Five Platform Planks You’ll Never See
So the question of the week Joe, is have you ever considered just why it is we have these large territorial or national governments in the first place? There are two equal answers, although the emphasis and debate usually falls on the first. That one, is governments exist in order to do the things private interests can’t do profitably (install sewer systems or subsidize your kid’s education) or you really, really don’t want private interests to do (one wouldn’t sleep terribly well knowing protection was being provided by a Haliburton-owned mercenary army).
Very generally speaking, elections are fought, won and lost on these questions of emphasis and expenditure. Ottawa has a given number of powers and responsibilities: which are going to be pushed and altered; which are taking a back seat for the next four years; how much money will be spent on it or cut from it? There’s 90% of what the Federal parties, Provincial parties and I suspect down to the level of ward alderman are all about. How much on whom to do what?
What gets totally missed however is that second rationale for government’s exist. We don’t like to talk about it much because it’s big and scary, while placing the role of government as stern and protective parent. Government exists in order to lead (or push) private interests into doing things they would not necessarily do on their own. And, government is also of a size and strength to be able to confront enemies head-on.
An example? I can give you two very good ones. The passage of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts in the United States in 1964-65 come to mind. Were it not for his obsession with getting the “coonskin on my wall” that was Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson would be revered today for getting equal rights for Negros (sic) through a Congress that contained many a Strom Thurmond-esque Dixiecrat. This was something that private interests, state governments and the courts in achingly slow progress had not solved in the hundred years since the end of the Civil War. It also directly confronted the gigantic enemy within that to this day haunts American life: racism.
Second - and many readers will not like this example - is Pierre Trudeau’s Official Languages Act of 1969. Had private interests, provincial governments or the courts made French and English equal and equally portable within Canada? No. And Quebec - whether the government of the day was or is PQ or Liberal - would go on to shamefully attack that principle of equality in a scornful triumph of the majority. The irony has always struck me that should Quebec ever secede, everyone involved in any form of cross-border economic or public service activity would instantly have to learn English and to a much higher level of fluency than say an Anglo-Canadian’s high school French. But, despite that future attack, the Official Languages Act was leading Canada kicking and screaming in parts to this day into breaking the Two Solitudes. Despite whatever feelings one might have about corn flakes boxes, one must admit that we are a better and more unified country in the forty turbulent years since 1969, than the growing separatist urge of the previous forty.
One could throw in Voting Rights for Women as well, where the beneficiaries had de facto no political power, yet managed to achieve just that. Or the New Deal, which yanked America forward, saved capitalism, and created the American version of the modern social welfare state. But all of the above, and there are more, were gigantic shifts in social or economic movement.
We certainly are at an historic point that requires such a giant push by the Canadian government parent. The environment demands it, as does the increasing complexity of the war against terrorism that we have dragged ourselves into. The economy is fair enough, but our conveniently located greatest trading partner (the U.S. if it isn’t obvious) is going heavily into the tank. I concur with Paul Krugman’s piece in the New York Times on September 3, that America requires another, bigger, focused stimulus push but there’s not a snowball’s chance that will pass a tea party terrified Congress.
Which of course is the problem itself. We are at a low water mark in the political courage rankings. How hard a question is it to keep a long-gun registry that is already in place. Yes yes, more people are killed by cars, but we have to licence them too. Yes yes, it’s expensive but name something that isn’t in its start-up and fine-tuning phases? How precisely is it doing harm?
So, although each of the following are policies that I’d like to think we know in our hearts should be done, but lack the political push to get done. The Greens might have some ogf this in their platform, but the Greens require two absolutely gaffe-free, chiming bell perfect election cycles before they’ll even supplant or combine with the NDP. Anyway, a list of five:
1) Shut Down the Tar Sands - I always figure if you’re going to piss people off, do it right away. Alberta will damn your party for two generations and dear little old ladies who over-subscribed their RIFFs in Canadian Growth Commodity Mutual Funds will hate you and there is no doubt that this is going to be an economic hit that will take five years to recover from. However, in this case the needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few. Ocean levels may well rise three feet in the next five years. I invite you or any friend who is near a sea coast to go to the beach with your collapsible umbrella. Place it in the sand, stand behind it and sight back at the land from the umbrella’s tip. Look how far you can see before the land breaks that plane. The Tar Sands are a massive environmental blood clot in the lung and must be removed. No one will do it.
2) Driving Limits - Equally, since becoming a public transit user, I have looked back at my driving years with many a blush. So many unnecessary trips. So much wasted energy. But leave us face it, we enjoy our comfort. I suggest then that licence bureaus start taking the annual odometer readings seriously. Urban drivers will be limited to 20,000 kilometres a year. If it’s good enough for the car lease, it’s good enough for you. That’s tidy up a lot of downtown Toronto traffic in one hell of a hurry. Will anyone do it? Oh heck no. For one thing, it would require Federal-Provincial agreement, requiring double the number of courageous parties. Second, public sentiment is much like an old, old cartoon I remember in the Ntaional Lampoon. A rustic holding a rifle said to a campaigning politician, “Do whatever you want, but keep yer hands off the Chevy.”
3) The Last Spike: The Next Generation - A quick look at a road map of Canada shows in interesting thing. Our major cities tend to line up in a rough row from coast to coast, with a dip through the Golden Horseshoe; and Calgary and Edmonton as opposed in geography as they are in hockey and football. Point is, this country is absolutely made for high speed rail and we haven’t even really taken a serious look at it. At least not to the level of there being available accurate costing. Still, it would be more environmentally friendly than flying or driving, is safer, and is less land wasteful than ever-growing airports. Plus all those people laid off from the Tar Sands will need to be put back to work.
4) Ban Smoking - Can we just get this done already? It really is about the lost tax revenue isn’t it? $4 billion to Federal and Provincial governments (source: smoke-free.ca) is a lot to replace. That does ignore the lowered health costs and the growingly accepted Grand Guignol of shunting smokers to the back of the health treatment line. (“Yes Smithers, we’ll just kill them off ... slowly.”) Everybody will have a really rough two weeks, smugglers will prosper, and please make the judicial penalties hefty fines rather than prison time. In the future, our children will look back and shake their heads as to why we thought making people stand and shiver outside of bars was attacking the problem.
5) The Third Option of Education as Foreign Policy - I’ve already written about this, so I’ll be brief. Fold up our international military operations. Harper is right that we need to enhance out Northern presence. Take the savings into bringing in refugee students from the world’s broken places. This diaspora will be able to create change from within in Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, and some day Afghanistan.
Be seeing you.
So the question of the week Joe, is have you ever considered just why it is we have these large territorial or national governments in the first place? There are two equal answers, although the emphasis and debate usually falls on the first. That one, is governments exist in order to do the things private interests can’t do profitably (install sewer systems or subsidize your kid’s education) or you really, really don’t want private interests to do (one wouldn’t sleep terribly well knowing protection was being provided by a Haliburton-owned mercenary army).
Very generally speaking, elections are fought, won and lost on these questions of emphasis and expenditure. Ottawa has a given number of powers and responsibilities: which are going to be pushed and altered; which are taking a back seat for the next four years; how much money will be spent on it or cut from it? There’s 90% of what the Federal parties, Provincial parties and I suspect down to the level of ward alderman are all about. How much on whom to do what?
What gets totally missed however is that second rationale for government’s exist. We don’t like to talk about it much because it’s big and scary, while placing the role of government as stern and protective parent. Government exists in order to lead (or push) private interests into doing things they would not necessarily do on their own. And, government is also of a size and strength to be able to confront enemies head-on.
An example? I can give you two very good ones. The passage of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts in the United States in 1964-65 come to mind. Were it not for his obsession with getting the “coonskin on my wall” that was Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson would be revered today for getting equal rights for Negros (sic) through a Congress that contained many a Strom Thurmond-esque Dixiecrat. This was something that private interests, state governments and the courts in achingly slow progress had not solved in the hundred years since the end of the Civil War. It also directly confronted the gigantic enemy within that to this day haunts American life: racism.
Second - and many readers will not like this example - is Pierre Trudeau’s Official Languages Act of 1969. Had private interests, provincial governments or the courts made French and English equal and equally portable within Canada? No. And Quebec - whether the government of the day was or is PQ or Liberal - would go on to shamefully attack that principle of equality in a scornful triumph of the majority. The irony has always struck me that should Quebec ever secede, everyone involved in any form of cross-border economic or public service activity would instantly have to learn English and to a much higher level of fluency than say an Anglo-Canadian’s high school French. But, despite that future attack, the Official Languages Act was leading Canada kicking and screaming in parts to this day into breaking the Two Solitudes. Despite whatever feelings one might have about corn flakes boxes, one must admit that we are a better and more unified country in the forty turbulent years since 1969, than the growing separatist urge of the previous forty.
One could throw in Voting Rights for Women as well, where the beneficiaries had de facto no political power, yet managed to achieve just that. Or the New Deal, which yanked America forward, saved capitalism, and created the American version of the modern social welfare state. But all of the above, and there are more, were gigantic shifts in social or economic movement.
We certainly are at an historic point that requires such a giant push by the Canadian government parent. The environment demands it, as does the increasing complexity of the war against terrorism that we have dragged ourselves into. The economy is fair enough, but our conveniently located greatest trading partner (the U.S. if it isn’t obvious) is going heavily into the tank. I concur with Paul Krugman’s piece in the New York Times on September 3, that America requires another, bigger, focused stimulus push but there’s not a snowball’s chance that will pass a tea party terrified Congress.
Which of course is the problem itself. We are at a low water mark in the political courage rankings. How hard a question is it to keep a long-gun registry that is already in place. Yes yes, more people are killed by cars, but we have to licence them too. Yes yes, it’s expensive but name something that isn’t in its start-up and fine-tuning phases? How precisely is it doing harm?
So, although each of the following are policies that I’d like to think we know in our hearts should be done, but lack the political push to get done. The Greens might have some ogf this in their platform, but the Greens require two absolutely gaffe-free, chiming bell perfect election cycles before they’ll even supplant or combine with the NDP. Anyway, a list of five:
1) Shut Down the Tar Sands - I always figure if you’re going to piss people off, do it right away. Alberta will damn your party for two generations and dear little old ladies who over-subscribed their RIFFs in Canadian Growth Commodity Mutual Funds will hate you and there is no doubt that this is going to be an economic hit that will take five years to recover from. However, in this case the needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few. Ocean levels may well rise three feet in the next five years. I invite you or any friend who is near a sea coast to go to the beach with your collapsible umbrella. Place it in the sand, stand behind it and sight back at the land from the umbrella’s tip. Look how far you can see before the land breaks that plane. The Tar Sands are a massive environmental blood clot in the lung and must be removed. No one will do it.
2) Driving Limits - Equally, since becoming a public transit user, I have looked back at my driving years with many a blush. So many unnecessary trips. So much wasted energy. But leave us face it, we enjoy our comfort. I suggest then that licence bureaus start taking the annual odometer readings seriously. Urban drivers will be limited to 20,000 kilometres a year. If it’s good enough for the car lease, it’s good enough for you. That’s tidy up a lot of downtown Toronto traffic in one hell of a hurry. Will anyone do it? Oh heck no. For one thing, it would require Federal-Provincial agreement, requiring double the number of courageous parties. Second, public sentiment is much like an old, old cartoon I remember in the Ntaional Lampoon. A rustic holding a rifle said to a campaigning politician, “Do whatever you want, but keep yer hands off the Chevy.”
3) The Last Spike: The Next Generation - A quick look at a road map of Canada shows in interesting thing. Our major cities tend to line up in a rough row from coast to coast, with a dip through the Golden Horseshoe; and Calgary and Edmonton as opposed in geography as they are in hockey and football. Point is, this country is absolutely made for high speed rail and we haven’t even really taken a serious look at it. At least not to the level of there being available accurate costing. Still, it would be more environmentally friendly than flying or driving, is safer, and is less land wasteful than ever-growing airports. Plus all those people laid off from the Tar Sands will need to be put back to work.
4) Ban Smoking - Can we just get this done already? It really is about the lost tax revenue isn’t it? $4 billion to Federal and Provincial governments (source: smoke-free.ca) is a lot to replace. That does ignore the lowered health costs and the growingly accepted Grand Guignol of shunting smokers to the back of the health treatment line. (“Yes Smithers, we’ll just kill them off ... slowly.”) Everybody will have a really rough two weeks, smugglers will prosper, and please make the judicial penalties hefty fines rather than prison time. In the future, our children will look back and shake their heads as to why we thought making people stand and shiver outside of bars was attacking the problem.
5) The Third Option of Education as Foreign Policy - I’ve already written about this, so I’ll be brief. Fold up our international military operations. Harper is right that we need to enhance out Northern presence. Take the savings into bringing in refugee students from the world’s broken places. This diaspora will be able to create change from within in Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, and some day Afghanistan.
Be seeing you.
(Be sure and visit the host for these columns: Lake Superior News - H)
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar