ page, and I noticed the amusing contradictions. Before that, let’s start with their more recent leader/Premier, pulled directly from their Party History page, (1995-2002) Premier Michael Harris “[His] achievements included welfare reform, health care restructuring, major reductions in public spending

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Unions and the left in Ontario: short-sighted politically.

This isn’t a post defending Dalton McGuinty’s bravado and threats to violate the constitutional right of collective bargaining of the public sector workforces and unions – my opinion on that remains firm.

Unions can be a viable political source, just as businesses can – but not nearly as much, naturally, for lack of monies and influence. Unions back political parties, most notably the federal NDP, which largely contests the traditionally business-backed Liberals and now the dominant Conservatives. In Ontario, it gets a bit more complicated; unions still lend support to the provincial NDP, but there’s also particular unions that have helped Dalton McGuinty get elected the last few elections.

Mostly teachers unions and hospital unions, in reaction to the alternative, support the Dalton Liberals. The alternative is Progressive Conservative Tim Hudak, protégé and, indeed, successor of Mike Harris. Mike Harris, as I hope you know, brought a devastating agenda of neoconservatism to Ontario that led to billions of dollars in cuts and ten of thousands of lost – vital – public sector jobs. He cut welfare to some of the lowest levels in Canada, over 20 hospitals were closed down, over 6,000 nurses were fired, over 10,000 hospital beds were removed, he privatized and then further messed up our hydro-electric company, etc. In the Mike Harris Progressive Conservatives first few years in office, around $1.5 billion was eliminated from the education budget alone. This wasn’t just for secondary school, millions of dollars were removed from post-secondary subsidization – after all the defunding, Ontario had (and still has) the highest rate of tuition in Canada. If you want to read about more of the details of Mike Harris’s reign in Ontario, you can do so here.

All of this healthcare slashing was done with Tim Hudak in the Mike Harris PC government, and at points, Tim Hudak was actually the health minister and responsible for closing those hospitals down! And no, he wasn’t ignorant, he’s a real honest-to-goodness neocon. So much of one he was a speaker at a conference for the organization “Canadians for George Bush“, in support of you-know-who. Seriously. In addition to that insanity, he “used” to oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, and even human rights commissions and all those other symbols of the late 20th/early 21st century. He denies these things, but unfotrunately for him, they’re on record.

So, yes, the Liberals are better than the alternative. The Liberals restored the billions of dollars that the Progressive Conservatives removed from education, healthcare and even post-secondary. They restored Ontario, at least somewhat. I’m not saying they’re some sort of messiah-like party that saved Ontario, but they definitively picked it up from out of the gutter.

Tim Hudak’s current obsession is unions – he wants to dis-empower them even more than their already pitiable status (less than 30% of the population is unionised, and has been declining for a while). He has good reason, as teachers unions and others funded the Working Families Coalition which ran attack ads against Tim Hudak (rightfully and fairly) fearmongering over what a Hudak PC government would do with education funding and other related material.

This organization helped the Liberals retain their power in the 2011 election, albeit with limitation – minority government. Now that the Liberals remain in power, they’re continuing their fairly new policy of neoliberalism and austerity (when they were first elected in 2002, the Liberals were a lot more liberal*). It’s quite light when you compare it with the actions of the current federal government, the previous Mike Harris government in Ontario, or even the last Liberal government federally. Yes, they’re cutting jobs. Yes, they’re cutting funding. Yes, they are assaulting the public sector, but it’s far more reasonable than past actions. I do think the Liberal’s “solution” to the “deficit” is stupid, misguided and ultimately the wrong approach, but let me put it this way: Tim Hudak doesn’t think the Liberals are going far enough, he was so dissatisfied he unilaterally withdrew any support for the budget-slashing 2012 budget and measures. That must mean the Liberals are doing the wrong thing better than the alternative, Hudak.

For example, the Liberals want about 1,000 public sector jobs cut this year. That may seem like a lot, but compare it with the over 6,000 of just nurses that happened under Mike Harris, it’s more palatable. 

***

Now that I’ve given you a background check, an a ton of information, let’s get to my point!

The current issue we’re facing involves two public teacher’s unions: they don’t want to accept the arbitrary “deal” being talked at the unions by the Liberals. The issue of contention is these two unions don’t want to freeze teachers who would otherwise be qualified for a pay raise for two years. Sam Hammond, the elementary teacher’s union leader has brought the rhetoric to a whole new lever with hyperbole. He alleged that “the current Liberal government’s rigid stand [is] the worst attack ever on teachers [in Ontario, presumably].” This is absolutely false, and you don’t need to look any farther than the previous provincial governments’ worse assault on teachers. The Liberals are responding to the non-compliance from the two unions with threats, and now actions, to pass a bill to force the teachers to accept the “deal”, as well as ban teachers protests. This certainly, eerily, matches the actions of the previous PC government – but it hasn’t got to the same level of disrespect and outright contempt that the Harris PCs showed (it got to the point, where Premier Harris ran commercials, on the public dime, to denounce the teachers’ protest).

These teachers unions are being stupid. Before you judge me as an anti-union scab, I actually have the unions’ best interest in mind – in the long term.

The Liberals support stymies the possibility of Hudak government, which, these teachers unions well know would be far more horrible and terrifying than another Liberal mandate. Yet, despite the Liberals decidedly right-wing shift, the right-wing media still constantly attacks him (Sun media, business think tanks, even our federal government attacks him!**) hoping to pave the way for a Hudak government. Now, it’s those on the left who are attacking McGuinty, too. Our, admittedly mediocre solution to a Hudak government is very precarious at the moment – and these disagreements only wain the tepid support for McGuinty even more. This could, from now to four years, end up with catastrophic results for the very unions that are fighting for their self-interest right now.

Indeed, they’re fighting for their self-interest right now – that’s what unions do; I can’t blame them for that. What I can blame them for, though, is venturing into a politically stupid move that not only puts themselves at far greater risk in the future – but also puts the rest of the province in a far greater risk.  It wasn’t only the public sector who took abuse under Mike Harris.

The whole event rings a perfect bell – and indeed comparison – to Bob Rae and the NDP’s relationship with public-sector unions when he and his party were in governorship of Ontario. A similar history, except unions traditionally back the NDP due to its pro-government expansion and investment stance rather than just for political convenience at the time. Like the Liberals, unions funded and helped get the NDP elected, but when it came time for a tiny cut back – after excellent, progressive and smart government expansion and improved regulations – the unions flipped out and railed an assault at Bob Rea and the NDP. The Social Contract, it was called, and all it entailed was for the public sector unions for a little sacrifice, for a few days of unpaid vacation. That’s it, but the unions wouldn’t accept it, and instead opted for a protest of Bob. Now, since Bob Rae was NDP and psudo-socialist, the business community hated Bob Rae. A hate different than the hate to the Liberals (there was massive campaign to demonize Bob Rae, even precipitating to the point of a billboard comparing Bob Rae to Stalin). Regardless, this lead to absolutely no favourable coverage for the NDP, as its traditional base neglected even neglected them due to a small transgression.

And guess what? Mike Harris sweeped the election for two mandates in which, as I already explained, devastated Ontario’s government – and indeed – communities. Teachers knew what to fear after that, and it was the PCs and any Harris or Harris clones (Hudak). I’m not saying that if the unions stuck with Bob Rae everything would be better (it probably wouldn’t have), but the unions did themselves absolutely no favours in choosing to respond that way.

And still, they betrayed Bob Rae, and are now creating negative publicity for Dalton***. This is against their long-term self-interest. This situation does have some key differences, but the happenstance and mentality behind the unions is the same with Rae and the Social Contract.

If ours unions were more tact, perhaps our governments would be less hostile to the public sector, and then, ultimately the citizens****. But they’re taking amateur moves such as the one during Bob Rae and under Dalton McGuinty.

As the Ottawa Sun put it, the unions are “biting the hand that feeds them”. We seldom agree, but in this case, we do for completely different reasons.

*They still have sensible spurts, like their response to the 2008 recession – with moderate stimulus.

**Jim Flaherty, former Ontario PC Cabinet Minister, now federal Finance Minister, is still getting involved in Ontario politics. He’s insulted Dalton McGuinty well over 6 times as of recently.

***There’s an argument to make that Dalton’s tough stance is making him more popular, but that doesn’t really help the unions either, does it?

****What I mean by this is if unions joined forces, and plotted out a longer-term strategy for its own security and expansion, then perhaps we’d have a more progressive and sensible government. In the long-run.

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Canadian mythology: Bob Rae, NDP and socialists to blame for Ontario’s deficit.

One of Canada’s enduring mythologies is that during the NDP reign in Ontario from 1990 to 1995 a whole plethora of woe was inflicted as the result of Bob Rae and his mismanagement. Most people point to the fact that during that time the deficit of Ontario increased quite a bit – this is true.

A common article for the Toronto Sun outlines this:

Rae tripled Ontario’s deficit to $9.7 billion and raised taxes in his first budget in 1991, saying he was proud to fight the recession rather than the deficit.

 But, to be fair, Rae was facing a recession, just as Harper did in 2008 when the federal Conservatives blew the budget on economic stimulus (albeit at the insistence of the Liberals, NDP and Bloc in a minority Parliament).

To be fair, it was an international recession – keenly happening in America, which invariably and inevitably will affect us so long as NAFTA ties us – and to put the brunt of the blame on the NDP is absurd. A Premier of a province can’t control the international market, but even in this article it lobs the blame on Bob Rae quite thoughtlessly. 

It’s post hoc ergo propter hoc with a convenient ignorance of what governmental action actually exacerbated the recession in Canada. The early 90s recession, by the way, which caused the deficit in the first place. Hundred of thousands laid off, diminished tax base, money being paid for EI, money being paid for welfare – these things lead to governmental debt.

The government action that worsened the already terrible recession wasn’t from any socialist or left-leaning peoples, but actually a right-wing government with many business interests: the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney.

The reason this recession hurt particularly in Canada can indeed be blamed on John Crow and the Brian Mulroney Progressive Conservatives. John Crow was the then-Governor of the Bank of Canada – Canada’s central bank which controls and regulates the financial market –  from 1987 to 1994. He was appointed by Brian Mulroney.

One thing the Bank of Canada does is regulate, and to a degree, control interest rates. When your borrow money from a bank, or store your money in a bank, our Bank of Canada decides the limits on what you can earn and what you can lose in terms interest payments.

John Crow’s grand idea was to end inflation, supported by then Progressive Conservative Finance Minister Michael Wilson,

Like [John] Crow, [Michael] Wilson had a staunch, almost obsessive commitment to fighting inflation, and the two men agreed in the spring of 1987 that the battle should be stepped up. (1)

How could this be done?

…perhaps the most potent method – a method which, if applied with sufficient force, could stop inflation dead in its tracks – was to raise interests rates. (2) 

Raising interest rates means it’s more expensive for most Canadians to pay for their personal loans – such as a mortgage or a line of credit. Raising interest rates, which Jim Crow did, caused significant damage to a substantial amount of Canadians,

Exerting such a strong influence over interest rates was like exercising a life-and-death power over the economy. In a sense, controlling interests rate was like controlling the country’s supply to fresh air. Money was the economy’s oxygen; it allowed the system to function, to breathe. If oxygen became scarce, the economy would start gasping for air. This is exactly what higher interest rates did; by driving up the cost of borrowing money, higher interest rates made it harder to get access to money. Thus, businesses couldn’t expand their operations and perhaps couldn’t even pay their employees, consumers couldn’t buy houses and cars and large appliances, and perhaps could no longer even afford even little expenses like having their clothes dry-cleaned or their hair cut. If their interest rate lever was cranked up high enough, and oxygen became sufficiently scarce, the economy would start choking in a desperate struggle to breathe.

…the significant result of all this was a recession. (3)

Another problem that raising interest rates caused was driving up the Canadian dollar, which made it more expensive for manufacturers to invest in Canada (4). The reason our dollar increased was that high interest rates attracted wealthy people looking to invest and make a return, as high interest rates disproportionally benefit the rich*. Reminds you of something?

The worst year of the John Crow rule was the same year the NDP was elected to government in Ontario: 1990,

He jacked up interest rates sharply in the spring and summer of 1990 – until they were five to six percentage points higher than the U.S. rates. This plunged the economy into a deep recession, which turned into the longest period of economic stagnation [in Canada] since the thirties. (5)

And academics agree that this recession was the main cause of Canadian debt:

These findings are in line with those of other well-known mainstream economists. As we’ve seen, Pierre Fortin concluded that roughly $30 billion  of the total deficit for all levels of government in 1992 could be attributed to the recession, which Fortin blames largely on an over-tight monetary policy. Ernie Stokes, head of WEFA Canada and a former Finance department economist in Ottawa, also concluded that Canada’s deficit would have been much smaller –  by about $25 billion in 1991, for instance – if it had followed the looser monetary policy of the U.S. during the Crow years. (6)

Thanks to the right-wing, business-dominated Canadian print media (and otherwise) Bob Rae and the NDP get the blame for the Ontario deficit, while the Progressive Conservatives (and the business community that backed them) seem to remain immune for accusation. Take action, dispel these myths and put the blame where it ought to be on: the wealthy and greedy business elite who back the policies which would benefit themselves at the cost of the majority of Canadians lives and well-being. Progressives, liberals and socialists are seldom the problem in Ontario, or Canada, or even anywhere else; rather, it’s the capitalists to blame. These sneaky bastards are so dastardly they’ve managed to subdue the population and shift the very blame onto those who would rather liberate us from their grip. We’ve been duped.

Fight the power.

Because the power is fighting you. And winning.

***

To end, the book (Shooting the Hippo: Death by Deficit and Other Canadian Myths) where I got the majority of this information, I would give two thumbs up and recommend it to you all.

* Just to flesh out an example, high interest rates overwhelmingly benefit the already wealthy:

In 1991, Canadians with income between $10,000 and $15,000 received interest income averaging $1,500 per person – an amount that largely reflected the interest collected by seniors and low-income groups. But rich Canadians, with incomes over $250,000, enjoyed interest income that year averaging #51,000 per person… thirty-four times the size of that received by the lower-income group. (7)

(1) McQuaig, Linda. “John Crow and the Politics of Obsession.” Shooting the Hippo: Death by Deficit and Other Canadian Myths. Toronto: Viking, 1995. pag 73. Print.
(2) Ibid. Page 76
(3) Ibid. Page 78
(4) Ibid. Page 103
(5) Ibid. Page 109
(6) Ibid. Page 115
(7) Ibid. Page 84

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