the hazards of populism

Last week I blogged about how the Harper Tories have alienated authoritative voices for conservative economics, namely the Economist and Andrew Coyne. Although the example I chose for Coyne's views dated from a year ago, I could have also directed readers to his March 29, 2010 blogpost, in which Coyne barely conceals his contempt.

With some stretching, I could extend "authoritative voices for conservative economics" to the Globe and Mail editorial board, and trot out as an example of the G&M's right lean on fiscal matters the paper's July 20 editorial, which noted that "[t]rimming growth in the public-sector pay bill is necessary to address provincial fiscal woes" and called on public sector unions to make "concessions in their next collective agreement..."

When James Travers complains that "Harper encouraged loyalists to ignore experts and go with their gut" on the matter of crime and punishment, Travers can be dismissed as a typical Toronto Star pundit, notwithstanding the fact that the Economist has also taken issue with the government's crime and punishment stance. The decision to change the conduct of the census, however, is off-side with too many "experts", from too many fields, and the Tory attempts to stoke passions about intrusive and coercive government were, this time, too nakedly an Ottawa initiative to ignite the righteous fury of the grassroots. This week, the G&M editorial board dubbed the census move "folly" and Colby Cosh, another economic conservative pundit (on the rare occasion when he writes on that topic), largely agreed. If it just stopped there, with the pundit class, the matter would have nonetheless blown over, but this time the concern stretched deep into the public policy establishment, culminating in the resignation of the country's Chief Statistician.

Industry Minister Tony Clement says "The government took this decision because we do not believe Canadians should be forced, under threat of fines, jail, or both, to divulge extensive private and personal information." One can imagine how this rationale could be perceived around the cabinet table as a powerful one-liner in the heat of an election campaign dominated by sound bites (not that this was really a cabinet decision as opposed to a Harper decision). They likely imagined that the worst case scenario was that the chattering classes would natter on about how it was Harper Tories 1 Nuance 0 for the zillionth time, a complaint that has been around for a long time now without finding much political traction. The resignation of Statistics Canada's top civil servant wasn't anticipated, however. Why? Because

1) the special nature of the Statistics group was not considered, and

2) Harper has a general contempt for the opinions of the civil service

re (1), Norman Spector perspicaciously zeroed in on this one when he called attention to a letter to the editor by a UBC economist, who wrote

Decades ago, we established that the Bank of Canada needs to operate at arm’s length from political interference. The same should be true of the national statistical agency. If statistical collection changes with the ideological whims of the government, the very basis of government decision-making, transparency and trust is shattered.

Keep in mind here that the people inside Finance Canada were unanimously opposed to the Harper/Flaherty decision to cut the GST because of its opportunity cost. But had the Deputy Minister of Finance resigned, it would have offended many Canadians' belief that elected officials are in charge at the end of the day and it is the job of civil servants, however expert they may be, to follow orders. While I think there should be more transparency surrounding the incidents where the advice of the Department of Finance is rejected so the electorate is more informed, I would certainly grant that Finance cannot be at full arm's length to the government. There is no good reason why the national statistical agency cannot be at arm's length, however.

re (2), during my time in Ottawa working at Finance I became aware of some of Harper's margin notes in the memos he was receiving from the PCO. "Bullsh*t" was his view of one claim by a civil servant. "Justice doesn't know what the **** they are talking about" was his view of another, which summarized the view of the Justice Department on a particular matter.

The Tories could feed their bloggers like Stephen Taylor information in an attempt to discredit the resigning Munir Sheikh as a political partisan, or some such thing, but how convincing, really, is the tenet that the Chief Statistician is part of a conniving cabal of elites out to deprive Canadians of their civil liberties, as opposed to someone who just takes his job seriously? How would the fact that Munir Sheikh's predecessor agrees with him be explained away? The "elites" have finally scored a blow that I expect will be more than glancing against Team Harper, partially because it involves a matter that is of interest to more than just those who follow politics closely, and mostly because there are just too many "elites" this time, and from too broad a field to be pigeon-holed as Toronto liberals. Stephan Taylor is soldiering on on behalf of what he calls "ordinary citizens", but I don't think his argument, which appears to be that obscuring the stats would be a laudable step towards dealing "a huge blow to the welfare state", is going to fly when the opposition here includes Chambers of Commerce.

At 12:05 today a commentator in the Globe and Mail's "Cover It Live" session suggested that citizens take this opportunity to "review the state of policy-making..." "is there a typical development path for new policies originating from a governing political party vs. the civil service?" asked the commentator. Indeed. In the case of Alberta's Wildrose party, the party does not appear to anticipate any role for the the civil service beyond carrying out the wishes of the "grassroots". Is there any doubt that if the following resolution were made at a Wildrose policy convention, that it would pass?

A Wildrose government would not require Albertans to provide Statistics Canada with the number of bedrooms in their home, or what time of the day they leave for work, or how long it takes them to get there. A Wildrose government would not force Albertans to divulge detailed personal information under threat of prosecution.

Note that this would be taken almost verbatim from what Clement has said about his government's census decision. If the matter is really so simple as this statement suggests it is, why is this census change even controversial?

Canada has developed an international reputation for evidence-based decision-making. The alarming thing about this story is that the Harper government seems to prefer decision-based evidence-making.

- Armine Yalnizyan

UPDATE:

The U.S. Census Bureau tested out the idea of making a mandatory national survey voluntary ... but quickly discarded the idea because it produced what was deemed unreliable data at an exorbitant price.
- Montreal Gazette

Harper Conservatives show their teeth on everything but fiscal policy

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's appearance at the annual Calgary Stampede BBQ has prompted some commentary. Alberta Finance Minister Ted Norton used the opportunity to make the interesting declaration that, with respect to his provincial party and the Wildrose, "We all believe in the same thing and want the same results." I'll nonetheless leave that claim aside for now and instead opine on Vancouver-based Adrian MacNair's lament that

the current Conservatives have adopted the kind of woolly-headed, socialist, nanny-state ideals that would make any Liberal feel quite at home.

While all too regrettably true, what's galling is that despite these policies, small l and big L liberals still feel anything but at home in Harper's party. This primarily because the party's culture represents everything that is offensive to small L liberal sensibilities.

The authoritative Economist has not been shy about exhibiting its distaste for the Harper regime this year. St Albert pundit David Climenhaga has fingered the British weekly as a "venerable" but "pretentious newsmagazine" (perhaps alluding to one of its advertising lines "[i]t's lonely at the top, but at least there's something to read") that provides "wistful right-wing drivel" "for credulous capitalists around the globe" and describes its upscale readership as "people who wish they were rich." The Observer (a unit of the UK's left leaning Guardian) has tut-tutted that the Economist's "writers rarely see a political or economic problem that cannot be solved by the trusted three-card trick of privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation." Yet what John Ralston Saul has further described as "the Bible of the corporate executive" mocked Harper's rationale for pro-roguing Parliament in January and charged, "Never mind what his spin doctors say: Mr Harper’s move looks like naked self-interest." The prime minister has a "ruthless streak" in the Economist's view which suggests that he is the same man who threw away a chance at 24 Sussex in 2004 by claiming that then-Prime Minister Paul Martin approved of child pornography. As a columnist observed at the time, Harper "showed his teeth."

In December the Economist observed that

A third of the 63 bills introduced in the House of Commons in the past year have dealt with some aspect of criminal justice, and more are on their way. Despite complaints that a similar, purely punitive approach has not worked in the United States, and that piecemeal change will clog up the justice system and leave taxpayers with a larger bill, the government has not deviated.

Never mind that the association representing Crown prosecutors appeared before the much maligned Senate to plead for a more evidence-based approach. Fiscal conservatives have to concede, yet again, as the prisoner population increases, costing taxpayers $93 000 per year per prisoner.

The Economist is hardly a lone voice here. Andrew Coyne's observations of a year ago on the federal Conservatives, which Mike Brock posted to Youtube, should be must see viewing for Wildrose party supporters in Alberta who believe Harper, who cannot find the political support for an agenda that is not even as fiscally conservative as that of the politically dominant Liberals in the mid-1990s, has really shown the way.

On policy after policy, they have not simply watered down or moved incrementally, they have abandoned their convictions...

It is too easy to just say that politics is the art of the possible, and leave it at that, because it allows other people to define what is possible... a truer statement is that politics is the art of enlarging the possible. Politics is not just a matter of giving people what they want, it is a matter of making them want what you want them to want. It is not just a matter of moving to the middle... it is a matter of moving the middle to you. ...

All [the Conservatives] have done is shift the spectrum further and further to the left. The right wing of Canadian politics is now defined by 35 billion dollar deficits [and] by record high levels of spending...

- Andrew Coyne

If one is going to sell-out, at least sell-out for something. Not that getting into the good graces of the Economist and Andrew Coyne would constitute a stooping that self-described conservatives should ever be ashamed of anyway. Label them "liberal " and it doesn't change the dynamic: these are the sorts of liberals who need to be onside if a conservative movement is going to have the support of the majority. Pundits warning conservative movements against going down the Tea Party road late last year have been silenced this year as the electorate has shifted to the right, but the unthinking populism of the Tea Party still represents a political dead end.

In Alberta, I doubt that some of the "moderation" efforts that have been initiated by influential players in Alberta's Wildrose Alliance are going to produce nearly as many votes as hoped for, not least because it is the party's image and communications that needs to have its edges sanded off as opposed to the policy platform. Show one's teeth on the budget, and one's smile on everything else (the exact opposite of the Harper approach, in other words). Turning over communications from Shawn Howard to a shrill caucus is not going to help on this count.

Canadian policy re the Americas

The federal government has made some constructive comments about Honduras this past month. Peter Kent, incorrectly identified by the New York Times as Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister (he is, in fact, a more junior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Americas)), was quoted as saying "[t]here has to be an appreciation of the events that led up to the coup."

Kent has also argued against attempts by Zelaya to return absent a "mediated solution" and today said that Canadian military and development aid would continue to flow to the beleagered country. The Canadian Press story on the aid situation draws a contrast with the policy of the Obama administration, raising interesting parallels with Colombia:

In a thinly veiled slap at U.S. congressional Democrats who oppose a trade deal with Colombia due to rights concerns, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper used a trip to Bogota to present himself as a steadier ally.

So I have to give Harper his due here. With respect to Colombia, he told the Wall Street Journal in February that "[i]f we as the major countries of this hemisphere cut an ally off at the knees we will pay a tremendous price for it." Although the prime minister's policy on Israel ("[m]y government is a very strong supporter of the state of Israel") is problematic (something I will address in a future post), Harper's 2007 speech to the US Council on Foreign Relations calling on the US to support Colombia was one of his finest.

But conservative ideology should not drive foreign policy any more than liberal ideology. What matters is the facts and the particulars of the region at issue. And on that front, I would refer Honduras watchers to this lady ex-pat's blog.

Former GG says too much?

In her memoirs, former governor general Adrienne Clarkson said ... she would only have allowed a [Former Prime Minister Paul] Martin request for dissolution if he had been in office six months. "To put the Canadian people through an election before six months would have been irresponsible," she wrote.
- CBC

The problem with this statement is that it essentially says if opposition forces engineer a confidence vote that brings down the government within six months of an election, there will be no electoral accountability. The statement itself is not problematic so much as what it omits. What it omits is a qualifying clause to the effect that any new government created in the absence of an election should go to the polls for its own mandate within a certain period.

Canadians are currently facing the prospect of two consecutive Prime Ministers, Dion and Ignatieff (or, less likely, Bob Rae), each with a mere quarter of Commons seats held by their party, serving for up to 5 years between the two of them, should NDP and Bloc MPs decline to vote against them during that time period. By convention, that shouldn't happen. But in a constitutional democracy, one would think there should be a constitutional limit to how long a Prime Minister Ignatieff could govern without facing the polls, a limit less than 5 years. The only one who could really impose such a limit on the Prime Minister is the monarch (the GG), and the time do it would be when denying the request of the previous Prime Minister (the one being ousted) for a vote on the newly configured government.

This change of government would likely be easier to swallow for a lot of Canadians if Harper had lost the confidence of federalists in the House. But the fact is that his party's seats outnumber the seats of the Liberals and NDP by a couple dozen. As such, he's the federalist choice for Prime Minister, love it or hate it, and could not be forced out of office but for separatists.

Gerry Nicholls on federal Tories

Yes sir, there is room for everybody in Mr. Harper's Red Populist Nationalist Alliance – everybody, that is, but conservatives who believe in the equality of citizens and want more freedom and less government. Sadly, these Canadians no longer have a political home.

There is an alternative in Alberta (Wildrose Alliance, anyone?), but if I learned anything from running as a candidate myself earlier this year, it's that there really isn't much a market for "non-populist" fiscal conservatism per se. There are plenty of pundits who support that, but it just doesn't sell on the door steps. Even Link Byfield was telling me our Wildrose Alliance party should look at more populist policies if we expect to get very far. I disagree with that; - my first call during the provincial campaign was from a constituent in my riding who worked as a lawyer for the province's most prestigious boutique tax law firm. He felt my candidacy filled a void.

Even if we can't win, if we have what the economic experts agree are the best, pro-growth policies, the media will push to get our talking points into what I've been calling the national conversation.