Avalon

or
The Man of Steele

I recently went to the Upper Tantallon public consultation on Nova Scotia’s fiscal crisis hosted by Finance Minister The Honourable Graham Steele. I met with a few from Taxed Enough Nova Scotians (TENS) an hour before the meeting at the local Tim’s and serendipitously Mr. Steele and his assistant were also there, so we had a impromptu discussion.

He is affable and open, as was the consultation. The turnout was good with a great cross section of the public and they all appeared to have an earnest interest in the topic at hand. A brief overview of the problem by the Minister; our growing mismatch between expenses (growing 5% a year regardless of income growth) and income, followed by small group discussion on solutions. Each table was tasked with answering these four questions:

1. What should government do to increase revenues and reduce spending?
2. What changes should be made to programs and services?
3. What investments should be made today that will help grow the economy in the long term?
4. How soon should government bring Nova Scotia’s finances back to balance?

My table had great people. Social worker, a nurse, a retired teacher, a plumber. All fine and good. However there was a problem. None of us had ever been a Nova Scotian Finance Minister! Increasing revenues is a no brainer, raise taxes. But how would any of us know how to reduce spending by the appropriate amount? There was a strong opinion, at least at my table, that spending should be cut, but how? The Finance Minister should have presented a number of reduced spending scenarios for us to discuss. Mr. Graham also, perhaps subconsciously, discouraged talk of reduced spending. Cutting health, the largest government expenditure, was described in terms of ‘denying our elderly mothers the drugs they needed’, ‘cutting beds for our retirees’, and ‘not buying the best medical equipment for sick people’. Mr. Graham said repeatedly ‘cutting spending is hard’.

Since none were presented a reduced spending option was probably never in the cards. The NDP would prefer not to do something ‘hard’. The inevitable result was a very reluctant acquiescence to higher taxes but only because no other viable alternative on the spending side was presented. And that is a shame since there is no future in this.

The political bombshell that our MLAs expensed ‘inappropriate’ items as political expenses came first, next which items belonged to who was resolved, in some cases painfully. Now as the public picks through the items we have a new issue. MLAs have gifted $332,000 of taxpayers’ money for teen dances, church events, hockey teams and charities. In what has becoming a truly disturbing trend of deny everything first then apologize only as needed throughout this whole affair, MLAs this week have been defending this practice. Can’t a MLA support the local church or community hockey team?

Of course not.

Why? Because political expenses are only for facilitating the public’s access to their representatives. Handing out ‘gifts’ puts a partisan MLA as the direct mediator of largesse thereby raising their community status as an aid for re-election. This is vote buying similar to a lot of business subsidies and regional development in this province. The only difference is the higher visibility of gifts.

Prorogation common occurrence

By MICHAEL L. MACDONALD
The Chronicle Herald Thu. Jan 28 – 4:53 AM

I am writing in response to my friend Wilfred Moore’s Jan. 23 opinion article on prorogation.

Parliament’s return on March 3 marks the 105th time since Confederation that prorogation has provided for a throne speech to open a new session. With 105 examples in over 143 years, it’s fair to say it’s a common occurrence. Most Parliaments have two or three sessions, some as many as six or seven.

With only one previous prorogation in almost four years in office (when Prime Minister Stephen Harper rightly stopped the Liberal-NDP-Bloc “coalition” from subverting the will of the electorate), it’s not unreasonable that the PM ask for Parliament to be prorogued — as all previous prime ministers have done — to write a throne speech, shuffle the cabinet and prepare a budget.

Pierre Trudeau prorogued 11 times in 16 years; Jean Chretien four times in 10 years, including a four-month delay after Paul Martin became PM, to give Martin time to get his government ready. Newly elected governments take over within a few weeks, yet we’re asked to believe a sitting cabinet minister needed four months to set up shop!

Of course, Mr. Chretien’s true agenda was distancing himself from the auditor general’s report on the sponsorship scandal and dropping the mess into Paul Martin’s lap. I don’t recall manufactured outrage at the time by either the press or the opposition — certainly nothing resembling the contrived performance Canadians have been subjected to of late. Senator Moore was in that Liberal caucus and ignores their conduct, yet now expresses concern about an “affront to our democratic process.”

Prorogation did not “shut down Parliament” — it was already in recess. Prorogation merely extended the recess by 22 days. Prorogation doesn’t mean a prolonged shutdown of Parliament because that is not its purpose. Prorogation is a reset button — a government can prorogue and open a new Parliament on the same day if it wishes.

Suggestions that Parliament not sitting stops the business of the nation are ludicrous. I can assure Canadians that the members of the Conservative government are working — actively responding to the earthquake in Haiti and delivering the Economic Action Plan. I was in Ottawa last week with a full schedule, and am just as busy at home.

I’m surprised Senator Moore raised the issue of the consumer protection bill. Bill C-6 strengthened Canada’s product safety laws, protected Canadians by prohibiting the manufacture and importation of unsafe goods, and created the ability to order recalls of unsafe products. A good piece of legislation, it should have been passed expeditiously. Senator Moore’s Liberal colleagues in the House of Commons must have thought so too, because C-6 passed unanimously in the House.

However, in the Senate, it was attacked by the Liberals. When claiming they gave the issue “sober second thought,” perhaps they should consider this sober thought: Senators aren’t elected, at least not yet. When elected members of the House of Commons unanimously pass a bill, it’s a clear indication of what Canadians want.

Did Liberal senators get approval from their appointed leader, Michael Ignatieff, to ignore the vote of every elected MP in Canada?

Liberal MPs and senators sit in the same caucus, yet they voted against each other on this bill — surely unacceptable behaviour. This stunt, coupled with the chance now to establish a Conservative plurality in the Senate by appointing five new senators to help blunt future irresponsible conduct by the Liberals, is in itself reason enough to prorogue.

We have a minority Parliament. The government’s fate is in the hands of the opposition. If PM Harper’s conduct is so unacceptable, surely the Liberals and their coalition cohorts are obliged to defeat the government at the first opportunity, in order to rescue the country from such dire straits. If they choose to do nothing after March 3, it will certainly speak volumes about their sincerity, will it not?

Michael L. MacDonald is a Conservative senator for Nova Scotia.

I have no doubt all of what Senator MacDonald says is true. Partisanship exists and the power of prorogation (like any other power) gets used for partisan ends from time to time. Yes, the Prime Minister has the authority and it has been used many times. However this is not the point. The point is should the head of government, regardless of their political affiliation, have the power to interfere in the working of our legislatures which are tasked with overseeing and restraining government, whether at the provincial or federal level? Prorogation is a symptom of this larger problem and whether you support or condemn the current instance of it, it has had the salutary effect of causing Canadians to raise questions about how our governance system works. And that is how real reform starts. So this is a good thing.

So a $34 million exercise facility is to be built in a Conservative riding in Truro. Yes, government must invest in infrastructure but it has to be quality infrastructure that over time will help economic development, such as ports or highways or airports. Rinks and pools are clearly politically inspired low quality in-efficient infrastructure and the fitness centre and multi-purpose rooms will simply squeeze out any private competition in those areas. It just goes to show that nothing has changed here in Nova Scotia (or Canada) in terms of so-called regional development. You can spend all the money you want but if it is done badly we are further behind than if no money was spent. This has been the bane of Atlantic Canada for decades and it needs to be stopped.

There is a growing movement in Canada protesting against the proroguing of Parliament by the current Prime Minister. The Atlantica Party supports this non-partisan movement.

Prorogation hobbles the ability of the people’s representatives to oversee and restrain government. However prorogation itself is not the problem, it is a symptom of a fatal flaw in our federal and provincial styles of governance, government’s control of the legislature. Should the legislature control itself (including when it sits) or be controlled by the government it is supposed to oversee? In order to preserve our democracy we need strong independent legislatures. “How can you oversee something when that something controls you?”, asks Jonathan Dean, Leader of the Atlantica Party, “A simple policy regarding prorogation is not enough, we need a formal separation of government and legislature specified in a written constitution.”

We urge our membership and supporters and all those people concerned about our democracy to attend the anti-prorogation rally closest to you. Please also consider volunteering. There are currently events planned in Antigonish, Charlottetown, Fredericton, Halifax, Moncton, Saint John, St. John’s, Sydney, Truro, and Lunenburg.

Date: January 23ed
Time: 1pm
Location: check with your local chapter
(In Halifax Province House 1726 Hollis Street on the Granville side)

All details are available at the main website http://noprorogue.ca/

This facebook page has links to all events and all facebook groups associated with the movement.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=227662474562

Remember,

“When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is frankly when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to govern.” – Stephen Harper, Canadian Press, April 18, 2005
and

“Democracy is not something that you believe in, or something that you hang your hat on. It’s something that you do, you participate. Without participation, democracy crumbles and fails. If you participate, you win, and the future is yours.” – Abbie Hoffman
So participate and win!

Prime Minister Harper has delayed the opening of Parliament from January 25th to March 3ed. As a result many pieces of legislation die on the order paper and various committees including the Afghan detainee committee will be dissolved. Parliament was also prorogued about a year ago when a coalition was threatening to topple the Conservative government.

Our legislatures, including Parliament, are made up of representatives of the people who have the primary role of overseeing and holding government accountable. The Afghan detainee committee is a good example; a public committee asking questions about what the government may or may not have done. Without this citizens would only have the government’s version of what happened and no way of holding the government accountable. A strong independent legislature is vital to democracy.

In the U.S. the Senate and Congress perform this role much more freely and effectively due to a formal separation of powers written down in a constitution meaning the President and the government cannot control the actions of the two Houses. So after a short Christmas break both of these Houses resume work this week.

In Canada and Nova Scotia we allow government to control the legislature making it a rubber stamp assembly, especially during majority governments. Proroguing, that is switching off oversight and restraint, is simply an extension of this principle.

Discussion of prorogation should be non-partisan. The issue is whether the legislature should control itself (including when it sits) or should be controlled by the government it is supposed to oversee. If the latter then the Prime Minister or Premier should be able to open and shut down the legislature and its committees whenever convenient without explanation. If the former then we need a formal separation of the legislature from government.

The Queen is coming for a visit. Every time a royal comes to Nova Scotia we discuss the question ’should we retain the Monarchy’? Leaving aside the loyalty and historical side of this question there are some very practical benefits to having a Monarch.

Firstly the Monarch is the Head of State, or when they are not present the Lieutenant Governor General is the Head of State. In the U.S. the President is the Head of State along with all of the other roles that the President plays. Our Premier is not burdened by the ceremonial role of Head of State; formally meeting dignitaries, hosting official functions, delivering speeches etc. These are all safely delegated to the Lieutenant Governor General.

Technically all political power rests with the Monarch. In actual fact this power is all delegated to the Provincial government after an election when the Lieutenant Governor General asks a party leader to form a government and then the Lieutenant Governor General takes a back seat. There is a real advantage to this system. If something catastrophic were to happen to our government or, since we do not have a written Constitution comprehensively outlining how our government works, matters were to go into uncharted waters (as they did at the federal level when a potential coalition government was offering to displace the reigning Tories) then the Monarch’s representative would become the focal point and serve as a force for continuity in our political process, a sort of political stability insurance policy.
It is also important to remember that for these benefits we pay next to nothing. All that Nova Scotians pay is support of a Lieutenant Governor General and the occasional royal visit. A bargain.

I had an interesting day attending ChangeCamp Halifax at The Hub in downtown Halifax recently. The sessions were an open space discussion looking at ways to improve Halifax. The turnout and the depth of people was impressive. Several discussions revolved around municipal reform, especially HRM and my group came up with several ideas:
1. Encourage the development of municipal parties to allow various ‘visions’ for the city to compete. Currently HRM has a gaggle of councilors each protecting their own turf which makes it hard for larger projects to be pushed.
2. Ask the provincial government for a review of the structure of HRM’s municipal government, most people seemed to think that something needed to be done. And only the provincial government can do that as Councilor Jim Smith said recently, “… We get all of our authority through the provincial government, so every time we want to strengthen (the bylaws), we have to go through this process of almost begging the provincial government to take these things seriously and help us out.” This could be part of a wider Atlantica Party policy of promoting a general review of provincial and municipal power sharing in order to empower local government where it makes sense.
3. We discussed a pilot project to encourage a ‘test’ councilor to make a real effort, over say a year, to meet and engage as many constituents as possible to show that dialog can happen.
4. Form a volunteer municipal watchdog/reporting service to give feedback on Councils’ activities and voting.

Taken from the Bruce Report
November 21st, 2009 Alec Bruce

Jonathan Dean – leader of the Atlantica Party, a former debating group that’s been gaining momentum and attention since its inception in Halifax in 2006 – unabashedly supports merging the four Atlantic Provinces into a single political entity. The notion dovetails nicely with his low-cost, free-trade, small-government economic principles, about which he spoke recently with Atlantic Business magazine’s Contributing Editor, Alec Bruce

Atlantic Business Magazine: You and your party are on the record supporting Atlantic political union. This is a long-simmering debate. . .

Jonathan Dean: Naturally, it’ll be a nettlesome prospect trying to get it. . .

ABM: Absolutely, but I’m interested in the genesis of your position.

JD: Well, I’ve always been politically interested. I got involved with a small group of people. We just started reading books, making comments, chatting about the news and so on. And then I said to them: Let’s start actually doing something. There were three routes we could have taken. One was to form an advocacy group. The second was to join a mainstream party. And the third was to start our own party. And we chose to do the latter. We realized that it’s not sufficient just to have greater freedom of information in our government. This is a worthy goal, and a good thing. But we need more and better ways to get new and fresh ideas into political discourse. That’s why we decided to launch. It was probably the more fun route to take, because we had nothing to lose. None of us clearly had any background in politics. And quite frankly, none of is really interested in being a politician, but we are willing to take that on.

ABM: That’s certainly a novel approach: a political party whose members have absolutely no political ambitions! Or, at least, so you say.

JD: Well, the whole thrust of the Atlantica Party is not to become another mainstream party. We’re not going to follow the route of the NDP here in Nova Scotia, in which they’ve sort of arrived as a mainstream party and are sort of in the middle. I see the Atlantica Party as being a reforming party, and once it has achieved its aims, I’m not sure what the purpose of the party would be. We stand for putting up new ideas that you won’t get from the existing parties.

ABM: Other than Atlantic union – which is, frankly, a pretty old idea – what are the new ideas?

JD: These would encompass such things as electoral reform. Okay, let’s tackle that. I would be very happy if, at some point, we would have a referendum on changing the electoral system in Nova Scotia, of which the Atlantica Party would be an advocate. We would actually be a clamouring advocate for electoral reform. I would be extremely happy if we could accomplish that. Whether or not the electors would go for that is entirely up to them.

ABM: Are you referring to some type of proportional representation?

JD: We like the single-transferrable-vote. We like it a lot. Although it’s also been put forward that we should approach this the way they did in British Columbia, where you have a citizens’ committee that gets together and comes up with something that’s not political. For me, of all the issues we have, that’s probably the easiest one. It’s easy to show that the system is broken and that it’s not working. Look, no system is perfect, but we can certainly improve on what we have. We think single-transferrable-vote, a form of proportional representation that has run-offs built into it, is the best. Related to this, we would like to see some political reform, as well. We’d like to see direct elections of the premier. We’d like to see a proper separation of powers. We don’t like the idea of parliamentary sovereignty. We like the idea of popular sovereignty. But, again, we’re most interested in getting the debate started. Ultimately, we want to put forward a proposal where the system can change itself.

ABM: Speaking of change, where does the party stand with respect to some of Atlantic Canada’s key economic issues?

JD: I guess you could call us non-interventionalists. We would like to see, for example, a different fiscal relationship with governments. Rather than accepting federal transfers through ACOA, and others, why don’t we do a deal where we get more tax royalties instead? Or we could apply that money to lowering taxes and costs across the board. We think that government is for creating infrastructure, making a place pleasant to live, helping people, educating people, and generally preparing the ground for industry and businesses to come in and create prosperity.

ABM: But what would your main economic goals try to accomplish?

JD: Clearly, they would include lowering taxes over the long term, and lowering the cost of doing business generally. We also like the idea of freeing up the labour market. We need to make the labour market much more responsive in this region to make it easier for business to do what business does best. This cuts to the core of another priority. We would like to see every person here become an entrepreneur if possible. And we want to focus on indigenous business. Sure, we’ll work with companies who want to move here. But, fundamentally, we believe economic growth comes from local businesses and local entrepreneurs.

ABM: What’s your view of provincial and federal government policies regarding foreign direct investment, which have been major planks of economic development for at least 20 years?

JD: Well, we believe that governments should certainly work with companies who are interested in coming here. We should certainly grease the skids for them: help them find locations; identify areas for infrastructure improvement. But if you are working with companies who are willing to move around and play the game, the chances are that they are going to pick up and leave at some point. At least if you build infrastructure for them, or educate people for them, all this is left behind. What’s more, if you are building indigenous entrepreneurs and companies, these are much less likely to pick up and leave. Eventually, they develop deep roots. I think there’s much less likelihood for a McCain Foods or an Irving company to pull up and move to California.

ABM: So, then, how do we nurture the growth of enterprising, homegrown businesses?

JD: Well, one thing. . .We’d like to see a mandatory credit in high schools where you are required to learn how to set up a business. We’d also like to see the costs for setting up a small business drastically lowered. I had to learn about this first hand when I set up my own business here. I had to hire a lawyer in Toronto because it was cheaper. When you are an entrepreneur preparing to set up, there are high barriers to entry. Why not just have a flat $25 fee? Maybe, you could even do it all on line. We’d like to see those programs where you teach people. But the major hurdle is making Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada a place where companies can make money. That’s how you create prosperity. That’s how you create a virtuous cycle of further investment, capital, productivity, wage growth, job growth. By having low taxes and low costs, including low costs for infrastructure.

ABM: Let’s talk about taxes. The New Brunswick government has recently introduced a tax regime that’s quite favourable to businesses and individuals. It stops short of actually flattening taxes altogether, however. What’s your position regarding a genuine flat tax?

JD: I’ve some material that suggests that a graduated tax is actually more efficient than a flat tax. I honestly don’t know, beyond the fact that we want to see substantively lower taxes over time. One of things about attracting businesses is creating an environment where you done have undue business risks – things, such as deficits. A deficit is bad because you have to raise a lot of money to cover it. But it also raises the spectre of future tax hikes and future inflation, which are obviously bad for entrepreneurs looking down the road. One of the functions of government over the run is to lower the risks to business through deficit elimination, balancing budgets, and installing a low-cost regime.

ABM: So, from your point of view, government is far too expensive – it’s far too much a burden on the region’s entrepreneurial class.

JD: We like deregulation. We like small government.

ABM: So, is this where Atlantic union fits into the bigger picture?

JD: Absolutely! It is the one concept that dove-tails nicely into everything we’ve discussed. The bottom line is that we like Atlantic union in whatever form we can get it. And just like our positions on electoral reform and political form, we’d actually be a strong advocate for this. The ideal, of course, would be political union of the four Atlantic Provinces. But we should at least create an inter-provincial free trade zone. Anything in this direction is good for all of us – the public and private sectors, alike.

This was a Q & A for Atlantic Business magazine’s November-December 2009 edition. Alec Bruce won Gold in the commentary category at the 2009 Atlantic Journalism Awards for his column, “Is Atlantic Canada truly on its own?”, published in the January-February 2008 edition of Atlantic Business magazine. For the best in business journalism on Canada’s East Coast, go here: www.atlanticbusinessmagazine.com

Apparently Nova Scotia is in a bad financial state. Premier Dexter’s panel of financial experts have stated that the only way to achieve fiscal balance by 2012-13 is through a combination of ’significant’ spending cuts and ‘material tax initiatives’. There are some who cannot contain their partisan glee as they see Mr. Dexter suddenly confronted with the probability of reneging on the key economic promises on which he was elected; balanced budgets, no tax hikes and no cuts in services. We think this is being unfair and unhelpful. The only ‘crime’ the NDP may have committed is in making these promises while knowing the real economic situation, something we probably will never know.

There are villains in this story however, those responsible for using short term and one-time windfalls to expand government anywhere from seven to twelve per cent a year while economic growth, even before the recession, was far below these rates. The most prominent villains are the PCs under Rodney MacDonald and maybe under Dr. John Hamm (depending on when this behavior started). They instigated the series of budgets that have crippled the finances of Nova Scotia. However the other villains are all those MLAs who voted for each of these budgets, whether PC or not. They knew the implications of each budget (and if they didn’t then they should not be MLAs) and yet our archaic system of confidence and unbreakable party discipline ensured no substantive debate and caused these flawed bills to be passed. Our representatives and our political system have failed in their duty to protect Nova Scotians from their government and the ruling party. Now all of us are going to have to pay.