Make politicians pay their own way
When the Canadian Taxpayers Federation pulled its National Debt Clock in front of Parliament Hill last month, a formerly homeless man approached and stared in amazement. After a minute of staring at the massive, spinning clock, the man said, "I've lived on the street and it doesn't take a lot of money to live. What the hell are politicians doing?" Before leaving, he added, "These guys need to get a job!"
Sometimes it takes someone from outside of the political system to make sense of things, and even though he was standing in front of Parliament, a formerly homeless man who now makes his own way is about as far outside of the Ottawa bubble as one can be.
And he was half right. Even though politicians do have a job, they and their respective parties still receive a generous welfare payout at taxpayer expense. This takes three forms: a $2-per-vote subsidy, costing taxpayers approximately $68-million since the last election; a 50% to 60% refund of election expenses costing taxpayers approximately $26-million per election; and, generous tax credits encouraging donations to political parties worth tens of millions more (the total figure of course ebbs and flows with each campaign). Each of these is a form of political welfare. They should all be scrapped.
Soon after winning re-election in the fall of 2008, the Conservatives moved to scrap the most egregious of these -the $2-per-vote subsidy. While a good move for taxpayers and a moral victory for democratic reform, the opposition parties immediately viewed the move as an attempt to take away their free lunch. Such was their anger that they quickly cobbled together a coalition to replace the Tories.
We all know how that turned out; but while the Tories stayed, so also did the per-vote subsidy.
Elections cost anywhere between $300-to $400-million, but such is the price of democracy. But while taxpayers picking up the bill for Elections Canada to set up polling stations is fair, forcing them to pick up the bill for partisan campaigns is not. Some voters claim to dislike attack ads, but when they are forced to pay for them out of their own pockets, they are complicit. Eliminating political welfare would make such dilemmas easier: "Don't like attack ads? Don't donate!" Nothing would force the parties to clean up their act faster than going after their bottom line.
Similarly, some voters are fatigued with having a fourth election in seven years. But losing "confidence" in a government is not the only thing that triggers an election. Having a flush war chest replenished regularly by Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer makes frequent, unnecessary elections an almost riskfree proposition for the parties. The dollars keep rolling in like clockwork. While party coffers are replenished between elections with the per-vote subsidy, the 50% to 60% refund of campaign expenses means that parties are flush again and ready to fund the next election campaign almost as soon as the ballots are counted.
Even if both the per-vote subsidy and the 50% to 60% campaign expense refunds were eliminated, parties would have little reason to fear. With a maximum 75% tax credit inducing donors to contribute, any party that cannot attract cash is likely not taken seriously by its own supporters. By contrast, donating to charities that provide services to those in need only qualifies you for a maximum 29% tax credit.
Put another way, from a tax perspective you are three times better off donating to the separatist Bloc Québécois than you would be if you gave the exact same amount to the Red Cross.
During the course of this election, Canada's federal debt will increase by $3.3-billion. Canada's next government will have tough choices to make. If it is to get spending under control and eliminate the deficit, it will have to cut. The first place it should start is with its own political pogey.
The wrong way to decriminalize marijuana
Last Monday, for at least the third time in a dozen years, an Ontario court struck down provisions of Canada's marijuana laws. While we support the decriminalization of simple possession of marijuana for personal use, we would prefer to see such contentious social changes made by Parliament rather than by the courts. As was the case with same-sex marriage, such seismic shifts in Canada's traditional moral code garner more public support, more quickly, when made by Canadians' elected representatives rather than by appointed judges.
Pot smokers and judges should also drop the façade that their legal challenges and decisions deal only with medical marijuana use by sufferers of cancer, glaucoma, chronic pain and other conditions. It's obvious these court cases, while purportedly decided on the narrow issue of therapeutic toking, are in truth efforts to make marijuana more accessible to everyone.
For more than a dozen years, there has been a game going on between marijuana advocates and Ontario judges on one side, and Health Canada on the other. Advocates sue for easier access, allegedly only for people who need to smoke up to mitigate the nausea that results from chemotherapy and the like. When the courts order such access, Health Canada (not incorrectly) takes the ruling at face value and devises regulations about who may use pot medicinally and under what circumstances. They also specify how and when doctors may prescribe it. However, because such rules don't deal with activists' true goal -across-the-board pot legalization -the advocates are quickly back before the bar pleading for further expansions of the rights of medicinal weed consumers. This approach, however disingenuous, has worked. Just look at Monday's decision.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Donald Taliano granted Matthew Mernagh, a wellknown marijuana advocate who has been charged numerous times for possession or production of marijuana, a permanent stay of charges against him for having and using pot without a doctor-approved licence. Justice Taliano also gave Mr. Mernagh a "personal exemption" from criminal prosecution for the next 90 days so he may grow or buy pot freely while Ottawa revises its medical marijuana rules, as ordered by the judge.
If the court's desire were merely to ease bureaucratic delays for patients needing marijuana, it could have given Mr. Mernagh a federal licence to buy from a government-approved grower. Instead, it effectively upended Health Canada's marijuana protocols altogether, seemingly permitting Mr. Mernagh to grow his own pot without a licence or to buy from unlicensed (i.e. illegal) dealers. It is unlikely the court would have been so aggressive in fashioning a remedy in regard to any other drug.
At the heart of Mr. Mernagh's complaint was his failure to find a doctor prepared to sign his marijuana licence. In the absence of a prescriber, the court permitted him to take his treatment into his own hands. But what if Mr. Mernagh had been desirous of taking strong painkillers to treat his multiple conditions, yet could find no physician to write him a prescription? It's seem unlikely a judge would have created for him a Constitutional right to oxycontin or morphine, and given him permission to buy from a street dealer if no medical profession would supply his need.
So long as marijuana advocates want to legalize their drug using the backdoor excuse of medicinal need, they must consent to have doctors act as gatekeepers to their drug of choice. But that gatekeeping system -put in place a decade ago as a means to balance legitimate medical needs with marijuana's status as a generally illegal drug -has broken down thanks to an unstated alliance between activist judges and straight-up activists.
As noted above, we share their ultimate policy goal: Marijuana should be decriminalized, and possibly even legalized. But this is not the way to do it.
That is why it is preferable to be up front in the marijuana debate, and to settle the matter in the House of Commons rather than in the courts. Canadians are amongst the greatest per-capita consumers of marijuana in the Western world. A quarter or more of our adults have smoked it at least once. So it shouldn't be hard to find broad-based public support for decriminalization -by legislation rather than judgemade law.
The case for a strong coast guard
Canada's east and west coast waters are thinly defended at best. The Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River are rife with lawlessness that Canadian authorities lack the muscle to tackle. So where does the Harper government want to pour big bucks on defending our borders?
The far North. Voters should take a close look at the government's plan to purchase six to eight Arctic patrol vessels to defend Canadian sovereignty in the North.
It goes without saying that we Canadians get emotional about protecting our Arctic. But there are different ways of going about that. Unfortunately, spending more than $3-billion on a plan with four huge flaws isn't one of them.
- With all the gaps in Canada's capacity to defend its own territory, why focus on the far north, where attacks are least likely to come from? Forget all those government scare stories about Russians assaulting our air space. They're all bluster, and every sane military observer on the planet knows it.
-Any territorial disputes in the Arctic are going to be settled in the courts, not through the barrels of guns. An Arctic war? Forget it. Political leaders make foolish decisions from time to time, but very few are sociopaths -which is what you'd have to be to start a war in the Arctic.
- Wrong tools. Even if you give credence to the argument that flexing some military muscle would add to our credibility in the North, these patrol vessels would make us look silly, not strong. They won't break ice any thicker than what you'd hear clinking inside glasses at a cocktail party. They would be expensive summertime showpieces, to be sent south from September to July to patrol on our east and west coasts. Except they'll have trouble doing much pursuing -their top speed is expected to be 16 knots, slower than the fishing boats that ply those same waters. You need high speed to patrol effectively. These patrol vessels won't cut it.
- The plan envisions the Canadian navy operating these Arctic patrols. The navy hasn't broken ice since the 1950s, so its experience in icy waters is zilch. The Canadian Coast Guard has decades of experience breaking ice in the Arctic, which it does well when given the proper tools. Right now it doesn't have them. Canada's current icebreaking fleet is approaching antiquity.
A recent report of the Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans noted that "Canada's icebreaking fleet ... will not be adequate once shipping increases," something projected to occur due to warming global temperatures. If Canada is going to seriously patrol Arctic waters, it should listen to Michael Turner, former acting commissioner of the Coast Guard, who told the committee that since the new patrol vessels would be of hybrid design, they would be only semi-useful in their intended roles. Why should Canada purchase vessels unable to crush ice in the north and, thanks to their slow speed, capable of what Turner charitably termed only "limited capacity in open water."
If Canada is serious about Arctic sovereignty, we need genuine icebreakers. Our existing fleet is aging and none of the vessels match up to the six icebreakers the Russians employ to enforce sovereignty. The current government plan is to purchase just one new icebreaker. If we're serious about patrolling, we need three.
The government should forget about the patrol vessels, purchase three robust icebreakers, and man them with the people who have experience plying our coastal waters -the Canadian Coast Guard.
It is time that we armed Canada's coast guard. Using a vital chunk of the navy's budget for patrolling the Arctic in ineffective ships is not money well spent -particularly when the navy desperately needs money to replace its outdated destroyers with modern vessels capable of defending themselves (and other Canadian ships) from air attack. Unless replacements are ordered quickly, there is going to be a lengthy period where Canada will risk losing that vital military capability, as well as our ability to use our destroyers as flagships for international fleets -a skill set developed by the navy for decades, and one that has allowed us to punch above our weight on the high seas.
There are two coast guard unions. Each has expressed willingness to take on a constabulary capability. Arming the coast guard and giving them the proper equipment would be the smart way to go. Exaggerating the threat to our Great White North and ordering up the wrong kind of vessels to defend would not be smart at all.
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