Privatization Roulette
I was pretty excited to hear that we’re going to privatize some government crown corporations.
When was the last time we did that in Canada? How refreshing, compared to the American tendency these days to nationalize stuff (but only if they are bleeding money).
What kills me about the privatization debate is the “timing” issue everybody always brings up.
And nobody brings up timing to “promote” privatization, only to stop it.
- If a government-owned corporation is losing money, then it’s bad timing to sell it. Who wants to buy something that’s losing money?
- If a government-owned corporation is making money, then it’s bad timing to sell it – it’s helping Government revenues, not hindering them.
- If it’s breaking even, it’s off the radar completely – nobody’s complaining about it, so let’s leave it be.
Either privatization is a good economic idea, or it’s not. And if it is a good idea, then it should be generally pursued for it’s inherent benefits, not selectively, ineffectually, or half-heartedly (see BC Ferries), because nobody wants to rock the boat.
This doesn’t mean I favour a fire sale – just implementing a preparation plan, and guiding an orderly process.
Think about the privatization of Air Canada and Petro-Canada. Regardless of your opinion on these organizations in the past or present, you’ll have to admit their privatizations were the correct policy, economically beneficial, a net positive for government revenues, and not a fire sale.
I found great irony in the fact that the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is buying the company that runs the UK National Lottery. Let’s think about this for a minute. The pension plan for public school teachers in Ontario is buying a privatized lottery operator in another country.
And Maclean’s features an article this week (in their print edition) about how keen the Conservative government is to NOT privatize Canada Post.
I can’t wait to see what it is we WILL privatize.
AECL is a great start, but there’s oh so much more!
How about the airports? Our pension plans keep buying these up all over the rest of the world.
How about the CBC? OK, maybe there’s something not worth buying.
How about the Royal Canadian Mint? They can spend somebody else’s money finding lost gold that isn’t lost.
If not, why not? Is it bad timing?
Parliamentary Reform
The controversy around whether Canadian Forces sent prisoners of war to countries that torture only serves to highlight the systemic problems facing our national institutions.
I think it’s time to put Parliamentary Reform back on the Conservative agenda!
As Andrew Coyne, Paul Wells and others have pointed out very succinctly, there are some serious issues with the current system, including:
Inherent Conflicts in Selecting Cabinet Minister’s from the ranks of MPs
Does an MP work for their constituents, their party or their leader? Is it reasonable to expect a person to juggle good service to their constituents as an MP with good service as a Cabinet Minister? If you are the Minister responsible for something that gets delivered in your riding (cash, a project, or a contract), did you only do so because it was your riding? What about when it doesn’t get delivered to your riding? Should your constituents punish you?
Strict Party Discipline
MPs wanting to make their mark are held to strict party discipline to ever have a hope of getting into Cabinet. If they break rank too often, there is the lingering possibility the leader may not sign their nomination papers the next election.
It might be nice if more free votes were allowed, but niceness doesn’t address the systemic problems.
Concentration of Power in the PMO
With strict party discipline comes concentration of power in the PMO. The PMO is the strongest institution in any democratic state in the world (within its own borders). This is unnecessary, and potentially dangerous. Any Prime Minister should recognize that (a) they haven’t got all the answers, (b) the next Prime Minister might not be as great (honest, upstanding, ideologically correct) as they are, and (c) it is undemocratic. As such, this concentration of power is not ideal to the current PM (whomever they are). I’m sure if Chretien could see into the Conservative future, he would have thought twice about the increasing power of the PMO under his watch.
Powerless Committees
As last week revealed, committees are a joke. For crying out loud, committees should be more than who called who fat on Twitter.
Our Ridiculous Senate
Blame for the lack of progress made to date on Senate Reform rests squarely on the Liberal establishment in the Senate. It is my sincere hope that progress will be made once the Liberal majority there is finally eradicated. There is a plan to deal with it, and if all the participants put in place do their job, this should go well. If they do not follow through, they will only prove themselves more shameful than the Liberals.
The Bad Guys in the Mainstream Media
While the media is no doubt to blame for exacerbating the problem, they are not the cause. If an MP breaks ranks with their party, the media is usually the first to yell out insubordination! Yes, we choose representatives of parties, but we also choose individuals – individuals with different opinions and different ideas. It would be downright creepy if everyone in a party agreed on everything, failing the Robot Party of Canada, of course.
It is absolutely fair game for the media to call out an MP if their party promised X in an election campaign, and they voted against it. But if it wasn’t promised in an election campaign, that MP should be free to vote as they please, and it’s up to the electors in that MP’s riding, as to whether or not they approve. The issue itself may be newsworthy, but an MP’s position on it isn’t really comparable to World War III.
On Cronies…
We all know that Stephen Harper only appoints hard-nosed, staunch Conservative cronies and bagmen like, uh, Gary Doer.
Wha?
Gary Doer, the former NDP Premier of Manitoba, as Canada’s most important and most influential diplomat?
Oh, the headaches the Liberals and their media elite buddies must have today!
Could it be … maybe, just maybe … that Harper appointed those nine Senators because he could trust them to make the reforms necessary to make the institution of the Senate worth saving, and not because of some control-freak, frothy-mouthed, wild-eyed moment of partisan thrashing and thrusting?
Well, certainly not if you believe the Liberals and their media pals.
Who’s running the party now?
Reflections on the Senate Appointments
Harper has appointed Doug Finley and Don Plett to the Senate. Having met both men on a few occasions, I congratulate the Prime Minister on excellent choices. Both are very intelligent, hard-working, love their country, and, as the media has kindly pointed out, they are firmly on Harper’s side.
This whole exercise (appointing Senators in order to reform the Senate) wouldn’t be necessary if politics worked logically – let’s face it, it’s a pathetic eyesore of an institution in a great democracy like Canada.
However, the Liberals have a vested interest in it, and the NDP and Bloc just want to see it ditched, not reformed.
The Question Now
Who will be the new Party President?
More importantly, who will run the next campaign, and take the reins where Finley has left off?
The media obviously doesn’t care about this, but I am quite interested.
Jacques Demers
Is anyone else disgusted by the drivel appearing on some of the news sites putting down Jacques Demers for his illiteracy?
If these people had any idea of the back story of this amazing man, they might be inclined to reflect on how pathetic their own life story is, despite their literacy, in comparison (or, maybe they’ll just go back to watching American Idol).
Harmonized Sales Tax
The quietest massive policy shift in British Columbia (and Ontario) is underway.
The Harmonized Sales Tax seeks to make tax collecting more efficient by combining the policies for the Federal GST with that of the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) in target jurisdictions. The unfortunate side-effect the B.C. Government has already admitted to is that sales taxes for consumers will go up.
Here are a few other things that they won’t want to talk about:
It’s A Regressive Tax
The obvious one is that, unlike income taxes, sales taxes are “regressive”. That is, the poorer you are, the more costly this tax is to you as a percentage of your income vs. richer Canadians. The reason is that poorer people spend a higher proportion of their income on consuming the very things that the HST will be charged on (richer Canadians have more money to put toward things that do not have a standard sales tax structure: investments, travel abroad, rents and mortgages, education, etc.).
There are good arguments for flat taxes (everyone gets taxed evenly), and good arguments for progressive taxes (the richer pay a higher percentage of their income), but I have yet to hear a good argument for “regressive” taxation. This said, the BC Liberals seem to love them. The highly regressive Medical Services Plan Premium was effectively doubled for most middle-class British Columbians under Gordon Campbell back in 2002; the closer these middle-class British Columbians were to being classified as “poor”, the higher the rate (as a percentage of income).
Bad For Business
Businesses that had to only charge GST previously become less competitive now. There are numerous examples out there, but I’ll offer one more that I am quite familiar with: e-Commerce Services.
This industry only had to charge GST since the very beginning. All this will change next July.
They already compete with GST-free Alberta, not to mention other countries, like National Sales Tax-free America. But this latest move will make B.C. and Ontario-based e-Commerce Services companies even more uncompetitive.
To date, HST has been a non-issue, as Atlantic Canada is hardly a hotbed of e-Commerce. With their long history of HST, setting up a company there would have been a foolish undertaking.
With British Columbia and Ontario joining the HST mix, you can expect to see an exodus of e-Commerce firms, and they will all be heading to Alberta. I have heard this first hand from quite a number of my own competitors in both B.C. and Alberta (of course, nobody will go “on the record”).
An End To Progressive Tax Policy
The BC NDP has pointed out that the provincial government will lose the ability to use the PST to promote green (or any other) policies.
An Election Lie
The BC Liberals were on record as saying that they were not going to implement HST. This message was very clearly laid out prior to, and during the election campaign. Obviously they lied.
Maxime Bernier Explains Protectionism
This is a few weeks old, but Maxime Bernier has done a great job, yet again, explaining a basic Conservative principle (free trade vs. protectionism) in a simple and convincing way that everybody should understand.
Andrew Coyne on Conservative Party
This video was shot at the Manning Centre Conference some time ago, but was just posted to YouTube on Monday. As usual, one of Canada’s most prominent journalists, Andrew Coyne, tells it as he sees it.
It speaks for itself.
Thoughts on Proposition 8
California courts have rejected overturning the results of proposition 8. Had they done so, gay marriage would have again become legal in California.
We went through this whole debate in Canada not very long ago. The gay marriage proponents won.
For those of you who don’t follow my every word, I was neither in favour, nor was I opposed.
I was, and I remain of the opinion that the word “marriage” should be defined by society and religious institutions, not the Government or the Courts. If marriage is such a deeply person thing, then why is the Government defining it at all?
In California, however, there is another dimension – democracy.
California voters decided this outcome in a fair and legitimate democratic process. Had the courts simply overturned the decision of the people, it would have been a slap in the face to the democratic traditions of that State, not to mention the people who won.
For this reason alone, the court decision was the right decision.
There will undoubtedly be another referendum, and, failing some radical shift in California demographics, it will inevitably pass (even the Governator realizes this). Proponents of gay marriage should not fret about the court decision – winning a referendum would be a far more legitimate win, rather than through activist judges in a courtroom.
A court decision against the will of the people would only serve to enrage opponents, and further polarize the debate.
For opponents of gay marriage, the writing is on the wall. Unless they adapt a more modest proposal (such as removing the word marriage from law completely, equally and for all couples), or there is some massive demographic shift in the next 3-7 years, they will eventually lose a simple yes vs. no in this debate (and, in my opinion, so they should – for both poor strategy, and a heartless disinterest in civic fairness).
I will be watching the debate from afar (with an occasional trip to Disneyland, of course) with great interest.
Maxime Bernier
The ever brilliant Chantal Hébert has reminded us all that the most popular Quebec Conservative remains Maxime Bernier.
So the guy made a bad relationship decision (OK, really bad). I’m over it, hopefully the RCMP will be over it soon, too. Sigh.
But here are the facts – as Quebec Conservative Minister’s go, he was the biggest star to date – not just in terms of good looks and celebrity, but in terms of hard work and competency.
(Oh, and there’s a nasty rumour that he’s actually a “conservative” Conservative.)
Now he has his own blog – so what, who doesn’t? Well, most Members of Parliament don’t. Too risky.
As soon as this RCMP business is over, Maxime Bernier needs to be restored to Cabinet, and restored as Quebec Lieutenant for the party.
Here’s a fun sidebar – I just discovered a Twitter account attempting to recruit Maxime to lead the ADQ. This would be a terrible loss for the Conservative Party of Canada. Would they rename the ADQ to Action démocratique du Québec-Équipe Maxime Bernier instead of Équipe Mario Dumont?
The most boring election in history!
Politicians always tell you that this is “the most important election”, then follow it up with something serious sounding like “in a generation” or “since the cold war” or “since James Polk declared 54’40 or fight!”
Please.
I’d like to declare this election in British Columbia “the most boring”, and follow it up with “in the history of the universe”.
This is unfortunate, and it didn’t have to be this way.
There are issues, like, oh, say, the economy. But nobody is proposing anything interesting or colourful enough to care about. The big issues are turning out to be BC Hydro and BC Rail. Wow, dams and railroads – this is cutting edge 19th century stuff people!
If the total lack of inspiration results in low voter turnout, then I hope the BC Liberals and the rest of us enjoy the next 4 years under Premier Carole James.
Because, as any politico will tell you, the NDP is very good at getting out their vote – even when things are exceedingly dull.
I suspect things won’t be that dull once Carole James and her union buddies start running things.
Maybe I’ll have to move to somewhere a little more business-friendly – I hear Venezuela is nice.
Network
