Avalon

If you were to ask any member of the government whether Nova Scotia is business friendly you would get a resounding yes. The NDP government is certainly seems aggressive with ready cash for established profitable businesses in splashy media releases; Frito-Lay, Daewoo, Bell Aliant, Blue Ocean, Northern Pulp, Irving, the list goes on and on.

Strange then in a recent study from the Fraser Institute Nova Scotia ranked at the bottom (57th out of 60) in North America in terms of economic freedom; the ability of people to make their own economic decisions which is key to prosperity. Are Nova Scotians that constrained?

Just ask Mr. Gee, the Kentville merchant who has spent $20,000 of his own (after tax) money fighting our NDP government that wants to interfere in his tobacco trade. As of July 1st Mr. Gee is forced to charge additional sales taxes on the sundries he sells. He must pay the second highest income taxes in Canada. He has no choice but to accept Nova Scotia Power’s proposed rate hike, its seventh recent rate hike. He and his customer s are forced to buy over-priced produce from the government monopoly NSLC.

Can it be true? Our NDP government, while ensuring its continued growth at the expense of the private sector and making some media savvy demonstrations of ‘building the economy’ through subsidy, is vision-less to help Nova Scotians to become more economically free and prosperous? I wonder what Mr. Gee would say?

Recently announced was the $425,000 makeover for the Dingle Tower built to mark the birth of North American parliamentary democracy here in Nova Scotia. We also celebrated the 1758 event with a yearlong Democracy 250 campaign. At the Legislature we remember Mr. Howe’s “Peaceable Revolution” of 1848 with plaque and statue.

Is there any other place in North America similar to Nova Scotia which has a very long and proud tradition of peaceful political revolutions? As we look around the world there have been numerous peaceable revolutions. Are we not a democratic beacon to the world?

Let’s not flatter ourselves. Our last democratic step forward was 163 years old this coming February. There is still so much work to do. We have anonymous voting in the Legislature that denies the people a record of MLA voting. Party discipline has strengthened to the point of undermining oversight and restraint of government. The Premier at a word can dismiss any and all suggestions of reform. Our calcified electoral system serves the status-quo by discouraging new people, parties and ideas. These are issues that I have raised in print numerous times. Nova Scotians have become ‘political children’ – to be seen but not heard.

So quite right we should flatter our noble ancestors but please, not ourselves.

In this month’s Halifax Magazine (August 2010) Mr. Jaime Baillie, the next PC leader, comes out in favour of government involvement in the proposed Halifax convention centre. He states uncritically that the facility will ‘require a contribution from federal, provincial and municipal governments’ in the order of $80 million, other amounts touted for taxpayer investment have been $100 to $140 million.

Government does have a role to play in providing infrastructure, however in any suggestion of government involvement in the economy must be acknowledgment that government money is not free money. It comes from taxing citizens and business which destroys jobs, growth and wealth. To justify any ‘investment’ it must be shown the gains substantially outweigh the losses. Ideally the project should be in the no-brainer category since the mere act of taxing and spending incurs costs and government’s economic decision making is impaired by politics .

So why isn’t the pure private sector approach being discussed for the convention centre? According to Mr. Baillie it is an ‘investment worth making’. If it is so wonderful why involve taxpayer money at all? Why not leave it to the private sector so wealth is created and citizens reap all of the benefits at no risk?

Surely Nanny-Government thinking has not become conventional for the PC party.

According to a just released report by The Ecology Action Centre and the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, Nova Scotians are eating less local food than a decade ago. Only 13% of our food dollars goes towards local produce.

The report states Nova Scotia farmers cannot produce at low enough cost to compete with imports. Unless a brand is created such as Northumberland lamb or Digby scallops produce is a commodity. As the report points out ‘The only way to be viable in the food industry is to be centralized with a huge market and all the raw materials at the most economical advantage. You have to have the cheapest inputs. Our inputs aren’t the cheapest (in Nova Scotia)’.

Most of the report’s recommendations are fine; buy local, encourage 4H clubs, eat healthier (although the mention of political pressure and ‘real’ pricing is worrisome). But these baby steps do nothing to overcome the root of the problem; the lack of low cost production. Only affluent consumers would consider paying an additional $2 a pound to support local lamb.

Nova Scotians want a vibrate farm industry and sustainable farming communities. The report alludes to the solution but does not recommend it; the creation of a large regional market. Government must create a low cost environment for all business and make Atlantic Canada a large regional market in which all producers can compete. Those producers who produce the best produce at the lowest price will grow and be able to compete with imports and in other markets. There is tremendous upside for our farming industry, Nova Scotia blueberries could be exported to Chile rather than visa-versa. To not do this is to betray our farming communities.

Here is the original report
http://www.nsfa-fane.ca/files/images/file/FM_Final%202010.pdf

THE WRONG MAN has quit in Ottawa.

It’s Industry Minister Tony Clement who should have resigned Wednesday.

It’s Mr. Clement who has lost sight of his ministerial duty to protect the integrity of the national census and of Statistics Canada.

It’s Mr. Clement who has settled for being a mere cheerleader for a government political decision to replace the mandatory long-form census with a voluntary survey.

It’s Mr. Clement who has turned a deaf ear to informed census users — provincial governments, health professionals, economists, scientists, researchers, charities — who say the change will seriously degrade data needed to plan things like health and education services, jobless benefits, transportation systems, government budgets and fund-raising.

It’s Mr. Clement who has misled the public by suggesting senior staff at Statistics Canada advised they could offset the risk of degrading long-form data by surveying more people and running ads to encourage compliance.

Government statisticians don’t believe this. We know this from the man who did sadly resign, Chief Statistician Munir Sheik.

In a statement on the StatsCan website, the departing head of the agency said he could not legally comment on his advice to the minister (though he noted the government is free to release it). But he did give us his professional opinion on the “technical statistical issue” at the heart of this controversy: “whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census.”

Mr. Sheik’s judgment: “It can not.”

It can’t be said more plainly than that.

How could the minister be so out of touch with his experts’ view? Mr. Clement says he was entitled to assume officials were “comfortable” with a voluntary survey because they produced this option. Let’s see the advice and let the public decide whether the voluntary plan was recommended or just damage control after an imposed political decision.

It’s a sorry tale that no senior ministers would put their jobs on the line to stick up for competent government. They clung to empty titles while a good public servant chose resignation over being used as window dressing.

( edits@herald.ca)

The premise of this opinion is wrong.

Mr. Clement has not lost sight of his duty, far from it. His primary duty as a member of Parliament is to protect the individual from encroachment and harassment by government. And yes he also has a lesser duty ‘to protect the integrity of the national census and of Statistics Canada’ and this has put him in a dilemma; uphold the fundamental rights of citizens or stick with the experts. He made the right choice. The experts are predictably not happy because their task is made harder, hence all the electronic ink spilt on this affair. And this issue is not about the extent of the data collected or whether it is a public or private group who collects it. The issue is the national census conducted in an Orwellian fashion; ‘respond or else’ and Canadians should not stand for that. The principle is clear – one person being press-ganged into participation against their will is not worth the whole government policy formation process.

Industry Minister Tony Clement has spent the past three weeks defending the federal government’s decision to take away penalties for not filling out the long-form census. Anyone who didn’t fill out the census risked fines or jail time. The head of Statistics Canada, Munir Sheikh, has quit, saying a voluntary census can’t replace a mandatory one.

Coming from a quantitative and statistical background I understand the problems of voluntary sampling that may preclude statistical inference. People who decline to answer the census probably display a number of systematic biases, for example busy dual income families with children may decline more often than retirees thus skewing the results. Government by its nature rests on clear statistical patterns in order to formulate and implement policy. It is a real problem and Mr. Sheikh as a statistician knows this.

However, the idea that government may take punitive action against individuals who decline to participate in its studies is the greater evil. Individuals should be free to decide for themselves on their involvement. As John Stuart Mill said, ” …the only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his (or her) will, is to prevent harm to others”. Since we are, presumably, a civilized society and refusing to participate with government does no direct harm to others dropping the mandatory nature of the long-form is the only correct route. I trust this is or will soon be true also of the other census forms (2A, 2C, 2D, and 6) as well.

As part of its Five Point Democracy Plan the Atlantica Party wants an end to unrecorded voting in the Nova Scotia Legislature. According to the Know How They Vote Campaign during the 59th and 60th General Assemblies, out of 853 bills only 12 votes were recorded! More recent activity has been no better.

“In a time when electors want greater transparency this is a scandal,” says Atlantica Party Leader, Jonathan Dean. “How are voters to know who voted for what or even if their representative was present in the house during the vote? Without an accurate voting recorded how can electors assess their representation? And yet when we approached the Premier and the Liberal leader the need for recorded voting was dismissed out of hand.”

It takes two MLAs to request a recorded vote. During the June 10th Glace Bay all-candidates debate all of the candidates stated they opposed anonymous voting. “On June 17th during the Yarmouth all-candidates debate I publicly stated that I oppose all anonymous voting. So if elected I will work with my colleague from Glace Bay to ensure all voting is recorded for Nova Scotians.”

As part of its Five Point Democracy Plan the Atlantica Party supports free voting in the Nova Scotia Legislature. Free voting allows MLAs to arrive at their own decision on how to vote issue by issue. Currently MLA voting is dictated by their party resulting in constituents having no say. Ideally all votes should be free votes.

“If I am a sitting MLA and I am told how to vote issue by issue, why should I take the time and energy to consult with my constituents on these issues when their opinions will not alter my vote?”, asks Atlantica Party Leader, Jonathan Dean. “Atlantica Party MLAs will constantly be consulting with their constituents on the issues of the day and that will influence their final voting decisions.”

The Atlantica Party proposes a bundle of reforms such as Recall that are intended to substantively loosen party discipline.

“Pressure to vote a certain way from one’s party is valid and in fact a good and necessary thing, but not to the extent that all other influences are stifled such as one’s constituents wishes and one’s good judgment. What we need is a balance so that each MLA can decide freely how to cast their vote.”

As part of its Five Point Democracy Plan the Atlantica Party supports Recall legislation for Nova Scotia similar to the Recall mechanism currently in use in British Columbia. Recall allows a riding signature campaign to trigger a by-election.

Until Recall is established all elected Atlantica Party MLAs vow to be re-callable; they will resign their seat after a successful signature campaign according to the BC model.

“Public trust is at an all time low in Nova Scotia. Constituents deserve a voice within the legislature, yet have none since voting is not free. What is needed is a legislature that works for the people of Nova Scotia, not one that just ‘represents’ them.”, said Dan Wilson, Atlantica Party candidate for Glace Bay.

“We propose Recall to make an elected member better motivated to serve his constituency to the best of their ability. If for some reason, said MLA were to lose the confidence of those within the riding, the constituents would be able to trigger a by-election.”

“This legislation is not a new idea, it already exists in the province of British Columbia.” said Jonathan Dean, Atlantica Party candidate for Yarmouth. “Forty percent of the riding has to sign on within sixty days, that is quite tough but good since it stops partisan and frivolous recalls. In fact 19 of 20 recalls in BC failed since they could not reach the target.”

The Atlantica Party is pleased to release its Five Point Democracy Plan for Nova Scotians. Both of our candidates, Dan Wilson (Glace Bay) and Jonathan Dean (Yarmouth) will be campaigning on these reforms in the coming weeks, reforms that are vital to our democracy’s health.

FIVE POINT DEMOCRACY PLAN