I am not at all surprised by the announcement today that the government is abandoning its promise to reform the electoral system. I never believed they would.
Many progressive voters were lured to the Liberals in the last election on a powerful premise: first, the only we could defeat Harper was not to split votes between the NDP, Greens and the Liberal Party. The Liberals took on policy planks from the other parties, including a promise to reform the electoral process in an effort to court voters away from the NDP and Greens. Many people I knew threw their support to the Liberal party on this basis. I chose to vote locally for a candidate I respect – Ken Melamed from the Green Party – and for a party whose policies I supported more than the others. I often waver between voting Green and NDP. In the past I have voted strategically, against my values, in order to try to get a “better than nothing” result, but in this election I was weary of the toll of regret that took. I hoped fervently that the democratic reform effort would pan out, and even leant help and support to it. But from the start I had no faith that the Liberals would do it. The weight of history and entrenched interests was always too much to move.
And so today comes the new mandate to the Minister of Democratic Institutions, which in part says the following:
“A clear preference for a new electoral system, let alone a consensus, has not emerged. Furthermore, without a clear preference or a clear question, a referendum would not be in Canada’s interest. Changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate.”
The stark irony here is that democratic and electoral reform is needed specifically because a consensus is no way to run a country. Having strong representation of alternative and opposing views with in governing institutions is essential to a health democracy. The first past the post system enforces a false consensus on decision making, by whipping votes and having party politics run the country. The opportunity for a broader agreement that might represent consensus decisions containg dissent is lost. Decisions that do make room to wrestle with, appreciate and sometimes resolve differences make for more robust decisions and more resilient institutions. For the moment, we have lost a chance that we never had to reform the electoral system.
More importantly, we haven’t really yet replaced Harper. Several of the problematic bills that were championed under the Conservative government including C-51 (The Anti-Terrorism Act 2015) and S-7 (Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act) are still on the books. Pipelines that Harper could not get built have been approved under Trudeau. And reconciliation moves at a glacial pace and with no major shift in sight.
To be fair to Trudeau, the Fair Elections Act has thankfully been gutted, and scientists are now allowed to publish again and share their findings publicly. But the number one lure for progressives during the last election has today been shown to be a mere honey trap. Irresistable at the time, but empty calories and regret at the end.
Last week we were out in Tofino hosting a three-day leadership workshop on dialogue with sixty people, most of whom were from the Port Alberni and west coast area. In the room were leaders from Hupacaseth, Toquaht, Ahousaht, Hesquiaht, Tsehshaht and Tloquiaht First Nations and Councillors from Ucluelet, Tofino and the Alberni-Clayoquat Regional District. Additionally there were citizens, non-profit workers, community foundation staff, scientists and small business people in the room. It was the kind of gathering that everyone is always saying “has to happen.”
In Tofino for this week, today preparing for 60 people who will be joining us for an Art of Hosting.
The beach here, as anyone living on the exposed west coast will know, is constantly buffeted by surf and there is an endless white noise created by the waves crashing on the four sets of reefs offshore. Once, when I was in Quinault in Washington State, I remarked to an Elder that this sound must have had a beginning at some time in the earth’s history and perhaps will have an end. But in the meantime, as long as human ears have lived on this coast, the sound of surf has always filled them.
That’s pretty much forever.
As we begin a week of teaching some of the arts of community, I am reminded of the aspects of our better nature that we humans have always had, and my focus is fixed on what ways of being community, like the sound of this surf, have accompanied human beings forever.
Metro Vancouver Parks, the entity responsible for a major regional park on my home island has posted a warning about the conditions on Killarney Lake.
Or perhaps it’s a commentary on global affairs.
The Conservative Party of Canada has started heating up its leadership campaign and I have a passing interest in it. Two of the candidates – the two most odious – are known to me personally. Kellie Leitch is the MP in my parent’s riding in Ontario and she was very helpful in helping my dad and I to get some written comments before the commons committee looking at the omnibus bill C-30 that Harper passed in 2012 when my own MP wouldn’t do it. Since then she has supported asbestos exports (against her oath as an MD), a Barbarian Practices Act and a currently racist dog whistle campaign on “Canadian values.” Chris Alexander, who was her partner in crime on the Barbarian practices bill and the tip line campaign promise was an elementary school mate of mine. We grew up a half block from each other, and he came from a red Tory family, with his dad as a supporter of Joe Clark in the 1976 leadership of the PCs, and in retirement he has done some interesting leadership work on diversity. In 1984 I watched Brian Mulroney’s election vctory at their house. Chris was always the smartest kid in any room I was ever in with him, but he took a hard turn to the right and threw his lot in with Harper. What he has in smarts he desperately lacks in political graces. He’s become rude and inelegant. And his stock has fallen mightily. He was also a sore loser when his constituents kicked him out of the commons last year. It’s too bad. At one point, when he our ambasador to Afghanistan, I imagined that he might make a good leader of the Conservative party and given his roots, might even pull it back towards a progressive conservative agenda. He’s a disappointment of the highest order.
So I’m kind of personally invested in this strange campaign, which brought me to reading up on Kevin O’Leary this evening.
It’s interesting to read Kevin O’Leary’s Wikipedia biography. What stands out for me is how he basically has experience as a software developer, a celebrity and a finance guy. But look a bit deeper and you see that his software career included creating a product and companies that eventually created a massive catastrophe for Mattel, who bought his company, made him a multi millionaire and imediately went into a tail spin. He walked away golden while a massive company and the enterprise he built swiftly crumbled, wiping $3 billion of shareholder value of the books of Mattel. he parlayed that fortune into an investing career.
His investment strategies are heavily tilted to the oil and gas sector, which makes his recent pronouncements against carbon taxes to be self-interested at best. If he runs for office, it wil be interesting to see how he handles the conflict of interest issues that will come up as a candidate and later an MP, should he make it that far.
On the experience side I’m struck by how little experience he has with economics or governance, having never studied or served in those capacities. He certainly comes across as a financial whiz as a pundit, but he offers his takes on taxes, Canadian dollar valuation and enterprise from a business angle, not an economics angle. Remember that the Tories chastised Trudeau for being inexperienced. O’Leary is well known as a celebrity and a talker, but I don’t see much in the way of public service on his resume. He doesn’t even seem to be into philanthropy at all.
Lastly it is curious on his official website that he talks about his father’s ethnic Irish ancestry, but only mentions his mother’s family’s merchant background and not that they are also Lebanese. I actually think that’s an interesting aspect of his background and it seems a shame he doesn’t talk more about it. Perhaps he does in his books.
He’s an interesting character once you dive in. I find him rakish and irritating, short tempered and egotistical, all qualities that seem to have a place on Bay Street, but are grating on Wellington Street. I really think this crop of Conservative leardership candidates is weak sauce, and I fear that the party will go the Trump route and pick him because of his brashness. This, however is not a time for a celebrity self-promoter to be in power as prime minister of Canada, but the Conservative party seems to have a bare cupboard at the moment.
The world is in a weird place right now and a guy like O’Leary might appeal to Canadians desperate to have their own Trump. Some of this crowd would probably elect Don Cherry if he ran, or resurrect Rob Ford if they could, the man who was John the Baptist to Trump’s Christ. O’Leary is nothing more than a huckster, full of his father’s Irish charm and his own inflated sense of self-importance. Good god, public governance is in desperate times.