In Defence of the First Past the Post Voting System

There are a large number of people who would probably be triggered by the title of this post. To them the FPTP voting system is an anti-democratic abomination of a voting system. They are wrong of course. It is a tried and true voting system that predates Confederation and that has served Canada well. 

All that being said I will agree that it has some very serious flaws but I would also assert that all of the alternatives that are proposed to replace it have different but equally serious flaws. In the end the flaws of the different methods of voting cancel each other out so opponents of the FPTP system need to come up with much more compelling reasons for changing how we vote.

There are some specific reasons why this system is an effective method for electing people.

First, every politician in this system must face their constituents, which means that local election campaigns can hinge on local issues. Certainly the national campaign is important but I have seen elections where a local issue has dominated the local election and the national campaigns were less important. For example, I worked for an Ottawa Member of Parliament in the late 90s. During that time there was a proposal before the National Capital Commission, the government department charged with taking care of government buildings and facilities in the Ottawa area, to widen one of the bridges that crosses the Ottawa River and connects Ontario to Quebec. My MP lobbied against the project because of the impact on traffic it would cause on both sides of the bridge. However, the MP for the Quebec riding on the other side of the bridge was a Cabinet Minister and his views prevailed. In the 2000 election all of the Opposition candidates going up against my MP focused on this failure to stop the bridge expansion. The Chretien government had just announced $100 billion in tax cuts but it was the bridge issue that dominated the local campaign in Ottawa West-Nepean in 2000. Federal politicians need to be able to address local issues and the FPTP system is very effective at forcing them to do that.

Canada is a huge country, with with six different regions, Eastern Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairie Provinces, British Columbia and the North. Each of those regions have different interests and different ways of looking at politics in Canada. The FPTP system allows them to express those differences very effectively. It is an open question of whether other systems would be as effective. Unfortunately, Canada is not a political petri dish so switching to a new system only to find out it is not as effective is not an option. However, it should be noted that with the increasing polarization of the electorate, which is falling along regional lines, the FPTP system may be losing its effectiveness in dealing with regional interests. That is a situation that needs to be examined and ways have to be found to mitigate any negative impacts it might have and that would include looking at how we vote. However, it will also need to be addressed by looking at facts and evidence in a non-partisan way which is not going to happen.

Third, as I alluded to in my introductory paragraph Canada has used the FPTP system to elect its governments since before Confederation. It is a proven method of electing the government that we want and the governments that we need. I shudder to think what would have happened to Canada if John A. MacDonald would have had to share power with Opposition politicians who did not have the same vision for Canada he did. Or MacKenzie King having to share power during WWII or a succession of governments during the Cold War. The simple fact is, more often than not, the FPTP system elects stable governments, which all countries need to thrive.

The FPTP voting system is not perfect. No voting system is. However, it has proven effective and it forces federal politicians in this country not to forget about local issues. Although its flaws are well documented they are not enough to ditch the system without having another alternative whose flaws are just as well documented, acknowledged by the proponents of these systems, and ways to mitigate the impacts of these flaws worked out before switching systems. Just saying we should switch because you have faith that your preferred system is better, or "more democratic" without sound evidence to prove that is not enough. 

The Canadian Case Against Proportional Representation

I have been a critic of the idea of switching the Canadian voting system from First-Past-the-Post to Proportional Representation for quite some time. It is not that I dislike that particular way of voting it is just that I reject the notion that it is "more democratic" than any other voting system including FPTP.

I also have a problem with the fact that most of the proponents of PR, in Canada, are partisans for the NDP and Green Party. If anybody does not believe that they are proponents of that system because of naked partisan interests, I have a bridge to sell you in New York City. I have had discussions with proponents of PR who have rejected all other forms of voting that would allow "all votes to count" including ranked ballot and they have not been able to give a reasonable answer as to why. (I know why but they would never admit it.)

One of the arguments against PR is it can lead to unstable governments or allow the more extreme elements of society a chance to access some levers of power. The response of the proponents of PR is to confidently assert that PR in Canada would result in such stable governments as Germany or New Zealand. They reject out of hand any notion that it might actually resemble Italy or Israel or that Canada might suffer the same fate as Czechoslovakia, where a PR system completely failed in preventing that country from breaking in two.

The proponents of PR in Canada absolutely refuse to consider what kind of governments would result if that system was used in Canada. They just stick to the German or New Zealand example and take it on faith that Canada would be like them.

So let us consider this issue. Are they correct?

The assumption of PR proponents, in Canada, is under such as system only four national parties would make up the composition of the House of Commons. The Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Greens. With four parties there would always be stable coalitions and therefore things would be great. When you ask the obvious question of what about the Bloc Quebecois they confidently state that if they win 5% of the vote they get seats in the House but if they do not reach that threshold they do not. The big problem with that is 4% of the national vote for the Bloc equates to about 25% in the Province of Quebec. Do the proponents of PR truly believe that Quebecers would take the Bloc being excluded from the House after it won 25% of the vote in Quebec? Not likely and if they tried to force that through it would cause a national unity crisis in this country. So, Canada being Canada the solution to such a crisis would be to give way and make an exception to the 5% threshold for the Bloc Quebecois.

Of course, such a solution would only create problems in other regions of the country. The Prairie Provinces, the Eastern Provinces, BC and Ontario all make up distinct regions in this country and if a regional party in Quebec were to receive special treatment it would not take long for regional parties in the other regions to demand the same treatment. Again to prevent a national unity crisis exceptions would have to be made for those parties and the number of parties could be quite large. Conceivably, the number really has no limit, strictly regional parties could arise or a bunch of single issue parties only based in one of the regions could pop up, all demanding the same treatment as the Bloc Quebecois.

While not all of these parties would receive enough votes nationally and/or regionally to earn seats in the House enough of them would to make our parliaments much less tidy than what the proponents of PR believe it would be, where the House of Commons only has four parties in it. In the end the most likely result is a parliament that resembles the Italian or Israeli parliaments as opposed to the German and New Zealand parliaments.

As both the Italian and Israeli parliaments have demonstrated having that many parties vying for a seat at the government table provides large openings for extreme single issue parties to gain much more power and influence than they would normally have in a non-PR system. Right now the FPTP system provides some insulation against the really extreme crackpots from accessing the levers of power, although it is not perfect in doing so by any stretch of the imagination. However, a PR system in Canada would strip away all of that insulation with untold impacts on the social fabric of our country.

The simple fact is Canada is a huge country geographically, where each region has their own interests and ways of looking at being Canadian. Anybody that believes that fact would not impact how a PR voting system would be implemented in Canada is dreaming. That fact alone is a reason not to adopt a Proportional Representation voting system at the Federal level in this country. When you add all of the other reasons that I have discussed in this space before the case against PR in this country is quite compelling.

Will the Conservative Stay United?

In a previous post I mentioned that the fact Erin O'Toole released a video indicating that a government lead by him would defund the CBC was interesting because such a video would only resonate with the Conservative Base. Further I speculated as to why he would release such a video and mentioned that it could be their internal data analysis is showing an erosion of the Conservative base, as some of the public polls are hinting at. With the rise of the Wexit Parties in the Prairies and the PPC in Ontario and Quebec there are alternatives to the Conservatives. Whether they could be considered credible is debatable but I would also point out that no one took the Reform Party seriously until they exploded on to the scene.

This line of thought did cause me to explore this notion a little more. 

The last time a national conservative party was truly united was the Progressive Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney. Mr. Mulroney won two straight majorities that went through Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. 

Then in 1993 the PCPC shattered along regional lines. In Quebec their voters went to the Bloc Quebecois. In Alberta they went to the Reform Party and in Ontario they split evenly between the Reform Party and the PCPC. It remained that way until just before the 2004 election when the Canadian Reform Alliance Party (the old Reform Party) and the remnants of the PCPC merged (or the PCPC was swallowed whole by the CRAP, depending on who you talk to.)

This new Conservative Party of Canada managed to unite itself and win three elections but it is a crucial fact that they were only able to win one majority government when they finally managed to reunite the Conservative voters of Ontario and Alberta and a sprinkling of Conservative voters in other western provinces. Interestingly when the old PCPC voters who turned to the Bloc turned away from them in 2011 they turned to the NDP and did not turn back to the CPC. 

All of this is to say that the bonds that unite the Conservative Party of Canada have not really been proven to be strong and resilient. It is true that there are probably not many old PCPC supporters left in the party so what is left is probably quite happy with the party but the rise of the PPC and the Wexit Parties do indicate that the Conservative base is not monolithic and that it may not be as rock solid as conventional wisdom believes.

The CPC was Stephen Harper's baby. He was the one who did the work to create it. He was the only CPC leader who could keep the more extreme elements of the Canadian Conservative Movement under wraps. Without him the Conservative Party of Canada has not been the same.

I do not know the answer to my question. It would not surprise me that they will somehow muddle through until they can finally get their act together but it would also not surprise me if the next election resembles 1993, and another united national conservative party breaks apart.

The Canadian Green Party

The only reason why the Canadian Green Party is on the electoral map in Canada is because of Elizabeth May. She put in the hard work and effort to take a fringe movement most people had never heard of and make it somewhat respectable.

The only problem is the Green Party and her became interchangeable. She was the Green Party and the Green Party was her. So when she announced that she would be stepping down as leader it was going to have a negative impact on the Party's standing among Canadians.

That means they had to elect a new leader who would be able to replicate what Ms. May had done and they would need to realize that it would not be easy or quick. Judging by the public statements of the new leader of the Green Party, over the last couple of days, it would appear that the Party did not elect the leader who understood that reality

Why is Erin O'Toole talking about defunding the CBC?

I noted on Twitter yesterday that Erin O'Toole has released a video where he states that he will defund the CBC. It is standard fare for the Conservatives because they have been talking about that since the CPC was the Reform Party.

So why is he bothering to mention this now?

As I have stated in this space and as comments on other blogs the best way to see how the political wind is blowing is to watch the political parties and not the polls. The polls might give you clues but they are too easily manipulated and most people do not know how to read them even when they are not.

I believe the defund CBC gambit by Mr. O'Toole speaks volumes. That is the reddest of red meat for Conservatives. It ranks right up there with denying climate change, lowering taxes and reducing immigration, particularly of folks of a darker hue and different religions. The fact that Mr. O'Toole and his team have decided to throw this out there now could be a big indication that their internal data analysis is telling them what the public polls are hinting at.

While I always take polls with a truck load of salt it cannot be denied that many of them are indicating that the Conservatives are below the 30% mark. And the 30% mark is the usual floor for the Conservatives. Hell, in 2015, when the desire for change was at stratospheric levels the Conservatives garnered 30% of the vote because that is their base. If these polls are true and the Conservatives have actually fallen below 30% that would seem to indicate that their base is eroding.

I did not believe the polls but now I not so certain. The defund the CBC gambit could very well indicate that the public polls are on to something. That has been part of the CPC ethos since forever. It does not need to be said and the fact they decided to say it anyway might indicate that the public polls are correct. In short, the defund the CBC gambit could be designed to shore up the base of the CPC because some of it could be leaking to other conservative parties, such as the PPC and the Wexit Parties. 

If the Conservatives have any chance in the next election they need to maintain their base. If they lose it they are guaranteed to lose the election with the possibility of being absolutely creamed. The fact they released a video that would only appeal to that base might indicate that it is not as rock solid as it has been in the past. 

This is not proof that their base is eroding but it is a significant sign and we will have to keep an eye on this going forward. 

General Fortin was not fired he was reassigned

My understanding of the arrangement that saw General Fortin overseeing the distribution of vaccines as they arrived in Canada was he was on temporary assignment, seconded to the Department of Health. Every time he appeared before the cameras he was in full uniform. Not once did I see him in civilian clothing so he was and is still a member of the Canadian Army, with all that comes with that distinction.

As with all temporary military assignments they can end with little or no notice for any reason, including no reason at all. My understanding is General Fortin is still a member of the Canadian Army and he still holds his rank. He was either sent back to his old job in the Army or asked to take leave pending the investigation that prompted his reassignment.

Part of being a member of the military is that the organization that the member works for can assign them to any job whenever they like, based on operational requirements, or based on other requirements. There is no real recourse for the member if they do not like the assignment accept for resigning from the military. Although, it should be known that the military usually does not give such orders without first consulting with the member to determine if that member would be agreeable to the assignment. If not, most of the time the military will make other arrangements. They can be more arbitrary is if the member has some special skills that are not easy to find elsewhere.

He can seek legal recourse regarding his reassignment. That is his right. However, his reassignment came from his superiors, so I would assume it came down the chain of command, which incidentally includes the Defence Minister and the Prime Minister. If he took orders from someone not in the chain of command then he would have a problem. So, I cannot see what he hopes to achieve with his legal challenge. 

Casual Racism, Ignorance and Hubris

This past weekend a mass grave containing over 200 indigenous children was found near the grounds of an old Residential School in Kamloops BC. The find has sparked off a great deal of shock, sadness, outrage and other reactions and emotions.

It has also generated some questions of why the Residential School system happened and the answer is invariably that it was racism, plain and simple, particularly on the part of John A MacDonald.

Unfortunately it is not that simple because history is not that simple. You have to put history into context in order to understand it and in order to attempt not to make the same historical mistakes again and again.

At the time of the establishment of the Residential School system white, European men had been ruling the world for three hundred years. The Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Germans, the French and the English had colonies on all of the continents. They managed to take these lands from the indigenous people of these lands without much effort. So naturally, they believed that the white race was superior to all other races and that they had been gifted the world by God.

In addition white Europeans were not accepting of other cultures, even when they were white Europeans. During the latter part of the 19th Century the English viewed the French with suspicion and contempt, the French viewed the Germans with fear and the Germans thought anybody born east of the Danube was from another planet. So if Europeans were not accepting of fellow white, Christian Europeans they would definitely not be accepting of non-white, non-Christian and "savage" cultures of the people they found in the new world. That is assuming they even recognized the people they found living here as having cultures, which was probably not the case. 

Finally the white politicians that implemented all of these policies believed that they were doing it for the benefit of the indigenous people. Who would not want to enjoy the benefits of European civilization? Keep in mind that these men were so ignorant they were mostly unaware of how uneven was the benefits of living in the European civilization was spread throughout their own societies. They were all wealthy, often owning land or some kind of business and they were doing quite well living in their civilization. As far as they were concerned their efforts were just and beneficent. I sometimes wonder if the lower classes of society would have been making the decisions whether some of the more egregious policies directed at the indigenous people would have been enacted. Probably some, as casual racism was not confined to the upper class, but perhaps not all.

As well, by bringing them into the shining light of God and his Son you were saving their souls from eternal damnation. 

Of course, the problem was the indigenous people did have their own cultures and wanted to maintain them so they had to be forced to give them up and become good Christians in a "civilized" society.

None of this is to defend these policies or the men who enacted them. What I am trying to do is to put all of this into historical context. You see there is a widespread belief that you can prevent repeating history by learning it but there is an underlying fallacy in that belief that just knowing of an event in history is enough to prevent it from happening again.

That is wrong. What you must learn from history is the context around an historical event, situation or decision. That way you can learn the reasons or conditions that lead to them and then learn to recognize those reasons or conditions if you encounter them in the future. Only by doing that do you have any chance of not making the same historical mistakes more than once.

I will give you an example. Many Americans have acknowledged that putting Japanese Americans into internment camps during the Second World War was wrong. However, many of these same Americans saw no problem with the Trump Administration's policy of putting the children of southern migrants into internment camps. If you look at the context for the establishment of the Japanese camps and compare it to the context for the Trump camps there are a great number of parallels. Certainly, not a perfect match but enough to see that many Americans did not learn the right historical lessons from the Japanese camps experience.

My biggest fear in all of this is Canadians will not learn the real lessons that the Residential School System should be teaching us. They will never go beyond the superficial, demanding the removal of some statues and reparations for the victims and/or their descendants, before moving on and failing to recognize the conditions for a similar tragedy sometime in the future.

Canadian Conservatives have a Trump Problem

That does not mean that they have to worry about Donald Trump or that they have to worry about being compared to him. Let's face it, any one of the several prominent Conservative politicians in this country could rip of a face mask and reveal themselves to be The Donald himself and the Canadian media would ignore it and find something else to talk about.

No, their Trump problem is they have not fully understood the Trump phenomenon. Donald Trump rose to power because he was facing an unpopular Democratic opponent after the Democrats had held the presidency for eight years. The electorate in the US wanted a change and they did not believe that the change they would be getting from Donald Trump would be the dumpster fire that it turned out to be. The fact that his opponent was a woman probably hurt the Democrat's chances on top of that.

Mr. Ford and Mr. Kenney had similar conditions when they won their victories. They were facing unpopular incumbent governments, coincidentally lead by women, who were ripe for the picking and so they won. The problem for Mr. Ford, Mr. Kenney and Mr. Trump is they all believed their victories were the result of their political genius. They failed to realize that their opponents had big disadvantages going into their campaigns and that their respective electorates were thirsting for change. 

So with this inflated image of their own political acumen these three men began to "govern" by creating five alarm dumpster fires before a global pandemic happened. Then when the pandemic hit the small dumpster fire exploded into something much bigger because none of these three men are any where near competent at the best of times.

The result for Donald Trump is he became that rare bird in American politics, a one term president. He lost that election because after four years it become very obvious that he was not cut out for the job and that his political acumen and that of this campaign team was non existent. Really, as the incumbent president if he would have shown even a little competence during the beginning of the pandemic he would be enjoying a second term.

The problem for Canadian Conservatives is they are following the same failed playbook as Donald Trump. It boggles my mind how Mr. Ford, Mr. Kenney and their political strategists have not looked at how Donald Trump lost the White House and then did not change their approach to governing. It is true that our First Past the Post electoral system may be able to save them but neither Mr. Ford or Mr. Kenney should have to worry about that as they are in their first terms. However, although I would not count either one out, both are in for a tough fight when they have to face the voters again.

The example is Mr. Ford's handling of the pandemic since Christmas. Remember that many were praising Mr. Ford's handling of the pandemic this time last year. He was riding high in the polls and conventional wisdom was he would cruise to a second term. Then he stopped listening to the experts with regard to opening up the province with the predicted skyrocketing of positive infections being the outcome. 

At that point he could have shown a little humility and changed course. Instead he went full Trump, going full steam ahead and he began blaming others for his shortcoming. The vaccine shortage gambit by him was truly tone-deaf. Most Ontarian understood that vaccines would start as a trickle and then become a flood. As well, I was amazed at how long Mr. Ford kept flogging that narrative. Even when a simple Google search could allow you to find out exactly how many doses Ontario had received and administered, and the number of doses in freezers, Mr. Ford kept up the narrative. It is no coincidence that his political troubles started when he refused to let go of the "vaccine shortage" strategy when it was demonstrated to be absolutely false.

He finally abandoned that gambit to switch to the borders being the cause of infections. This strategy is even worse than the vaccine shortage one. The amount of information out there to prove his assertions wrong is impressive and people are finding it and disseminating it. It is an open question of how long he will be pushing this strategy but I would bet he will still be pushing it long after it is completely and thoroughly debunked.

Mr. Trump was not a successful politician. He did not win the White House because of his political genius and his total lack in political acumen is what cost him the White House when he faced an opponent with alot less baggage than Hillary Clinton. The political playbook created by Mr. Trump and his political strategists was nothing more than an oversize paper weight. So it is surprising that Mr. Ford and Mr. Kenney have not recognized that fact and pivoted away from using that same playbook. Alot can happen between how and the next elections in Ontario and Alberta and both Mr. Ford and Mr. Kenney are still the favourites to win but with each passing week where they continue to use the Trump playbook they increase the likelihood of being one term Premiers.

Why are Conservatives so Anti-Science?

Just to be clear not all conservatives are anti-science but most people I have seen who have dismissed science and scientific evidence tend to be conservative.

As well, certainly most Conservative leaders seem to be against science or at least choose to ignore it. This feature cuts across cultures and languages. In Ontario, Alberta, Trump's American, Brazil, the UK, The Philippines, to name just a few, the leaders of these political jurisdiction have ignored science on a whole host of issues and in many cases they are actually proud of their stance. How anybody can show pride in embracing ignorance is beyond me.

I used to think this as a largely English speaking white guy phenomenon but we are seeing this in many other political jurisdiction where conservatives have a significant presence. And it is not just with the conservative leadership either. Ordinary citizens of these places, who identify as conservative, are militantly anti-science. It seems that if a scientist says something then they disagree out of spite. "The sky is blue." said Dr. Smith. "No it is not." said President Trump.

If this were just an English speaking white guy thing I would just put it down to the knowledge that their days of ruling the world for their own benefit is coming to an end and they are just acting out. However, with conservatives of other ethnic groups following suit it is probably not that simple.

Maybe it is historical determinism. History has moved back and forth between enlightenment and ignorance for thousands of years. Every historical era where human civilizations acquired new knowledge, such as the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, Rome and the Arab world after the death of Mohammed have been followed by eras where superstition and ignorance reigned supreme. The last era where knowledge was valued for its intrinsic value was the Enlightenment. It lasted will into the 20th Century so maybe it should not be a surprise that we are seeing a backlash against it. It has happened before so it is no surprise that it is happening again.

I have never been completely sold on the historical determinism idea. Yes, humans do seem to have this habit of not learning from history so that we seem to repeat it but that cannot be the only reason. A second reason, which I find is more compelling, is science is getting in the way of the Conservative ideology. It is a fact that as long as human civilization has existed there have always been a segment of civilization who will put their beliefs above anything else and sometime react violently when presented with facts that challenge those beliefs. The old Soviet Union was brought down because the Communist Party of the Soviet Union chose to adhere to their ideology when ruling their country instead of modifying it or their policies to fit the facts on the ground. Now it is the turn of conservatives. That is one reason why I have stated that many modern Conservative Parties in the world are very much like the old CPSU. Ideology trumps all and that is the way they like it. Of course, the CPSU and the USSR should be a cautionary tale for modern Conservatives but that would require them to accept facts over their beliefs.

A third reason is spite, to "own the Liberals". If a liberal says it is true they believe it is false and if a liberal uses facts discovered by science to back up their arguments then science is part of the problem and should be ignored or even condemned.

The answer to my question is probably a combination of all three points in the post plus others I have not thought of. Regardless, that fact that many conservatives are so anti-science and anti-facts is troubling during these times. In the past, eras of ignorance were the result of the decline and fall of civilizations that value knowledge. This time the embrace of ignorance could be the cause of the fall of our current civilization.

The Myth of Strategic Voting

There is a persistent myth amongst some political commentators that strategic voting actually plays a big role in the outcome of elections. There are some commentators that even state that strategic voting is the reason why the Liberals won the last election and the election before. The argument goes something like this: Progressive voters voted for the Liberals instead of the more progressive NDP because they wanted to prevent a Conservative government. That assertion is silly. Although strategic voting certainly does happen its impact on the overall result of elections is negligible.

There are three types of voters. Note that I am only including those voters who vote regularly and I am ignoring the approximately 35% of eligible voters who do not bother to vote on a regular basis.

The first type are the ones that vote for a given party out of habit (I have always voted for the NDP.) or out of tradition (My grandfather voted Conservative and my father voted Conservative. What's good enough for them is good enough for me.). These voters pay little attention to what their parties are doing in between elections or the direction their party would like to take the country. Many of these voters are unaware of the fact that the parties their parents and grandparents supported back in the day no longer exist. They are completely different but that does not concern them.

This is the largest block of voters. They make up the base of each of the political parties. They are not all partisans of those parties. Most do not think about politics in between elections but when it comes time to mark their X on the ballot paper, on election day, they will vote for the party they have always voted for, regardless of what happened in between elections and what happened during a given election campaign.

The base of each party is approximately:

• 30% for the Conservatives
• 30% for the Liberals
• 15% for the NDP
• 5% for the Greens
• 5% for other parties

The Bloc really does not have a base. It is a political fact that francophone Quebecers are the most fickle voters in Canada. You never know which way they will jump so you cannot depend on them to always support your party. Contrast that to anglophone Quebecers who are a dependable part of the Liberal base. It was anglophone Quebecers that prevented the Liberals from losing Official Party status in 2011.

So if you look at the base of each of the parties it adds up to around 85% of the electorate.

The next largest portion of the electorate are what I call the unaligned voters. They are the voters that will vote for a party during a given election or vote against a party during a given election and how they vote next time may be totally different. These voters are only slightly more informed than the base voters for each party. These voters will switch their vote but that switch is usually the result of feelings as opposed to logic and research of the platforms of each political party. These voters only trust the Conservative and the Liberals to govern the country and they will break for either party on election day in sufficient numbers to hand either one the victory. They broke for the Liberals in 2015 and for the Conservatives in 2011. That is not to say they will all vote for the winner but enough of them will vote for a party to push them over the top. There are exceptions, the 2019 election being one of them, where this non-aligned vote will split evenly making the election about vote efficiency for the parties over the number of votes they receive.

Of the 15% of the non-aligned vote probably around 14% of that will vote for the party they believe will be the best one to govern the country or against the party they do not want to govern.

That leaves about 1% who will decide to vote strategically. They will have a party they absolutely want to prevent from forming a government and they will attempt to find out which of the parties in their riding has the best shot at preventing a candidate from that party they do not want to form government from winning. Of course, this is a hit and miss proposition because most voters do not know which party is leading in their riding as riding polls are hopelessly unreliable. The result, in most cases, of strategic voting is failure in preventing the party you do not want to win from winning.

Strategic voting exists but it is not as prevalent as some would believe and its impact on elections is not as large as those same people would hope. 

You had one job Mr. Ford

And if you would have done it well you would have been able to skate to a comfortable majority government in 2022.

You will probably still win. I believe you still have the inside track but your decision making during the pandemic, particularly now that the 3rd wave has taken hold in the Province and is really taking off, is going to make you work alot harder for that victory.

If you would like to know when the wheels began to come off I would point to the Fall of 2020. The second wave was predicted and expected and many were saying it could be prevented or at least mitigated if certain actions were taken when cases began to climb. You did not take those actions and you let the 2nd wave take hold. You finally did act but in a half-assed way, which did cause the slope of the curve to turn downwards as hoped. However, that is when you made your next mistake. Instead of keeping the measures that were working in place you took the slight downward trend as a sign that you could reopen Ontario again. The result was predictable. The slope reverted to the upward angle and the new variants of concern caused that angle to increase until it was essentially a straight line going up. Now here we are with cases climbing at an extremely alarming rate and you have now been forced to take extraordinary measures to flatten that curve once again, measures that could have been prevented if you acted earlier. Incidentally, I am not saying this, doctors and scientists are saying this. And now even some of your allies in the media are not bothering to attempt to put lipstick on this particular porker.

Your attempts to shift blame for this situation to the Federal government is falling on deaf ears and they have been doing so for some time. There is one thing Canadians understand and that is how our health care system works. We all know that the provinces are the political jurisdictions that provide us with our health care. Hell, my health card has the Ontario government logo embossed on it in a most conspicuous way. Further, the message that your government has had over a million doses sitting in freezers for over a week is getting through. You have been stating that your government has been doing that because you are afraid of running out but no one is really buying that. I noticed today that you stated that Ontario had the capacity to vaccinate 300,000 people per day, which is double what you have been saying for months. That is convenient because instead of having almost a ten day supply in freezers you can now claim to have only a four day supply. The only problem Mr. Ford is people are wary of what politicians tell them. In order for them to actually believe you Ontario actually has to meet or come very close to that number. So far, the average has not reached a third of the 300,000. 

By the way, I realize the logistical challenges a mass vaccination program in Ontario presents to your government. You had almost a year to plan but still hiccups are to be expected. In that situation all we could ask of you and your government is to learn from the challenges, improve the vaccination effort and take the necessary public health measures to backstop the vaccination efforts until they are running smoothly. Unfortunately, you have done none of that.

The problems you have caused yourself are taking a toll. I can see it on your face when you have media availabilities. I am certain much of that concern is for the plight of the people of Ontario. I am not going claim that you are a sociopath who does not care about the welfare of the people of Ontario but I would also bet that a fair amount of that concern is the melting away of your support among the voters. I have always stated that if you want to see the state of politics in a given jurisdiction look at what the political parties are doing and what I see is a political party desperately grasping at anything they can think of to stem the political bleeding.

I have stated, in this space, many times that the pandemic has changed politics in this country. Any political party that does not realize that and continues to play pre-pandemic politics will only cause itself a great deal of trouble. You are one of those and I believe you are now seeing the results. There is still alot of time between now and the next election, for you to recover, but that is by no means certain and I doubt that you will recover enough in any case to make the next election anything but a crap shoot. 

The Conservative Party's Climate Change Plan

Go figure, after posting yesterday about how the Conservative Party of Canada voted not to believe in climate change the Leader of the party has actually introduced a climate change plan that can actually be called a plan. It is nice to see that they are at least making an effort.

Watching social media we can already see the policy wonks analyzing the merits and demerits of the plan but most of that will not go much farther than those policy wonks.

The Conservatives have two main problems for their plan. First, it is not a stand-alone document. It will be compared to the current policies of the Liberal government and there will be one issue that will make this plan dead on arrival as a result, namely the Conservative plan to take the revenues from a carbon levy and put it into green savings accounts. For the last few years the Conservatives and their apologists in the media have been attacking the "carbon tax" while completely ignoring the rebates that come along with it. Now that the Conservatives have introduced the idea of green savings accounts the tax rebates of the current system will be highlighted and in a head-to-head matchup between the two, among the non-aligned voters in the areas of the country where the Conservatives need to make gains, the current system will triumph. Really, for the average person the choice between receiving money that you can spend as you wish or having money put into an account, on your behalf, but for which you can only spend on certain things is no contest. They will take the money and run. And that is leaving aside the Conservative plan to have a private sector organization collect the funds and administer these green savings accounts instead of a government department or agency, which will raise alot a red flags among non-aligned Canadians. 

The second problem for the Conservatives is the majority of their membership voted against believing in climate change and the need to address it. That fact will provide Conservative opponents with what they need to question whether this new plan would ever be implemented if the Conservatives ever won an election. Would a Conservative PM actually defy the membership of his party? Will he break the promise to eliminate the "carbon tax" after all of these years or will he keep that promise and break the promises in this new Climate Change Plan? Again, looking at social media we are already seeing a bit of a backlash among conservatives to this plan and their opponents are claiming the Conservatives have flip-flopped. 

These two issues are going to make the Conservative plan difficult to sell to both audiences. Conservatives will not like the acceptance of a price on carbon after fighting against it for all of these years and non-Conservatives are going to have a hard time believing that a Conservative government would follow through on this plan, assuming non-Conservatives decided they liked it better than the current system.

Looking at the Conservative plan they have accepted the targets outlined in the current government policy. There are some differences on how the Conservatives would address large emitters of GHG but the differences are not earth shattering. The key difference is the amount of the carbon levy and how to handle returning those funds to Canadians. Their plan for those funds is a likely non-starter for those Canadians that they need to convince which would make this plan not worth the paper it is written on. Really, what the Conservatives should have done was state that they fought the good fight against the "carbon tax" but with the recent SCC decision they have concluded that there is no point continuing it further. They then could have stated that they would no longer move to repeal it if they won government. That would have neutralized the issue as something that could hurt them among urban and suburban Canadians without providing their opponents with something to snipe at. 

Some Random Observations

Just a few observations about things I have seen and heard about over the last few days and weeks.

Jake Tapper: I know that Liberals are up in arms about his piece on CNN the other night, claiming he is in bed with Conservatives but that is probably just BS. In actual fact that piece was just a case of lazy journalism and an example of why modern journalism and the organizations that peddle it are slowly dying. All he had to do was take a little extra time to educate himself on how our Federal system works and his story would have been much more meaningful. Instead he did not, further demonstrating that modern news organizations do not really care about reporting facts anymore and demonstrating why the consumption of news  by the traditional methods is being steadily reduced. Everywhere, news organizations have been losing money hand over fist, except for the four year gift of the Trump presidency, but the reactions of these organizations is to double down on what is not working instead of coming up with another business model. 

By the way, Mr. Tapper's comments will probably not have any impact on the Canadian political scene but if it does it will probably be to see a slight uptick in the popularity of Mr. Trudeau and his government. You see, although partisans from each party will point to that piece to reinforce their preconceived notions, non-partisan Canadians will either ignore it or they will get pissed at the United States media for interfering with our politics and react by supporting the Trudeau government for a time. We saw that during the first term of the Harper government. An American publication published a negative piece about them. The Liberals went "See, even Americans realize that the Harper government is bad for Canada.". Then, perversely, when the next set of polls came out Mr. Harper's personal popularity and the popularity of his government saw a bit of an uptick. 

Vaccine Rollout: It is upsetting that the vaccine rollout has become such a political football. What should have happened, from the very beginning, was the governments of this country and the various oppositions should have worked together towards putting this pandemic behind us. However, that has not happened and it has been politics as usual and that could have a very negative impact on those who are playing politics the most. I have stated in this space before that the pandemic has changed how people see politics in this country. The threat of the virus has made Canadians less receptive to petty partisan bickering. If we are to believe the public polls they seem to be showing us evidence of that. The political parties engaged in politics as usual are plummeting in those polls, with the O'Toole Conservatives averaging less than 30% and the personal approval ratings of Mr. Ford, Mr. Kenney and Mr. O'Toole heading towards the basement. Meanwhile, the personal and government approval for the Trudeau government is rising. If an election were held today the Liberals would probably win a comfortable majority government.

As an aside, just as the Trudeau Liberals could not be blamed for the slow acquisition of vaccines during the Winter the various provincial government cannot be completely blamed for the slow administration of them. The transport and storage requirements of the two main vaccines make it a logistical nightmare to get them where they need to be, in a timely fashion, so it is somewhat understandable that they are having some difficulties. Hopefully, they will be able to iron out the bugs in the coming weeks so that the administration of the vaccines becomes more robust.

The Third Wave: The second wave provided data on what worked and did not work in preventing it from getting out of hand. The fact that many of the Provincial governments did not learn those lessons, or just plain ignored them, is on them.

The United States is a failing state: I often wonder if the average Roman knew that Rome was declining and heading for a fall during those final decades before that Fall. Now I wonder if the average American realizes that the United States is rapidly declining and headed for a fall. Their society, their culture and their politics are sick and quite frankly I do not see a way for them to make the changes necessary to prevent the fall. The election of Joe Biden has slowed down the decline to a small extent but it has not reversed it and I believe that slowing of the decline will probably only last a few months before we see it accelerate again. It took decades for the Roman Empire to decline to the point where it could not prevent its fall. For the US I believe it will only take years. I am in my mid-50s and assuming I live a normal life-span (say to my late 70s to early 80s) I believe I will be around to witness the fall.

Political conventions: All three of the main Federal parties had political conventions this spring. For the Conservatives it was a disaster. My God, all they had to do was say they believed in climate change and things would be so much easier for them. Now Mr. O'Toole could present a stellar climate change plan (He won't) but no one would find it credible because he would never get the approval of his own party to implement it. Climate change is the issue of our time and saying you do not believe in it is just plain stupid, scientifically and for the Conservatives, politically.

The Liberals convention went off as they wanted. They came up with a bunch of new policies that may or may not make it into an election campaign platform but at least they can point to a bunch of issues that are generally popular among Canadians.

The NDP did their usual thing. They claimed that the Liberals have, yet again, stolen their ideas. The NDP has been saying that for as long as I have been observing Canadian politics (approaching 40 years) and I know that they were saying it long before I began observing it. So far all it has done was allow them to become the Official Opposition facing a majority government. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results then the NDP has been bonkers since it became a national party. Here is a little piece of advice for the NDP. Develop new material.

Canada's Vaccine Effort

The vaccination effort is going pretty much as I expected. The vaccines are arriving in Canada by the 100s of thousands and the provinces are administering them according to the relative levels of competence of each provincial government. 

However, one big question I do have is why have all of the governments, both Federal and Provincial, decided to vaccinate according to age instead of vaccinating where infections are on the rise?

I understand that the first priority should have been people in Long-Term Care facilities. That makes sense because they were particularly hard hit by the virus. It is pretty obvious to me that the next people on the priority list should have been health workers working in hospitals that are treating COVID patience. 

However, once that was done the efforts should have been to vaccinate the so-called hot spots instead of vaccinating according to age. Yes, people over 80 are more vulnerable than younger people but someone over 80 in a green zone is in less danger than someone of any age in a red zone. If you are in a green zone your chances of contracting the virus are much less than if you live in a red zone.

The upshot of this is green zones should be way down on the priority list for receiving vaccines. Indeed, I would say that they do not receive any vaccines, instead sending their allotments to the red zones. There is community spread but it is confined to specific zones. To bring down that spread requires following the established public health measures and administering the vaccines in areas were the spread of the virus is most rampant. Finally, if you focused on the hot spots the logistical issues surrounding the administration of the vaccine would be reduced.

So the order of priority should be:

1. Areas under lockdown
2. Red Zones
3. Yellow Zones
4. Green Zones

There might be some scientific reason for the approach that they are following but if it exists I have not seen it articulated yet. 

However, I would bet a sizable chunk of money that the reason is largely political. After all, after letting the virus run through LTC homes it would be politically difficult to tell senior citizens that they have to wait, even if they are living in a zone where the threat of them contracting the virus is very low. As well, targeting areas where infection growth is the highest might be perceived as rewarding bad behaviour and punishing good behaviour. Remember almost the entirety of the four Eastern Provinces of Canada are in the green so if a government were to deny them vaccines because they are needed in Ontario it would cause political trouble for the Federal government. The same is true at the Provincial level. Focusing on red zones, which is basically Toronto, would not be taken well by rural Ontarians, who happen to be the base for the Ford government.

We are entering a third wave of the pandemic. One way to mitigate that would be to vaccinate the hell out of the Regions of the country leading us into that third wave. If that means that regions of the country, that are not as hard hit by the virus, have to wait a little longer to receive vaccines then that might be the price we need to pay to really get on top of this. Unfortunately, I believe that ship as sailed and a new approach will not be taken.

Please note that this whole post is predicated on the fact I cannot find any medical or scientific reason why governments have chosen this approach to vaccinating Canadians. It was not the approach taken 11 years ago for the H1N1 flu vaccine. If anybody can provide me with plausible science of why the approach they are taking is superior to the one I am suggesting in this post I would welcome seeing it.

Ted Cruz is a Symptom, not the Problem

Ted Cruz was the latest and most prominent politician to decide to travel south to a warm location despite the fact that the COVID virus makes it a bad idea and the fact that Texas is still in the throes of a natural disaster just makes it an even worse idea.

The fact he actually did this under these circumstances is a indication of just how out of touch the political classes of the developed democracies have become with regard to the people they would govern. This problem has been developing for some time, it is getting worse and it is having and will continue to have profound impacts on these democracies.

Senator Cruz took this trip because he knows he will not suffer any long-term negative impacts from it. By the time he needs to face the electorate again, in a little under six years, this will be behind him. So the impacts on his political career will be negligible. However, the impacts on American democracy will be more significant.

There are inevitable negative consequences when the ruling classes of a country lose touch with the people they rule. The French nobility literally lost their heads and while the Russian nobility kept their heads they lost everything else. The US is not an absolute monarchy so the idea that its government will be brought down by a revolution, as happened in France and Russia, is probably a little far-fetched but it cannot be completely dismissed. On the other hand, an unscrupulous political opportunist who recognizes and exploits the disconnect to gain and keep power is very much a real threat, which has already been realized in the US. 

This problem cuts across partisan lines and it is a problem for all of the developed democracies in the world. It is true that it is not as advanced in some of these democracies as it is in the US but all of them have this problem and it is not going away.

The triple pressures of the rise of China, climate change and automation are going to work to widen the gap between the ruling classes and the governed in the Western democracies. History has demonstrated that the gap has never been bridged and that it will eventually lead to a political breakdown. Maybe our democracies will not suffer the same fate but I would not count on it. 

Moving the Goal Posts

The media and Federal government critics before they imposed new travel restrictions and rules on Canadians who chose to travel abroad, eg. snowbirds: "How can the government allow this to happen? These people are going to one of the hottest spots on the planet for COVID and when they come back they may bring the virus with them."

The media and Federal government critics after they imposed new travel restrictions and rules on Canadians who travel abroad. This includes mandatory quarantine in hotels at the travelers expense: "The travelers were blind sided. They received no warning. How are they going to afford these new rules?"

It just goes to prove, once again, that in politics you can suck and blow at the same time.

The Inherent Weakness of the US Federal Government System

Anybody who is a student of politics knows that the Founding Fathers of the United States built in a host of checks and balances into the Federal government in order to prevent any one branch of that government from becoming dominant. They had the right idea. Any man, regardless of how much they might believe in democracy, might be tempted to cast those beliefs aside once they gained power so the Founding Fathers built a system that would prevent that from happening. Or to put it another way, the Founding Fathers of the United States built a system that would prevent one of them from setting themselves up as a King.

The system worked and one result was the power of the United States grew until it became the most powerful country on the planet. However, the reason why the system worked was there was a general agreement on the objectives and goals of the United States and its government. Whoever held power could be counted on to work towards these objectives so politics in the United States was always about what means needed to be followed to meet the agreed upon ends not about changing those ends. There was a short breakdown of that general agreement in the 1860s but it was reestablished at great cost.

That began to change again during the Reagan years. Looking back to can begin to see that the consensus that had largely prevailed since 1776 was beginning to break down. It was not obvious at the time but the benefits of hindsight makes it very apparent now. That breakdown in the founding consensus of the United States continued and accelerated in the last 40 years to the point where it does not exist any more. At first the breakdown in the consensus was only among the ruling class of the United States but the events of January 6 has demonstrated that the breakdown in the consensus has reached ordinary Americans.

Looking at how ineffectual the American Federal Government has been for the past 40 years demonstrates the weakness of that system in addressing the breakdown in that consensus. Simply put, with Americans now trying to pull the country into different directions the US Federal Government is incapable of addressing the needs of its people in any meaningful and permanent way. The Founding Fathers all shared a vision of what the United States should be and they built a governing system to allow the realization of that vision. However, once that shared vision broke down the government system they built became paralyzed.

Many in the US talk about reestablishing bipartisanship in Washington and rebuilding unity in the country. However, that is only going to happen if Americans can come to another agreement of which direction they want their country to go. As long as that does not exist there will be no unity and the pressures that are pulling Americans apart will continue to do so, probably at an accelerated rate.  Americans have been through this before and they came out on the other side but doing so cost them a great deal. They might be able to do it again but it will probably be just as costly this time as well, assuming enough Americans can create the critical mass necessary to have any new united vision overcome the markedly different and competing visions that now prevail in the US.

Although the United States is a democracy with a democratic government the system that was created to safeguard that democracy was purposely created to be weak. Although that might have seemed like a good idea in the 18th century, after fighting a war to gain independence, it has proven to be completely ineffective in uniting the country when there is no single vision for the country.

The Republicans' Trump Problem

The events of January 6 were the logical culmination of the rise of the Tea Party movement in the United States. Donald Trump was the progeny of that movement and the authoritarian bent of Mr. Trump and his followers, both the professional politicians and ordinary Americans, is just an extension of the core beliefs of the Tea Partiers. Let's remember that Tea Partiers preached "smaller government" and preventing the "government from interfering" in the business of Americans but that was just propaganda. Their real goal was to use the power of government to punish anybody that did not share their beliefs and goals, which included outlawing abortion and same-sex marriage and making certain that America remained white, male, straight and Christian.

When they first showed up the Tea Partiers were rather extreme right-wingers for their time and they have tacked farther right since then, regardless of whether they failed, such as the two elections of President Obama, or succeeded, such as electing Donald Trump. That did not stop the Republican establishment from embracing them. They saw that the Tea Partiers could be a source of votes, funding and organization and although some expressed some reservations about bringing them into the Republican fold they were voices in the wilderness.

For awhile it worked. The Republicans enjoyed much success but like all radical groups that are used by more established organizations they outgrew their sponsors and eventually took it over. It was quite entertaining watching the more establishment candidates for the Republican nomination becoming increasingly terrified by the rise of Donald Trump in 2016.

And there is the problem. The Tea Partiers have been so energized by the election of Donald Trump and his subsequent loss of the presidency that they are in the position to hold the Republican Party hostage. While most Americans, including the Republican establishment, were outraged by the insurrection on January 6, Trump supporters were energized by it. They do not see anything wrong with what they did. They will not slink back under a rock feeling humiliated and remorseful. In fact they feel the exact opposite. They feel vindicated. They are going to continue to work to push their objectives on to the Republican Party. They are outnumbered by the more reasonable Republicans in the US but they are numerous and motivated enough to cause them troubles for the foreseeable future. For awhile the Tea Partiers were the tail that wagged the Republican dog and that is only going to become more pronounced in the coming years.

Before Donald Trump the Tea Partiers were an amorphous group. They did not have a single leader that their opponents could point to and say "Look that person is dangerous." That is no longer the case. The movement now has a standard bearer and that standard bearer managed to convince over 80 million Americans to come out and vote against him on November 3 and it managed to convince millions of Georgians to come out on January 5 to replace two incumbent Republican senators with Democrats. As long as Donald Trump is still around and as long as he is still someone his followers can rally around he is going to motivate large numbers of people to come out and vote for and against him and in the two cases where that really mattered, in the past three months, the Republicans lost.

This is not to say the Republicans will always lose but Donald Trump could be a drag on their electoral fortunes for some time and in a political climate where margins of victory are often not much greater than 1 percentage point that could be trouble for the Republicans. 

The Limitations of Polling

I really wish that pollsters would have a few more scruples when they are asked to do a poll by the media. There are issues that just cannot be adequately handled by a poll and they should tell their clients and decline to do the poll.

This train of thought occurred to me when I read a poll yesterday (by a pollster who shall remain nameless) that essentially stated that a very large plurality of Canadians would like to see reduced trade with China. My immediate reaction was "What a useless polls." My second reaction was that the poll could be very damaging, if people actually took it seriously, which fortunately most people do not.

Why was it useless? Trade with China is way too complex of an issue to be encompassed in a single polling question or even a series of polling questions.

One issue is China is the manufacturing powerhouse of the world. Virtually everything the average person buys is made in China. If you happen to shop at a Dollar Store you are buying things made in China. Walmart is able to sell products for a "reasonable price" because they are made in China. The computer that I am using to type this post was assembled in China and it is very likely that Chinese companies had a hand in the manufacturing of the device you are using to read this post. So the real question a pollster needs to ask is "Would you be willing to pay higher prices for cloths, computers and cell phones in order to reduce trade with China?" I am pretty certain that the response to that question would be a resounding "No".

A second issue is how would we be able to prevent trade with China? Countries do not trade. Companies are the entities that drive trade. It is a simple fact that Western companies went to China a long time ago because they could take advantage of lower costs to manufacture their products. I am wearing a shirt that I bought at The Bay for about $40. If that shirt had been manufactured in a textile mill in Ontario the retail price would probably still be about the same but the margin for the manufacturer would be much less because the salaries that would be required to pay the workers at that Ontario textile mill would be much higher than the wages that would need to be paid to Chinese workers. Simple business logic dictates that the manufacturer would stay in China which brings us back to the question that started this paragraph. 

A third issue is who would prevent trade with China? The obvious message from the poll and the explanation from the pollster was the government was responsible for this issue, although he never really identified the issue in concrete terms. Of course, the only way for a government to reduce trade with another country is to make it too expensive for companies to operate in foreign countries or to bribe domestic companies not to move their operations, by means of tariffs and/or subsidies. Of course, tariffs just leads to retaliation from the other country and everybody loses and most of the time companies funnel subsidies to their stockholders and move their operations to low cost jurisdictions anyway. So there is no way for a government to prevent a company from moving its operations or to prevent trade with another country. 

All of these issues make the issue of trade with China much too complex to be usefully addressed by a poll. So the pollster should not have even tried. They did and yet again pollsters and their clients in the media further dumbed down the discourse over what is a very important issue. They make it look like the issue is an easy one to address so that when governments and business find themselves having to live the complex reality they are seen as incompetent. It does a great disservice to Canadians and I am not certain whether it is just ignorance on the part of the pollsters and their media clients or a deliberate effort to misinform people. 

Politicians breaking COVID-19 Travel Restriction Guidelines

I am taking a bit of a break from politics for the holidays but it was hard not to notice the Finance Minister of Ontario having to resign because he decided to go on a Caribbean vacation and an NDP Member of Parliament being stripped of her critic role because of a trip to Greece.

Was it hubris or stupidity that caused these two individuals to make these ill advised trips.

Perhaps they believed that they could take the trips and if they got caught they would get away with it because of their positions. That would be hubris.

Perhaps they believed that they could take the trips because they believed they would not get caught. That is stupidity.

My guess is it was a little of both and in the case of Mr. Phillips he made it worse by making fake tweets on his location. In his case, I would lean more towards stupidity.

Like I said I am not paying that much attention so I am not closely watching what impacts these two events might be having but I also noticed today some media speculation of the location of the Prime Minister. Some are asking whether he is still in the country because he has not been seen for awhile. 

Since the PM has to use government transport to move around and the use of said transport is a matter of public record there is no way he could have traveled in or out of the country without being noticed. The media knows this so the fact some are asking a question for which they already know the answer might be an indication that the stupidity of Mr. Phillips and Ms. Ashton is having some negative impacts on their leaders and parties, particularly Mr. Ford and the PCPO. For a premier to lose a Finance Minister in that fashion has to hurt.

Democracy is the exception, not the rule

Watching Mr. Trump trying to overturn a democratic election with the enthusiastic support of many Republicans has surprised many because the United States is supposed to be the democratic country that all other countries aspire to.

If you are one of these people who is surprised you should not be. Authoritarian rule has been the predominant form of government since humans formed civilizations. It is said that humans began to become civilized when we settled down into agrarian settlements and societies. It is also mentioned that when this happened the more egalitarian governing arrangements of hunter/gatherer societies gave way to rule by one person or a small group of people.

If you then look through that history, which spans about 10,000 years, you will note that less than a thousand years of that history featured any form of democratic government. The Athenians had a form of democracy for a short while. Rome was a republic for several centuries before descending into a dictatorship. Then there is the United States, which introduced democracy to the modern world, almost 2000 years after the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire. Some would have us look at the Magna Carta but we need to remember that it was about limiting the powers of the Crown of England in relation to that country's nobility. It was not a democratic constitution.

Further, even though the Athenians, the Romans and the Americans all had democratic looking forms of government, the Athenians and the Romans were the only examples of such, during their eras, and US has only been joined by about two dozen other democracies in the past 200 years or so, with most of them joining in the last 70-80 years. Otherwise, authoritarian governments have been the norm.

The simple fact is democracy is not the natural system of governance of our species. In all cases where democracy has flourished it has collapsed into authoritarianism within a few short centuries or less.

To expect the US to be different is flat wrong. It does look like the US is slowly descending into authoritarianism and maybe it can be reversed but it is an open question. Certainly, this week the Supreme Court of the United States legally squashed the attempts by the Texas Attorney General to overturn a democratic election but in that same week, in Florida, someone very critical of the Florida government's handling of the COVID crisis had their home raided by armed police for a reason that is still unclear to me. Maybe it will turn out she did do something illegal or maybe this will be an indication that the authoritarians in the US were prevented from destroying the American democracy in one fell swoop but that they can still continue to gradually undermine it away from the spotlight in Washington.

What does this mean for the rest of the democracies of the world? Who knows. We are certainly seeing authoritarians pop up in the other democracies of the world, including those which we can say have very stable democracies. It could very well be that the latest experiment in democracy will suffer the same fate as the previous ones. We will have to wait and see to be certain.

The Canadian Deficit, Vaccines and what it could mean for the economic recovery

On November 30 the Minister of Finance of the Government of Canada delivered a Fall Economic Statement. Among many pieces of information in that document was the news that the federal deficit for fiscal year 2019/20 will probably be $381 billion to $400 billion.

That is a tremendous amount of money and the sheer sticker shock of that figure is enough to get anybody's attention. Of course, it is much more nuanced that that. All of that debt has been locked in, long term, at interests rates that should make servicing that debt well within the capabilities of the Federal government. In short, it should not be a problem.

There is one caveat. Many commentators have indicated that the pandemic is creating a great deal of pent up demand. They are indicating that there is a risk that when the pandemic is finally manageable enough people may increase their spending so that it exceeds the spending patterns that existed before the pandemic was declare, potentially causing a spike in inflation. Said spike would then compel the Bank of Canada to increase interest rates, which would increase the yields of government bonds, which would increase the debt servicing costs of the government. That is a real risk and if it comes to pass then the government might find itself in a position where it cannot service its debt obligations and meet its program obligations at the same time. In situations like that governments reduce spending and/or raise taxes which may have negative impacts on Canadians.

That is the worst case scenario and many believe it will not come to pass. Many commentators actually believe that the economic recovery after the pandemic will be much more gradual leading to a gradual re-inflation of the economy where the Bank of Canada can raise interest rates at a gradual rate.

The key situation that will determine how quickly inflation will increase is how quickly Canadians begin spending again. That is where vaccines may play a role. Seeing that COVID-19 is a new virus and the vaccine that is being developed for it is also new that vaccine is not going to be delivered quickly. The vaccination of Canadians (and everybody else for that matter) will be a gradual process. 

This could create the situation where the economic recovery will also be gradual. As people are vaccinated they will begin doing things like they did before last March. They will begin spending again. They will begin traveling again. They will begin gathering with friends and family greater numbers again. The economy will open up again. However, if that happens at a reasonably slow pace because the manufacturers of the vaccine cannot produce it that quickly and the vaccine delivery requirement slows things down (two doses three weeks apart) then the economic recovery might be just as gradual. This is not an argument to slow down delivery of the vaccine. It should be delivered as quickly as possible as manufacturers produce and deliver it. This is just a post on what could be the impact of a gradual vaccination process.

There is one more caveat. As more people are vaccinated it could create the sense that the pandemic is coming to an end, even among those who have not yet been vaccinated. If that takes hold too early it would probably have the impact of a surge in cases of the virus and it could create an unsustainable surge in the economy and inflation. It will be up to governments to encourage Canadians not to get too far ahead of themselves as vaccines are delivered.

Our immediate concern is to defeat the pandemic. However, we do need to look to the future and what the economy will look like once the pandemic is defeated. The very nature of the delivery of the vaccine could create the conditions for a gradual economic recovery, reducing the risk of runaway inflation and the higher interest rates that would come with it. However, governments should be planning for the situation where the delivery of vaccines and pandemic fatigue create the opposite situation.

The Impact of the Biden Victory on Canadian Politics

I have read some commentary that the election of Joe Biden is bad news for Justin Trudeau because Canadians will no longer compare him to Donald Trump.  

What silliness.  Although Canadians do care what happens in the US and we tend to take sides with regard to who we would like to be President that does not translate into any real impact in Canadian politics.

I would remind these commentators that Canadians absolutely loved Barrack Obama but that did not stop them from giving Stephen Harper a majority government in 2011.  If their arguments would have carried any weight that should not have happened.

However, there may be some impact on the Conservatives.  One thing Mr. Trump did was spawn a bunch of Trump imitators and in Canada we have Conservative politicians, at the Federal and Provincial levels, following the Trump play book.  

They are doing this because they saw it worked for Mr. Trump so they believe it will work for them.  As well, they can imitate him because the world has been distracted for the last four years by the real thing in the United States so voters in Canada have not really been paying attention to his imitators.  

However, the US general election has demonstrated that using Trumpian methods are not effective.  Certainly, when he was safely ensconced in the White House he seemed untouchable but when he was finally tested in the general election he lost and lost big.  That should give his imitators in Canada pause, particularly Mr. Kenney and Mr. Ford.  Both followed the Trump playbook to get elected and continue to use it and like Mr. Trump they were successful, at first, but Mr. Trump also demonstrated that his style of politics wears down voters very quickly and accelerates the desire for change amongst the electorate.

Second, his eviction from the White House will reduce his power and influence on US politics.  He can still be a blowhard but without any access to the levers of power all he will be able to do is talk.  Without any effective way to exercise power he will fade into a voice in the wilderness, with only his most ardent supporters caring what he says, and even that will probably fade over time

So will his lesser stature cause the spotlight to shift a little bit to the actions and words of his imitators in other countries?  As the spotlight shifts from him will it focus on his imitators in Canada?  Canadians despised Mr. Trump.  Even a large number of people who identified as Conservative despised him.  Will that disdain shift to his imitators once the world breaths a sigh of relief at his departure?

Only time will tell of course.  However, if it does, even by a little bit it will put the Conservatives into a bit of a bind as they may be forced to choose between abandoning Trumpism, and the Canadian voters who like that style of politics, or continuing to following the Trump playbook and possibly alienating those who despise that style of politics.            

Could Mr. Trump's Stubbornness Help the Democrats in the Georgia Senate Runoff Elections?

It has become somewhat conventional wisdom that one of the reasons why senior Republicans in the United States are not speaking up about the stupidity of Donald Trump is they want to avoid having him work against them in the Georgia run-off elections in January.  He does not give a damn about the Republican Party so he could do just that if crossed.

However, there is another consideration.  As I stated in my last post that election will probably come down to turnout.  Which ever side can bring out their voters will win.  The problem for Republicans is the general election has demonstrated that there are more Democratic voters than Republicans.  Joe Biden won that state by more than 10,000 votes.  If Democrats decide to come out in similar numbers to the general election the Republicans will lose control of the Senate.

On the other hand, Georgia is traditionally a Red State.  If turn out were to revert to the mean the Republicans would probably win.  So, I would think that Republicans would be looking to cool off Democratic voters in that state and that is probably not happening as a result of the ongoing Trump saga.  That daily spectacle along with the Republican leadership's unwillingness to speak out against it is perfect situation for Democrats to convince their voters in Georgia that their work is not yet done so they need to come out in January like they did on November 3.

It could be that the Republican leadership miscalculated.  Yes, coming out against Mr. Trump could convince him to speak out against them in the run-off elections but it could also cool off Democratic voters in that state.  Turnout from Republicans would be down but so would the turnout from Democrats.  In that situation I believe the Republicans would probably come out on top.  However, the longer the Trump saga continues will probably motivate Democratic voters more and more.  In short, by allowing Mr. Trump to keep himself in the spotlight the Republicans are reminding Democratic voters in Georgia why then needed to vote on November 3 and it could very well convince them that they still have one more step before they can finally be rid of him.

It is in the best interest of Americans that Mr. Trump be tossed into the dustbin of history, possibly by way of a jail cell.  I would argue that it is even more important for the Republican Party to see him off so that anti-Trump sentiment can cool and not be carried over into the Georgia Senate run-off elections.

So Democrats did not make the same mistake twice

The 2016 election was all about turnout.  The simple fact is if just 100,000 additional Democratic voters would have turned out in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania the world would have been spared President Donald Trump.  Unfortunately, Democratic voters did not for a whole host of reason; their dislike of Hillary Clinton, their pining for Bernie Sanders and their complete lack of realization of the danger presented by Donald Trump despite his very open and honest presentation of it during the 2016 cycle.

The biggest question going into the 2020 election was whether Democrats would come out to vote this time around.  It turns out they did, in record numbers.  However, it also turns out that Republican voters turned out in record numbers, making the election much closer than virtually everybody (including me) thought it would be.  It turns out that Donald Trump was a very polarizing figure, motivating both his supporters and his detractors to come out in droves.  Fortunately for the world his detractors outnumber his supporters in key states.  

Now I guess we can look towards the Senatorial run-off elections in Georgia in January.  Will Democratic voters believing that they have done what needed to be done come out again?  Maybe because they are such a short time after the general election they might just do so.  Maybe Stacy Abrams will be able to work the same magic for January as she did for November 3.  However, my gut tells me they will not.  My biggest beef with progressive political parties is their lack of killer instinct when it comes to politics.  After they win something they tend to rest on their laurels, until they lose yet again when it is too late to do anything about it.

Plus there is 2022.  The mid-term are always hard on the party of the President because it is usually the protest vote that comes out while the voters aligned with the President tend to stay home.  That was the reason for the blue wave in 2018.  When the stakes were higher in 2020 that blue wave disappeared, and even receded a bit.

Joe Biden can hope the Democrats can win the two Georgia Senate seats in January so that he will have a united government for at least two years because in 2022 I would guess that the Democrats will lose both the House and the Senate, unless Democrats can somehow convince their supporters to come out in the same numbers as in 2020.  I would not hold your breath if you are hoping for that outcome.

Democrats did something that is not done very often.  They knocked off a sitting President vying for a second term.  That is an accomplishment but if they want to consolidate their victory they had better find a way to motivate and energize their voters in January 2021 and in 2022 or their happiness will be short lived.

US Election Night

In a few hours from the time I write this post (17:45 est) we will have an idea of who will be the President of the United States for the next four years.  Just as important we will have an idea of what Congress will look like for the next two years.

The polling data overwhelmingly indicates that Joe Biden has the votes necessary to take the White House.  Yes I realize that polls are not predictive and that 2016 proved that without a doubt.  However, this is not a single poll the day of the election that is saying this is Joe Biden's election to lose.  This is hundreds of polls conducted over eight months that have been saying that he leads nationally and in enough of the battleground states to get him to the 270 mark and beyond.  I tend to ignore single polls but I do not ignore polling trends.

So that just leaves the intangibles.  

Historically, Presidents tend to be re-elected for a second term.  It has been true of every president since they went to the term limits.  George Bush Sr. was an exception but he also won his first term after Ronald Reagan served for two terms.  That was a case of Americans finally wanting a change and voting to make it happen.  Jimmy Carter is the only president to win only one term.  There are some parallels between the 1980 and 2020 election but they are still different elections with extremely different electorates.

Then there are the voter suppression efforts of Republicans.  The problem with those is they would only be effective if the race was really close, that is, if the difference in the number of votes are in the Clinton/Trump neighbourhood.  The polling trend has indicated that Joe Biden has held an average 10 point lead over Mr. Trump and that his average support is around 52%.  If that is how the night shakes out then Mr. Biden will win, regardless of voter suppression or what happens in individual states.  Oh yes, if that is the margin of victory for Mr. Biden the Supreme Court will not touch the election results with a 10 foot pole. 

Turnout is another of the intangibles.  One of the reasons why Donald Trump won last time was his voters turned out and Clinton voters did not.  Turnout for early voting has been high but that does not necessarily mean that voter turnout will be higher than 2016 when all of the votes are finally counted.  What it is going to come down to is if there are more people who want to see the end of the Trump presidency than those who want to see it continue and whether they will show up at the polls.  The only good thing about this is the pool of voters for Donald Trump is probably much smaller than pool available for Joe Biden.  Mr. Trump did not even attempt to expand his base during this election.  The simple math is if voters in the Biden pool show up in greater numbers than those in the Trump pool Mr. Biden wins.  

So who will win?  I think when the dust settles Joe Biden will be the President-elect.  The polling trend indicates he has a big enough lead that the polling companies would really have had to shit the bed to miss this one, like they did in 2016.  Watching the campaign it does appear that Mr. Trump managed to accelerate the desire for change dynamic so that the majority of Americans want him gone.  Finally, I believe he has motivated those same voters to go out and actually vote.  We will see what the final vote tally is in a few days or weeks but it would not surprise me if this election breaks some voter participation records and if that is the case Mr. Biden will win.

The House of Representatives should remain a Democratic House.  Indeed, there is a chance that they could increase their majority in the House.  The election the House has been the most boring and predictable of the elections this cycle.

The Senate is a bit more interesting.  There are several Republican incumbents who appear to be in trouble.  They are being out fundraised and polling trends show that they are behind their challengers, although not by much.  Further the Democratic incumbents seem to be having an easier time of it where none seem to be in too great of danger.  The Senate election will probably be close but in the end the Democrats will probably come out on top by a couple of seats.  Although that will probably change again in 2022.

The last election surprised everybody but as is often the case people tend to look at the last election as a guide to the current election.  It is sometimes useful but it is also often wrong.  (See the 2015 Canadian Federal Election to see an example).  This is a different election with a different dynamic, namely the world dealing with a global pandemic, and the challenger to Mr. Trump is much more likeable than his 2016 challenger.  This appears to be Joe Biden's election to lose and I do not believe there will be any surprises this time.