There’s nothing like the fear of recession to make us yearn for stability, for the tried and un-true. So voters cast ballots in three provinces this week for the "same old, same old." Incumbent premiers were returned in Prince Edward Island (Robert Ghiz). Ontario (Dalton McGuinty) and Manitoba (Greg What’s His Name?).
And while Canadians continue to fret about their meagre savings, large debts and underfunded pensions, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives continue to attack the status quo with all the weapons in their legislative arsenal. This week’s provincial elections might show that voters want stability, but the government of Canada wants change.
The latest salvo from the Conservatives came with the introduction of a measure, dear to the prime minister’s heart, that would kill the $2-per-vote subsidy paid to political parties in Canada. This provision was buried deep in the monster known as the Keeping Canada’s Economy and Jobs Growing Act. (Elegant title that: Can a job grow, or does it just get more demanding?)
A lot of blather has been uttered on both sides of the vote-subsidy debate. Some people (me, for instance) ask why taxpayers should support political parties as a matter of law rather than a matter of choice. Others say that distributing money to political parties on the basis of their actual electoral results is about as sensible as it gets.
Let’s leave the debate behind for a minute and look instead at the impact of the proposed change. What the loss of subsidy will do is weaken the centre of Canadian politics. Traditionally, this was the territory occupied by the Liberal Party of Canada.
The trouble with trying to hold the centre — to strive for consensus, to find common ground, to let good sense and muddling-through get you by — is that no one is passionate about the middle of the road.
And no one digs into their pockets for political parties that dare to take a stand on behalf of the bland. Take public support away from centrist parties, and they tend to wither. (Mind you, the federal Liberals are now doing a pretty good job of disappearing without any help from the outside world.)
You can see the beauty of this if you’re a Conservative inside a nation whose citizens are growing older as their values turn more — well — conservative. Better to fight the idealistic left than the pragmatic centre.
Today, the two federal political parties that look best equipped to thrive in this new world order are the ruling Conservatives on the right and the Opposition New Democrats on the left. These two parties are not fighting for middle ground but battling for their corners. Each is also good at raising money.
Another piece of legislation, now before the Commons, may well undermine the NDP’s ability to do just that. This bit of mischief, a private member’s bill sponsored by a Conservative, would force labour unions — traditional allies of the NDP — to open up their books to public scrutiny.
This is another example of high principle offered up in support of low political purpose. Hard to argue with the principle here: Unions, like charities, enjoy tax benefits that all Canadians subsidize. One quick example: Union dues are exempt from taxation. Ergo, unions (like charities) should be compelled by law to disclose their financial records and tax returns in a very public place, the website of the Canada Revenue Agency.
This brings us back to the crass political purpose underlying the high principle, and how sweet it all is if you are a Conservative. In the best of all worlds, union leaders will have their salaries posted publicly while members sweat it out on the picket lines. And we will all get to see (more easily) how much money unions contribute to the NDP.
I guess I should be outraged by all this, but — like the Peter Sellers character in Being There — I seem to have reached the stage of life where I sometimes like to just watch. And what I see is that the federal Conservatives are working hard to win the next election when they’ve barely had a chance to celebrate their triumph in the last one.
And while Canadians are too worried by financial woes to pay federal politics the slightest bit of attention.
Origin
Source: Chronicle Herald
And while Canadians continue to fret about their meagre savings, large debts and underfunded pensions, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives continue to attack the status quo with all the weapons in their legislative arsenal. This week’s provincial elections might show that voters want stability, but the government of Canada wants change.
The latest salvo from the Conservatives came with the introduction of a measure, dear to the prime minister’s heart, that would kill the $2-per-vote subsidy paid to political parties in Canada. This provision was buried deep in the monster known as the Keeping Canada’s Economy and Jobs Growing Act. (Elegant title that: Can a job grow, or does it just get more demanding?)
A lot of blather has been uttered on both sides of the vote-subsidy debate. Some people (me, for instance) ask why taxpayers should support political parties as a matter of law rather than a matter of choice. Others say that distributing money to political parties on the basis of their actual electoral results is about as sensible as it gets.
Let’s leave the debate behind for a minute and look instead at the impact of the proposed change. What the loss of subsidy will do is weaken the centre of Canadian politics. Traditionally, this was the territory occupied by the Liberal Party of Canada.
The trouble with trying to hold the centre — to strive for consensus, to find common ground, to let good sense and muddling-through get you by — is that no one is passionate about the middle of the road.
And no one digs into their pockets for political parties that dare to take a stand on behalf of the bland. Take public support away from centrist parties, and they tend to wither. (Mind you, the federal Liberals are now doing a pretty good job of disappearing without any help from the outside world.)
You can see the beauty of this if you’re a Conservative inside a nation whose citizens are growing older as their values turn more — well — conservative. Better to fight the idealistic left than the pragmatic centre.
Today, the two federal political parties that look best equipped to thrive in this new world order are the ruling Conservatives on the right and the Opposition New Democrats on the left. These two parties are not fighting for middle ground but battling for their corners. Each is also good at raising money.
Another piece of legislation, now before the Commons, may well undermine the NDP’s ability to do just that. This bit of mischief, a private member’s bill sponsored by a Conservative, would force labour unions — traditional allies of the NDP — to open up their books to public scrutiny.
This is another example of high principle offered up in support of low political purpose. Hard to argue with the principle here: Unions, like charities, enjoy tax benefits that all Canadians subsidize. One quick example: Union dues are exempt from taxation. Ergo, unions (like charities) should be compelled by law to disclose their financial records and tax returns in a very public place, the website of the Canada Revenue Agency.
This brings us back to the crass political purpose underlying the high principle, and how sweet it all is if you are a Conservative. In the best of all worlds, union leaders will have their salaries posted publicly while members sweat it out on the picket lines. And we will all get to see (more easily) how much money unions contribute to the NDP.
I guess I should be outraged by all this, but — like the Peter Sellers character in Being There — I seem to have reached the stage of life where I sometimes like to just watch. And what I see is that the federal Conservatives are working hard to win the next election when they’ve barely had a chance to celebrate their triumph in the last one.
And while Canadians are too worried by financial woes to pay federal politics the slightest bit of attention.
Origin
Source: Chronicle Herald
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