Worth the Fee to Read It

“Surely you’re not saying that anyone should be able to use their fortune to buy so much advertising that they can force us to do what they want?”, said an interlocutor earlier this week, when I suggested that the public sector unions in BC were absolutely right to be fighting the Campbell Government’s gag laws on public expression in the half year leading up to the next provincial election.

Yes, I am. In fact, I’m insisting on it.

In this, of course, I find myself championing the same sort of freedom of expression once championed — no longer, apparently — by our Prime Minister in his days at the National Citizens’ Coalition. A free people need the ability to communicate their views to others. In this era of the Internet, where anyone can open a blog or build a web page and attempt to get people to view it by using Adwords or some other matching program, what election “communication restriction” regulations and laws do is essentially say “your stated and historic rights to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly (it is often illegal to even advertise a meeting on a political issue near an election), or freedom of the press (if I’m paying for the publication, such as in blogging, I “own” a press) aren’t worth the paper we wrote them on.”

Canadians may not have had a revolution and subsequent period of Constitution-writing to enshrine the principle that Government is the servant of the People and not the other way around as did the Americans, but from Magna Carta onward that is the thrust and summation of our own history. By calling, in the 1840s, for responsible government, Baldwin and LaFontaine set Canada on a course where we people would determine the form and content of our government, not accept what was given by “our betters”, the Crown or the Family Compact. By passing the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960, then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker encoded this into Canadian law. Section 2 of the Charter further encoded these rights, by making them Constitutional Law rather than Statute Law.

Our bureaucratic masters and political betters — as they most assuredly do think of themselves (the 2006 election’s outburst by Scott Read, the infamous “beer and popcorn” dismissal of the individual Canadian’s ability to make a decision on their own, was bad politics, and no accident: it reflects perfectly this type of thinking) — of course point to Section 1 of the Charter and say “these are reasonable limits”. But are they?

Who is protected by limiting my ability to speak out on issues in the lead-up to an election? Fundamentally, it’s not even the politicians themselves who are protected: it is their parties and the campaigns they run. This is hardly in the class of a “reasonable limit” — unless you live in the courtier society where senior bureaucrats and senior party figures intermingle, and where campaign tactics are worked out. There, anything that disturbs the planned schedule of sound bites, photo ops and “messaging moments” and the smooth working of the spin machine needs to be pushed aside. Imagine, having to actually have an unplanned, unscheduled “reaction” to events! (As for the bureaucrats, the sine qua non of civil service life, born out of the mantra “never have the Minister have to answer a question about us in the House”, is that no information should be shared, no thinking aloud is tolerated, and nothing that hasn’t come through the policy development process, i.e. through approved channels or via a co-operative quango or think tank, should ever enter the public’s consciousness.)

Sorry. In the wonderful words given to the fictional and immoral British politician, Sir Francis Urquhart in Michael Dobbs’ series House of Cards—To Play the King—The Final Cut, “you might think that; I couldn’t possibly comment”. Your gag laws, of course, are designed to make that so: by force, you overblown champions of self-importance and confusers of personal, party and national interest will ensure that the second part of that statement is made true.

But it isn’t so: the onus is on those who would restrict our freedom of speech, of publication, of assembly to demonstrate the reasonableness of their limits prior to implementation, not by imposing the regulations and forcing us to — “when allowed” — fight them at our own expense (You worry about the monied buying up advertising? Have you priced the cost — in money, time and emotional toil, not to mention “collateral damage” to business interests and personal reputation — of spending years fighting the near-infinite resources of “the Government”? Few of us can afford it, no matter how many hours of pro bono legal help we receive!). Or, of course, defy them and engage in a Gandhi-like struggle with civil authority through deliberate civil disobedience.

I’ve no particular message I want to champion throughout the upcoming BC election period, or during the next Federal election period. But I am a blogger. However many or few readers my written thoughts might reach, entertain and influence, what both the regulations of Elections Canada and the new gag regulations in British Columbia say is that, for the relevant period, I must censor myself. I must avoid topics I might want to write about, that are “my right” on one day and “illegal” on the next.

(No doubt the next response to that little anomaly will be to further restrict what can be discussed all the time. There is already a chill that has settled in around aspects of public security — how many of us who fly from time to time on business are willing to risk arguing that the practices of CATSA or the US TSA are ineffective, idiotic, often at odds with our fundamental rights, etc. knowing that the “No Fly” list is arbitrarily established and changed and that the functionary who puts you on it, or who forbids you to travel, need not justify their decision. That is but one example of how restrictions multiply — and rapidly — to the point where people yield their rights and become the Servant to the Master.)

What’s interesting about this whole “gag” situation is that it will be absolutely all right to comment on events — “at yesterday’s bus tour stop in front of the closed plant in Ontario, So-and-So gave a speech that was completely off topic” will be acceptable comment — but not to discuss the issue brought up in that speech if it strays beyond reporting. Analysis, for instance, of a taxation proposal could veer over a line (set only after publication by a faceless bureaucrat, no doubt acting on a complaint from a party campaign official) and be deemed to be in the banned zone, being (in their bureaucratic estimation) “the equivalent of campaign advertising without being associated with a duly authorised campaign”. The expression “gag me with a spoon” is, alas, far too close to the truth here to be comfortable; the thinking, of course, is vintage 20th century Fascist or Marxist at the core (the two ends of the spectrum do nicely wrap together, differing only on details of how the people are to be disposed of for the benefit of the rulers of the state, but agreeing entirely on basic principles).

So, too, a philosophical examination of the purpose of government, the restrictions that should be placed on lawmakers, etc., could all be seen — easily, too: witness the legal battles of the aforementioned National Citizens’ Coalition — as “equivalent to campaigning”. These are all things I have published on here and on previous blogs I have had that are legal today, and illegal tomorrow, for no reason other than political comfort. Of course, actually writing — during the “blackout” period — something along the line of one of my prior pieces on why it may be more appropriate to spoil your ballot, or to formally abstain from voting, is already banned.

Notice, too, that in British Columbia it is the public sector unions who stand essentially alone in this fight. Politically, a fair distance along the spectrum of options from the National Citizens’ Coalition in its national fights on the subject, but in both cases organizations that feel silenced by these regulations to gag them. Note, too, that the one everyone fears — “big business” — is absolutely silent. Why not? Their access already exists. A wag once defined a “business politician” as “one who stays bought”. You don’t need to spend a cent on advertising your position if you’ve already sold your case — and your opponents are barred from speaking out against it. This, at the end of the day, is further evidence in favour of the notion that election gag laws are not about money at all, but about silencing those who would upset totally-planned campaigns.

After the US Constitutional Convention closed in 1787, Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said that the attendees had given Americans “a Republic, if you can keep it”. Peace, order and good government — our Canadian framing statement — likewise requires us to keep it: governments that gag us are not giving us good government. It’s up to us to keep it.

Bring down the gag laws. Refuse to be silent in the face of them. Refuse to bend your neck to those who would be your master. They serve you, not the other way around.

We are only the True North Strong and Free until we fail to Stand on Guard to make it so.

There have been a fair number of hands wrung in public about poor voter turnout at all levels of government, lately, but nothing much done about improving the situation. It’s not my intention today to try and solve all the problems in politics in Canada within 1,200 words or so — talk about trying to boil the ocean! — but to focus on just one factor:

The disenfranchised see no point in voting

What do I mean, “the disenfranchised”? Well, simply put, if you conclude that (a) the system now only turns on leaders of parties — not even the party and the rest of its cadre of candidates, but simply X, Leader of Y —, (b) once elected, leaders see no responsibility to the electors to honour their commitments, (c) once elected, leaders see no reason to invest energy in persuading us that a course change is the reasoned thing to do but simply impose the change, (d) once elected, public opinion — unless loud and highly persistent — is brushed off as “the ravings of the uninformed who should leave such matters to their betters”, and (e) the system is now so complex that getting anything done within it is a matter for intermediaries, fixers, professional supplicants and courtiers, then (f) why bother with the charade of voting?

I had always been a dedicated citizen: studying the issues, paying attention to my local candidates, avoiding reflexive party voting, trying to cast a reasoned ballot. I have followed political matters between elections; I have belonged to multiple parties over my life (if only as a financial supporter).

Living outside of Canada twice, however, forced me to realize — years later — that whilst I lived in the United States and in the Netherlands, places where I was outside the political process (not being a citizen), that I didn’t actually miss much. Things unfolded in both countries exactly as they would have had I been able to get involved, and been involved. In other words, despite all the object lessons that one vote matters, whether these be in Florida in 2000 or in Vancouver-Quadra two weeks ago, the reality was that all it mattered for was “who got to win and who got to lose”. In terms of how the national landscapes unfold, it didn’t make a whit of difference.

So, too, here in Canada — in British Columbia — in the City of Vancouver. There is no reason to be “for” anything, for there is no result obtainable 99% of the time by being “against”. Whether one is choosing positively, or simply voting to “toss the bahstids out”, makes no difference. The system trundles on, unaffected.

See how the Harper Government has been co-opted by the “Ottawa consensus” of the civil service, the central provinces’ leaders and “conventional wisdom”. See how the Federal Liberals still fail to recognize that their day as the “Natural Governing Party” died ages ago — with John Turner — and that Chrétien was an aberration brought about by the last rebellion of the voters breaking up the Progressive Conservative coalition, not the attractions of Chrétien at all (or of Martin in succession, who no longer had a divided opposition to face off against). Enough said: the stately dance continues.

Then there’s the mess in British Columbia, where we have a left:right political rationalisation completed for generations, and therefore a sense of entitlement on the majority side (the “right”). Why not? — far too many people in BC would rather die than vote for “the left” (whatever that is, these days: it’s certainly not what they think it is) no matter how crooked, dismal, abysmal, arrogant, expensive, etc. the “right” becomes. Enough said: without the threat of discipline, politics will run amuck.

Or how about the City of Vancouver. Wardless — oh, how that helps the NPA hold power! — and with neither side needing to offer anything to anyone who lives here. Unless, of course, you’re a developer, in which case have at the city and put up more ugliness. This city deserves the low-life that is Sam the Sham, Mayor of all the “people that count”.

If there was any level of government that ought to have given an opportunity to have influence, it ought to be the one closest to home — the municipal. But none of us do. At the end of the day, a municipal ballot is a long list of candidates, and no more. No wonder people block vote by party — or, as do about two out of three, ignore the whole thing. There’s no point. Taxes will rise, services will be chopped, streets will stay in deplorable state, and “prestige” will be all that matters.

Our political leaders, by making this all about themselves over the years (perhaps a good “Kicking Liberal Ass for the Good of Canadian Politics” aimed at the likes of Senator Keith Davey, Warren Kinsella and the likes is in order, if only to let off steam for their tactics of debasement), has broken faith with the institutions of responsible government. Responsible to Parliament? Three-line whips for almost every vote, trained seal tactics in the House, message management outside of it and a “who gives a damn who the candidate is” towards the constituency MP have destroyed that responsibility, which is founded in, and survives via, backbench rebellion. Responsible to the citizens? Hardly: Jeffrey Simpson was right, we elect “Friendly Dictators”, regardless of majority status or party affiliation.

That’s why we’re not supposed to talk policy, but instead positions. Why we’re not supposed to criticize, but to trash opponents. Why there are emerging “affiliation tests” across the blogosphere, and a growing hostility and refusal to see one’s challengers over a course of action as your equal and worthy of consideration and respect even in disagreement.

The MSM has their part to play in turning everything to the simple story line of a horse-race, and backroom intrigue, of course, but we put up with it, don’t we? If you don’t like the way CTV or the CBC cover matters, turn the television off — and keep it off. But we won’t do it. We deserve the outcome, the way we act.

Meanwhile, the more rational amongst Canadian citizens have checked out. They spend their time on other matters. Increasingly, an election is given and “no one shows up”. This allows the more rabidly partisan to use ever-smaller numbers to “win” — and thus reinforce the politics of position and shouting as opposed to debate and consideration. The cycle intensifies.

Eventually democracy itself will be lost, if only from a lack of interest. But that is form finally catching up to function. Democracy as a function of the political mind-set was lost a long time ago.

I doubt many will actually miss it when it goes.

A day or two ago, a commenter on my “Hoist on their Petards” series on the Federal party leaders suggested that he disagreed with my “theory of government” and “what government is for”. Considering I hadn’t laid one out there, that was a surprising comment! Yet the reality is that each of us comes to the table with some idea of what the role of government ought to be.

This is, for instance, at the core of much of the sheer, unadulterated emotion that surrounds the party leaders. (I wanted to originally type “hatred” but thought better of it.)

If, for instance, you believe that fixing the ills of society is part of the role of government — that, indeed, this is the unique agency that can do so — then you are likely to have a visceral reaction against any politician who goes on the record as saying the role of government should be limited. Thus, we get the “Harper must be defeated” crowd seizing upon every passing day’s news to make their point: the Prime Minister has acted on his beliefs and chained (to some extent) the Federal Government’s ability to meddle in new program areas, any of which could qualify as an ill to be fixed. The belief then drives the reaction.

Some of my own beliefs, of course, leaked out there (just as they do in the rest of my political writing): I don’t believe that every issues requires government intervention, and thus am quite comfortable with the thought of limited government, even if those “ills” are not ameliorated.

It would nice, I suppose, to live in Galt’s Gulch (Ayn Rand’s depiction of a society of purely rational interactions between people in Atlas Shruged — she portrayed it as a situation where a laissez-faire society still protected the commonweal) but the philosopher in me is acutely aware that man is not a rational animal, but a rationalizing one. Far more accurate, then, is Jane Jacobs’ portrayal of the situation in her Systems of Survival, where she teases apart what she calls the “commercial code” (that which is closest to the libertarian ideal) and the “guardian code” (that of government as the guardian of all things). The real world, of course, is a constant tug-of-war between these two codes: even under the darkest days of Stalinism some elements of the commercial code were still in play, and, of course, a purely libertarian code has never been tried, despite the claims that it has.

In the real world, therefore, beyond the basics of a legal code, policing and military protection of the citizens, and a judicial system, it is necessary for government to intervene to deal with matters of the commons. There are many “tragedy of the commons” issues that sometimes require a little carefully focused regulation, or the creation of an apparently commercial yet mandatory system to intervene and redirect behaviour which is advantageous to the individual but destructive of society in general. Recent concerns over pollution, global warming and environmental destruction fall into this camp. Creating and requiring the use of a carbon credit system, or a carbon taxing system, and a set of regulations about discharge (for water, I particularly like the notion that your intake must be downstream from your outflow [now you figure out how clean you want to make it, and how]) are examples of a little guardianship over shared resources. So, too, does the concept of zoning: carried to the suburban extreme it becomes the agent of environmental and societal destruction, but it is appropriate to ensure a rendering plant or mini mill can’t be erected in my neighbour’s back yard on my residential street. These are two examples — there are others we can think of — that protect the commonweal and thus make for reasonable restrictions on free action in society.

Incidentally, to those who say in return that a purely commercial set of alternatives to work this out could be devised, I say “yes, rationally they could, but man is a rationalizing animal, always ready to find an excuse not to do the right thing for all of us if it inconveniences him personally”.

There are other kinds of intervention that may be more problematic. Do we, for instance, benefit from — or lose by — requirements for Canadian ownership of certain industries, Canadian content on our airwaves, and the like? If you believe, as I do, that there is value in Canadian identity, then actions to preserve a space for Canadians to shape that identity culturally make sense, although, as with many things, they ought not to take on a life of their own: we should periodically challenge them if only to ensure they are still a net benefit. This is the challenge of being a smallish nation (by numbers and economic clout) next door to a large and civilisationally-dominant one, where it is almost always easier to simply “buy their choices” than pay the premium for developing our own. But each such intervention in Canadians’ freedom to choose must be carefully examined. Other interventions include the public building of national infrastructure: it may be necessary, with our surfeit of near-empty geography, to give such infrastructure a boost into existence and early operation through the public sector, but, as growth takes over, moving these into the private sector then makes sense: the resulting institutions can stand on their own (and should, say I). Remember, the world’s largest railway is now Canadian National — and it is so via its choices to buy American lines from their former owners and use their expertise to improve the service offered on them.

There are other areas which are almost never (in my view) appropriate for government involvement. Those who believe in government as the saving grace of society will disagree with this position. We should not be creating and fostering dependency in the First Nations. We should not be building a national day care system. We should not be force-feeding “innovation” as a set of market distortions: those that can play the grant and loan application game get funding; those that play by commercial rules fall behind. My reasons are philosophic: the government that governs best does so by focusing its attentions. None of these are essential interventions: they are all in the “pet project” category.

And every one of these restricts Canadians’ choices, limits their horizons, eats into their possibilities, more than it does good. They are, in other words, a net loss — and always will be.

Finally, it is important to remember that we have also established, at the core of our governance, some key rules — we call them our Constitution. In there is a division of labour amongst our governments. It is therefore proper for each government to function only within its domains. Provinces with grand ambitions ought not to simply assume the Federal Government owes them the difference. The Federal Government, in its eternal quest to remain relevant to Canadians (after all, all the interesting things from a citizen’s point of view are municipal or provincial according to our Constitution), needs to avoid meddling in the affairs of the provinces. Will this mean some provinces might have better services than others? Yes. The whole point of provinces, at the end of the day, is to celebrate difference. This one believes in far more government: let it. This one chooses a more libertarian outlook: let it. Citizens will make their own choices about where to live based on their preferred balance between liberty and governance. This is as it should be: the commercial and guardian codes are always tipping out of balance in their engagement and overlap with one another, and no jurisdiction’s current approach remains “right” for long. Yet all can stay within one nation, with all the benefits that provides.

Compared to those who would use government to enforce a particular view of economic life, or of social mores, upon the population, I side with liberty. Compared to pure libertarians, I recognise the imperfection of man (and his inherent imperfectibility) and recognise a need for some government. Add to this the notion that change should be made slowly and with a keen eye on our traditions — what makes us, us — and there you have my Tory political philosophy. Certainly not Conservative (although there is much common cause there), Green (but not to the point of Social Engineering), with the sense of social justice that is the old CCF strain in the NDP (prairie NDP, if you will) but tempered by always challenging guardianship. Not at all opportunistic as the Liberals tend to be, championing interventions for short-term reasons.

The current government has many failings, but, of all the parties on offer as they are today, it is the least worst option. That is my answer to my commenter of a few days ago.

If you could deliver the same benefits with less than one quarter the overhead, wouldn’t you?

Dr. Roy Eappen posted a piece this morning about Senator Hugh Segal’s speech at the Fraser Institute in Montréal yesterday. In it, the Senator made his case for a negative income tax form of guaranteed annual income to replace the current multitude of income assistance programmes in effect.

It’s not my point today to speak for or against this particular notion. Rather, something that I think does need a good airing is the cost and complexity of all sorts of programmes. These include on the government’s income side (taxation, worker’s compensation and the like) quite as much as on the expenditures side.

Human beings constantly complexify things. Take, for instance, the many calls for a flat tax régime. That sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? — a tax return the size of a postcard. No real questions of interpretation, or so it might seem. Unfortunately, three different forces come into play.

First, taxpayers (quite rightly!) look to minimize the taxes they pay. However income is defined, grey areas will exist. There will therefore be a need to question even simple declarations of income and taxes to be paid. Second, tax administration will, as each grey area is subjected to scrutiny, require more documentation (and therefore more people to file, organize, study, etc. that documentation), and as administrative rulings and Tax Court findings pile up more and more interpretation enters the system. Third, the political will to stick to the basics is tested regularly: an education “push” leads to an education deduction, a demographic “push” leads to a family deduction, questions of fairness lead to complexity (e.g. joint returns, poverty-line protections, etc.) and the net effect is that soon the massive infrastructure of our tax code and the thousands of people employed in handling it, plus the loss of time and energy we are all put through building our tax bundles each year, has been recreated.

This leads us to an important point: politics should be as much if not more about stripping back this complexity as about giving us new “goodies” to swoon over (or, at the very least, extend a vote for).

Laws passed should have sunset provisions. Universally. It may seem frivolous to, for instance, have sunset provisions on our laws concerning murder — “who in their right mind would want to overturn those?” — but think just for a moment about the intersection of foetal viability and the question “is it murder?”, the question of voluntarily deciding to end one’s own suffering but being in a state where someone else must assist and the question “is it murder?”, the nine-year-old who, in full premeditation, takes another’s life and the question “is it murder in the same sense as if a twenty-two-year-old had done it?”, or the question of Tasering as a routine first response, and the complexity of writing a viable code about the taking of another’s life becomes visible. The need to redebate these periodically is foregone in today’s code — we simply pile yet more into it — rather than going through it, cleaning it up, making limits clear.

The science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, in his book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, has his character, rational anarchist Professor Bernardo de la Paz, offer the following thought: perhaps laws should require a two-thirds majority to be passed, and a one-third “majority” to be repealed. The idea here is that if 33% of the population is at odds with a provision it needs to be rethought. The character also called for universal sunset provisions, forcing items to be redebated.

Alas, in the story, these provisions were not a part of their nation-building, but then few who take on the job of writing constitutions see themselves as trying to make it as difficult as possible to do something. Instead, they focus on what can be done — and the complexity piles up and up until finally the structure topples under its own weight. We call that revolution, whether it comes piece-meal as in the British tradition (although the Blairite revisions to the Lords, to devolution and to the mechanisms of measurement in recent years ought to have been considered revolutionary rather than evolutionary) or with periodic sound and fury, as is most of the rest of the world’s experience.

When we lived in The Netherlands in the late 1990s, there was an interesting provision in its tax laws: a maximum percentage of income to be paid out in taxes. If the combination of VAT, municipal levies, specific imposts and income tax added up to more than the maximum, you lowered your income tax to the maximum. This still required all the record-keeping, documentation (and a small army of people in the Belastingdienst (equivalent to the Revenue Agency)), but at least it set a limit — even if it was around 68%! — on what various governments could take. It recognized “one taxpayer”.

I tell this story because, in a federal system, the interactions between the parts do ultimately come down to “one taxpayer”, yet the various levels of government do not co-ordinate well between themselves. (Aside from TILMA in Alberta and British Columbia, there isn’t even a single market and single regulatory régime shared between provinces, although we have such an agreement with multiple countries!) What this suggests to me is — and wait for the screams of anguish from provincialists coast-to-coast — the single most important power in the Canadian Constitution just might be Section 47, the provision to allow the Federal Government to disallow provincial legislation (and, since the provinces in turn control municipalities, therefore to disallow elements of municipal charters and enabled municipal actions requiring provincial approval, e.g. with the Ontario Municipal Board).

Why does this matter? Suppose our Senate took sober second thought seriously, and worked primarily to repeal legislation passed by the Commons? Suppose our House of Commons tirelessly worked to prune provincial legislation? What kind of country might this be?

For those who believe that only government can make things happen, of course, this would be anathema. But for those of us who believe in individual initiative, such a process might be quite liberating. In any event, it is a thought experiment, but one worth spending time to think about.

This is why Senator Segal’s thoughts on negative income taxes are worth considering. It is simplifying. It might not be a good policy — as always, the devil is in the details — but it cuts through a thicket of vines that have grown up with many point solutions. Just as with a more general pruning of the legal thickets, a severe reduction in form-filling and compliance regulations, tax reduction (those who are regular readers know I am a proponent of tax elimination: keep one type of tax per level of government and get rid of all the rest — and add the Dutch limit to keep the combination at a sensible total outlay) and other forms of repeal/sunset clearing away, Senator Segal proposes something that should have less overhead, less cost to deliver — and thus be more effective at using our money.

At every step, ask the question: does this simplify things, or make them more complex? Even if you are emotionally committed to alternatives — as Dr. Roy admitted, in his posting, he is — consider the simple carefully before rejecting it. If we can’t clean the Augean stables of public policy easily, we could at the very least not add to the mess.

It’s not news, of course, that the electors of BC will be offered the chance to vote again on changing the method of voting in the province from first-past-the-post to the single transferrable vote (STV) at the next election in May, 2009. What is news is that we’re starting to hear about it early enough, this time, to make a difference — well, that and the $1,000,000 fund the Province is providing to be shared out amongst both groups pro- and a’gin- the change. The rules are pretty much the same: the referendum vote must get at least 60% positive response across the province as a whole (last time was 57%) and a majority of ridings must vote in favour (last time, all but a handful did so). Good conditions, I think, and, what’s more important, a change on offer to vote for.

There’ll be a lot said about STV and proportional representation in general over the year ahead. First of all, if you’re not familiar with STV itself, Wikipedia does its usual good job of laying out the facts, both as to how it works and where it’s in use (a growing and surprising list); the group-built encyclopaedia also comes through with an article about the specific form of STV proposed for BC by the Citizens’ Assembly for the 2005 Referendum.

Why the Single Transferrable Vote?

In a word, to decrease the power of political parties. This won’t happen overnight, of course: many of us are deeply conditioned, at the moment, to “vote the party” rather than give the candidate on offer much scrutiny. STV attacks the centrality of parties in two ways. First, because each riding becomes a multi-member constituency (the number of members varying by the geographic size of the riding and the population that encompasses), some ridings could have as many as seven members: however, even in the northern ridings, which are geographically large and thus (by population) have only two members on offer, the voter can now throw one vote toward his or her party of preference and still have one (or more) to consider. Although parties can, under STV’s rules, offer enough candidates to “take all the slots” in the riding, this — as with wardless municipal systems (such as Vancouver has) — is more likely to see some selection of “opposition members” of quality, and perhaps even an Independent member or two. When parties must offer candidates of quality, these candidates, in turn, have support beyond the caucus, and thus can become a little less dependent and slavish. The second reason this weakens parties is that gaining a party nomination becomes less “fraught” with meeting the terms of the process. It’s harder, for instance, to pack the nominating meeting for five candidates. Party leaders who override the riding association to parachute in a candidate now are more likely to see that candidate “flame out” if they’re not wanted locally, as the choice is not reduced (as it is today) to “vote for the party and suck up the candidate, or deny the candidate and fail to support the party”. Both of these mean that, over time, more diversity of positions amongst candidates should emerge: candidate platforms, as opposed to party platforms, take on some meaning.

What’s Wrong with Other Types of PR System?

Ontario, last fall, turned down a common form of proportional representation called Mixed Member Proportional Representation. Unlike STV in BC — which missed only on the popular vote criterion (and that by 3%) and was widely supported in all regions of the province, the electors of Ontario heavily defeated the move to MMPR. In this system, the traditional “one member elected per riding” is supplemented by members drawn from lists created by political parties in proportion to the parties’ popular votes. This, unlike STV, strengthens the hand of party administration and discipline: a high position on the party list can seat a member, so slavishly following the party’s line is amply rewarded. (Riding-based members, of course, would face the same conditions as today.) What is worse is that should the electors of a riding association vote down an incumbent, or should the voters on election day in that riding defeat an incumbent, placing them high on the party list simply overrides the popular result and returns them to the House. There are already far too many institutional supports to incumbency, from fund-raising, to name recognition, to rules about not having to face challengers: we do not need to add to these by ensuring that electeds have a job for life.

The other failing of MMPR, in my view, is that it perpetuates the simplistic view of political support we already “enjoy” with first-past-the-post. Voting for a candidate in a riding still looks like needing to vote for a party. There is no more scope for Independents to succeed than exists today. (STV breaks this connection by requiring that multiple candidates become elected, thus signalling that there are choices to make beyond a “my party” or “not that party” binary.) MPR systems can, of course, ask for two votes — one for a local candidate, and one for a party of government (which becomes the source of “list” member selection) — but party affiliations for riding candidates keep that part of the system unchanged from what we currently have.

Is There a Reason to Keep First-Past-the-Post?

I’m not a huge believer in the notion that the failing of FPTP is in the divergence of results between the popular vote and the ridings won. What FPTP does do, however, is over-reward parties that can concentrate their vote, plus one party of pan-region (province or national) scope. It is a system that serves best with a minimal number of parties. When parties with roughly-equal prospects across all ridings compete against parties that can concentrate their vote into just a few ridings, the resulting House is often highly divided — and with a high concentration of members who have slim-to-no chance of reaching government, and therefore need feel no responsibility for the traditions of governance nor the health of political institutions. (One need only think of the destruction of the Mulroney-era Progressive Conservative coalition at the hands of Preston Manning and Lucien Bouchard to see the results of that type of outcome.)

Coalitions and Minorities

The fundamental difference between parties in coalition and a minority government is in how Cabinet roles are handled: Coalition partners generally get one or more Ministries (and nominate the minister); in minority government, legislation must be crafted that can avoid a loss of confidence. On the whole our Parliamentary system would work best when some form of functioning minority government was created. This can be done by setting rules for “party recognition”, seating members elected on a party label that fails to meet the “cut” as Independents (in effect). As coalition experience shows, the same coalitions can stay in power for decades without real change, although there is a steady froth of governmental collapses and re-formings that occur. Ideally, the new House could meet immediately after an election, not months later while the partners bicker over the spoils. The point here is that moving to a PR system need not lead to “European style government” (which isn’t Queen-in-Parliament in any case).

Where I Stand

I’ve previously shared my disdain for the system as it currently exists. Yet, true Tory that I am, I do not promote change for its own sake. I would vote down MMPR in a heartbeat: FPTP is not that broken! — and I do not want to see us change our basic tradition of responsible government (Ministers responsible to the House, in other words). STV, on the other hand, strengthens that tradition (in my view), without requiring legislation to do the impossible, i.e. ban factions banding together (i.e. parties). I support, therefore, the Campbell Government’s putting STV back in front of BC voters in 2009 — and this time, may it pass.