Fixing Harper - Part 4 - Ending the War on Pot

Changing the laws that make growing and using pot (marijuana, weed, whatever) may seem like focusing on a trivial matter, especially when considered against other weighty matters of state, but, believe me, it's not.  Not trivial at all, and there are historical precedents.

For decades now, pot has been illegal to grow and to use.  Substantial police resources over the years have been devoted to enforcing this ban.  Many have ended up in jail.  And although sentences and police attention have both been reduced in recent years, pot still isn't legal, it's not regulated and it's not taxed.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I was a university student, it was apparently easier (and legally much safer) to get gallon jugs of pure ethanol from the chemistry lab to fuel parties than to score pot.  (I led a sheltered life and so only pass this information in the belief that it's true).  However, I do recall quite clearly a situation that happened where I was working for the summer back in the late 1960s.  More or less unbeknownst to most of us, one of the student engineers was selling pot from the bunkhouse.  He was caught, arrested and left his job.  I don't know what the outcome was, but it probably didn't end well for him (criminal record, unable to join certain professions because of that, and so on).  So most of us stuck to booze.  Even though we were mostly all younger than the legal drinking age of 21 at the time, it was far, far safer.  Any legal consequences were trivial.  And in Nova Scotia at the time, you could buy beer in cases of quart bottles.  Life was good.

Canada never had Prohibition as they did in the USA.  South of the 49th, the 18th Amendment came into effect January 17, 1920.  America went dry.  It lasted until 1933, when Congress passed the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th.  There were several reasons for this reversal.  First, Prohibition really wasn't working.  It did reduce alcohol consumption, but it spawned a huge underground criminal market for the stuff, organized crime flourished, there were more "speakeasies" in central NYC (about 2500) than there are bars there now.  About 75% of the government's tax revenue disappeared (only partly replaced by the 16th Amendment - income tax - in 1913).  And a future president, FDR, seemed to like moonshine and supposedly bought it (or just drank what was given to him - stories vary), thus violating that part of the Constitution.  And therein lies the story.  NPR's Planet Money ran a story about this called The Moonshine Stimulus.  You can download it as a podcast or listen on-line.

That explains the following image of a float in an anti-Prohibition parade in 1925.  Note the slogans: "Give Us Beer", "Balance the Budget", "Beer for Prosperity" and "Very Few Working"

Once Prohibition was repealed, the beer industry boomed with thousands employed, breweries constructed and, significantly for this post, vast increases in tax revenue.

The real story for Canada has, however, to do with pot.  The former Conservative administration adamantly refused to even consider de-criminalization of the pot laws or especially legalization.  

Despite the drug antics of one of Harper's supporters, despite the evidence....  Although most courts in the country have been handing out lighter sentences in recent years, pot's illegal status hasn't changed.  

Despite the USA's "War on Drugs" (a war that has failed spectacularly) and recent moves by a few states (Colorado, Washington, etc) to legalize pot, Canada has remained firmly in the pot prohibition camp.  

Until now, however.

The current Liberal administration has vowed to change the laws on pot.  It's unclear when or how, exactly, but the idea is, at the very least, to regulate and tax the stuff, taking a page from the way governments have treated, and profited, from booze.

Save Your Prayers

In the aftermath of yet another mass shooting in America, more meaningless words, more expressions of sadness, the offering of prayers.... but, once again, no action.

The Senator from Sandy Hook made his feelings about such meaningless tripe quite clear in comments made following the San Bernardino shootings on December 2nd.  

Your "thoughts" should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. Your "prayers" should be for forgiveness if you do nothing - again.

The Guardian ran a lengthy article that showed, in graphic form, all the mass shootings that have occurred in the USA over the past 3 years. The article was titled: "1052 Mass Shootings in 1066 Days. This is What America's Gun Crisis Looks Like".

America obviously has a gun crisis, as the graph above clearly shows. Mass shootings are only one part of the problem. The Gun Violence Archive has much of the data, but the yearly numbers tell as much of the story as is needed. In 2015 (so far) there have been 12,282 gun-related deaths. In 2014, there were 12,469 deaths. Each day, in 2013, there were about 30 deaths.

A report by NBC laid out the shocking statistics this way.

And of course, these are only the deaths.  Each year, over 100,000 people are shot.

These are figures that would be "normal" in a Third World Country, or perhaps a war zone.  Not in a so-called First World Country like the USA.  

It boggles the mind that, faced with this crisis, that there hasn't been an enraged public driving American legislators to do something.  But that hasn't happened.  Even the President seems to be resigned to the sorry situation.  Perhaps the main reason why inaction has been the policy is illustrated by this image:

One source has listed all the members of Congress who have basically been bought off by the NRA.  The gun lobby bleats on about 2nd Amendment Rights, or "God Given Rights", or that "guns don't kill people.  People kill people."  Obviously following this flawed logic, the Senate just recently defeated a bill that would have tightened up background checks and made it more difficult for individuals on "terrorist watch lists" to obtain guns.

Of course, there has been plenty of talk about terrorists.  Especially Muslim terrorists.  Especially those supposedly hiding among masses of Syrian refugees.  

It is a sorry state of affairs when the images above really, truly, represent the reality in America today.

Don't keep telling us that gun controls don't work.  They obviously do work.  Just take a look at Japan, at Australia .... so many examples.

What gives America?  Are your citizens worth so little?

NOTE:  There have been many stories about gun violence in the USA.  Some recent ones include this one from the CBC, and this personal account from a CBC journalist. 

Fixing Harper - Part 3 - The Freeing of Science

One of the most insidious of Harper's attacks on information was how scientists were muzzled.  The story is well explained here, in this article from the Globe and Mail.

Other academic publications, such as this one also weighed in during recent years, providing a well-referenced expose of how science was treated under the Harper regime.

The new government has lost no time in starting to reverse this, as announced recently by the new Prime Minister.

Of course, there could be some down-sides to this, as explained by The Beaverton.... Sometimes you need to be careful what you wish for. 

 

More Astonishing Conservative Rationalizing

A recent article in Maclean's trotted out the usual Conservative talking points, referencing the strong, stable, competent fiscal leadership and the principled stands on international issues.  Anyone who was actually paying attention would have a very hard time reading the whole article without gagging.  As a rationalization for why the Conservatives lost on October 19th, it only shows why they may take some time to learn much from the loss.

One FB commentator, a "CM Nancy", wrote the following in response, and I quote below:

Actually the writing is what I consider a piece of dangerous writing that will plant the seeds to brainwash Canadians that Harper and Company were the best economic managers and "Prime Minister Harper’s record is one of competent, effective, and conservative governance. " 

Could not be further from the truth, but the article really wants Canadians to think it is all about the manipulation of Canadians by the political parties as to who had the better story while reinforcing the Harper government's narrative of competent, effective and conservative governance. But more importantly reinforcing the neoliberalism principles of low taxes, no deficits, balanced budgets while cutting government funding and services to facilitate sustained economic growth, job creation, and wage increases. 

Take note, the audience must have no knowledge of the past. Such as Sean Speer and Ken Boessenkool bending history to make the Liberal government of the 1990s appeared to be the same kind that Harper and Government ran. "The political outcome was a durable consensus in favour of balanced budgets. The federal government ran eleven consecutive fiscal surpluses until the 2008-09 recession. Provincial governments, by and large, did the same."

If anyone follows the international news, Speer and Boessenkool are playing the same games as their counterparts across the world are playing. The politically far-right neoliberalist conservatives are waging a war against the politically left-leaning parties across the world. Bernie Sanders in the US. And Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. "“At a time of mass income and wealth inequality throughout the world, I am delighted to see that the British Labour Party has elected Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader,” U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders told the Huffington Post. “We need leadership in every country in the world which tells the billionaire class that they cannot have it all.”  http://news.nationalpost.com/.../the-rise-of-jeremy...

Speer and Boessenkool - "Mr. Trudeau’s calls for “investment” seemed more compelling than our musings about “being in the black.” We were unable to persuasively argue for the concrete, real-life utility of not spending more than the government collects. A return to deficit spending, the anti-consensus, won the day."

Sure unable to bullshit Canadians in another round of austerity in the form of government social funding cuts and services. And for what? All in the name of balancing the budget? The veterans paid a steep price of not having services and donated to the cause of balancing the budget of 1.2 billion dollars. It is why the rising of the left is occurring across the world and for very good reason. The inequality - http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000408202 

To which this is total bullshit on Speer and Boessenkool - "The result has more to do with conservatives’s inability, or perhaps unreadiness, to communicate the case for balanced budgets and fiscal probity. We took for granted that we won this intellectual conflict. We assumed that Canadians instinctively understood the importance of fiscal plans that reconciled." 100 % bullshit.

To which the next paragraph can only be delusional - "We must explain how a limited, less activist government promotes individual choice and creates the space for community and civil action. And we must argue that going backwards to failed ideas of the past would undermine the economic and fiscal gains that we have made. In short, it means following Samuel Johnson’s adage about how “men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.”

Hoping that the readers have no concept of what reality is and buys into the Con bait while ignoring the fact that the Harper government had the worst economic record since the 1930s. 

Over at the Tyee - Let's Help Canada's Newspapers Stop Embarrassing Themselves In this post-Harper era, our democratic institutions must be fixed. Start with media.  http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/10/30/Newspapers-Election/

"It should come as no surprise that the National Post and the Globe should rank the Harper government as having a "solid" economic record. They don't mention in their assessment the many aspects of the economy that are not solid -- aspects that affect ordinary people: unemployment, growth, job creation, youth employment, job quality, real personal incomes, inequality, or personal debt.

Those who run the country's daily newspapers reveal themselves as concerned only about "the economy" in the narrowest sense, using it as a code word for the corporate elite, the one per cent -- not the economy of ordinary wage and salary earners. They throw their support behind a government that simply facilitates economic growth by getting out of the way of business, by signing "trade" deals, gutting corporate and wealth taxes, and driving down wages." 

Why the political left is rising across Canada and the indeed the world.

Letters to the Editor - The Conservatives Deserved to Lose

I came across this today, presenting the reasons why the Conservatives deserved to lose.  Reasons the Conservatives seem to be avoiding.  The original story appeared in the Star Phoenix on October 27th, 2015.  I post it here in its entirety.

On election night, Conservative MP Brad Trost said he didn't know why his party lost; Canadians just wanted change for change's sake, he guessed. Could anyone be that clueless?

Stephen Harper's government was consistently self-serving, hard-hearted and mean-spirited. It was anti-democracy (omnibus bill, prorogation, spin - repeat), anti-transparency, anti-accountability, antipress, anti-immigrant, antidiplomacy, anti-knowledge (goodbye long-form census), anti-scientist (hello muzzling), anti-environment (only tree huggers hate C-38), anti-conservation, anti-CBC, anti-culture, antifreedom (only terrorists hate C-51), anti-oversight, anti-Obama, anti-UN, anti-Palestinian, anti-gay, and anti-aboriginal.

It was pro-gun, prowar, pro-business, pro-oil, and pro-Israel (one-sided support, regardless of the diverse views of Jews and Israelis, let alone the world). 

Alternative opinions, dissenting views, and provincial premiers were ignored or ridiculed. Harper's MPs were minions who read from scripts. 

For Harper, business trumped science, nature and compassion; photo ops trumped action; punishment trumped rehabilitation, authority trumped dissent, and lies trumped truth especially during election campaigns (the brothels are coming). Throw in Harperappointed corruption-prone senators, self-benefiting electoral changes, voter suppression, financial hits to retirees, cynically targeted tax breaks, millions wasted on self-promoting condescending government advertising. 

Those were just a few items in their well-stocked shop of horrors. 

It was the most polarizing, fearmongering, partisan and hypocritical government ever. The Conservatives were looking out for themselves, not Canadians. Any means justified their ends. 

Harper's style was cruel and vindictive. The Harper years have done irreparable damage to Canada. Why were the Conservatives booted out? The real question is why it didn't happen sooner. 

W.G. Potter 

Saskatoon 

© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix

Fixing Harper - Part 2 - Electoral Reform

The first thing the new government can do along this line is scrap the Harper Conservatives' "Fair Elections Act".  There was nothing fair about it.  In fact, it deliberately attempted to disenfranchise as many people as possible and removed investigative powers from Elections Canada.  If we want fair elections, a good first step would be to move in exactly the opposite direction.

The second step would be to bring in a new system of voting in federal elections.  Let's start with this:

The main thrust of many groups is towards some form of Proportional Representation.  Some of those groups are:

• Proportional Representation Canada Discussion Group
• 
  
• Fair Vote Canada

Talk of a new system has already started.  

• The National Post weighs in here.  
• DeSmog Canada talks about the various systems here
•  The Tyee discusses the various options in this article
• And this article very clearly wants FPTP to be killed forever. 

So what are some of the differences between the various options?

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

This system can be easily understood by watching this short video

Dual Member Mixed Proportional (DMP or DMMP)

This is another variant of proportional representation that was developed from a political scientist from Alberta.  It claims to avoid some of the concerns with the other forms of PR.

A good, short explanation can be seen here.  Note that the example is based on an election in PEI, but the same strategy could be used nationally.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

This was the system recommended in British Columbia a few years ago and which was actually voted on in a referendum.  In fact, it's often referred to as BC-STV.

An explanation can be found in Wikipedia about the system.

This short animation helps to explain how it works.

The Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform in BC still has much information on it's website and a good animation to explain how the system is supposed to work.

The P3 System

A good YouTube video explains how this system would work.

There have been quite a few articles in the media about electoral reform.

General articles such as this one in the G&M about reform in principle.

Articles about whether a referendum should be held, or not, ,such as this one in The Tyee.

Rural Urban Proportional

Fair Vote Canada has come out with a "hybrid" system which could deal with the rural-urban divide that we have in Canada.  It's called Rural-Urban Proportional (or STV+).  It combines aspects of MMP and STV.

Fixing Harper - Part 1 - The Long-Form Census

With the defeat of the Harper Conservatives on October 19th, the rebuilding of Canada can begin.  Here begins a series of posts that will look at what could, should or might be done to reverse the worst of the decisions made during the past 10 years.

The website heaveharper.ca is still active and outlines what it sees as the damage done to Canada and it's institutions.

The Facebook page called 78 Days, 78 Reasons lists the long-form census as Reason # 6 for dumping the Harper Conservatives.

One of the oft-mentioned dumb things that the Harper Conservatives did, announced in 2010, was to end of the mandatory long-form census.  A  bit of history about the census in general can be found here.  This was, according to the Conservatives, to put an end to the terrible intrusion into people's private lives, despite the clearly evident fact that there had been very, very few complaints about the survey and, so far as I know, no prosecutions for non-compliance.

The Liberals even set up an on-line petition to ask the government of the day to bring it back.  In the end, it seemed easier to just defeat the Conservatives and get on with the job.

Back in February of 2015, Macleans published an article that disagreed with the Chief Statistician's assertion that the voluntary survey was just fine.

The voices against this clearly ideological move were many and varied.  Examples here, and here.... among many, many others.

The elimination of the census, of course, was only part of the damage done, which extended to budget cuts and other dismantling of information sources that government and industry used.

Despite the nay-sayers, there is plenty of enthusiasm for the return of the long-form census.

In response to these nay-sayers, someone posted the following comment:

"Just amazing how so many people seem to think the census is intolerably intrusive but are OK with Harper's far more intrusive bill C-51, which grants unprecedented and excessive powers to government departments and agencies, opening the door to collecting, analyzing and potentially keeping forever the personal information of all Canadians, including every instant of a person’s tax information and details about a person’s business and vacation travel. All with no oversight from Parliament so CSIS or the PMO can use the info any way they want. 
You like the idea of CSIS or Justin Trudeau having a gander at your tax info, your travel, your internet browsing history? If so, you can thank Stephen Harper."

It appears that the long form census will be coming back, hopefully in time for the 2016 census.  A good early step.