Stephen Harper and the Supremes

Well I finally got my tax stuff into the mail this week.  I was much later than usual but I’m sure the government won’t mind.  I’ve got a refund coming.

Paying taxes is one place that I stand far apart from Stephen Harper.  He’s never seen a tax that he doesn’t hate while I, on the other hand am proud to be able to pay taxes.  It’s a cost of being a citizen, and it means I’m earning enough to warrant paying taxes as well.

While I don’t mind paying taxes (even I’m not happy about it), it bothers me when my tax dollars are misused and abused.  I think WiFi in National Parks is a waste.  I think TV ads telling me how wonderful the EAP is are a waste.  I think sending lawyers to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) to fight for poorly written laws is a waste.

My solution to the last one is simpler than Steve’s.  Let’s ask the Parliamentary Legal Department to look at these bills before we send them into the House instead of waiting until the court challenges are filed.

Steve, on the other hand likes to play the martyr.  Those horrible Justices struck down a law that the “People’s Representatives” passed.  It’s been a long time since some of us have had a representative in Ottawa. 

Between the omnibus bills and time allocation and committees that spend more time behind closed doors (in camera they call it) than they do in open meetings, our representatives don’t get to say doodley-squat. That, and the marionette theatre that votes “Yea” when Steve does and “Nay” when Steve does.  We don’t have representation in the House, we have Party Reps to the ridings.

This is why we need a Judicial System that has some independence from the politicians.

This is a toughie for the Justices, they are picked by the same person who picks the Senators and often for similar reasons.  The Justices might have biases towards one party or another, but they try to set these aside so that their decisions are based on the Rule of Law and measured against the Constitution of Canada including the Charter of Rights.

Steve seems to think that the “Law and Order” Party means he writes the laws and orders the SCC to enforce them. 

Currently Steve is involved in a dust-up where he has the chutzpah to blast the chief justice of the SCC, Beverley McLachlin, for improper actions.  She gave free advice to the government about the list of people under consideration for the vacant SCC seat and warned that there might be an issue with the appointment of Marc Nadon.

Steve and the PMO have turned this into some kind of a pissing match with the SCC and McLachlin.  A matter that was best left behind closed doors is now being contested in the media.

This is family business, dirty laundry if you will.  Not meant to be aired in front of the neighbours, much less the country…

And this is where I pull out my crystal ball and wipe the dust from it.

I was going to save it for the Ontario election, but here goes.

“Leaks and official statements chastising the SCC as well as the lower courts who don’t march to Harper’s tune will find their way into the media with increasing regularity.

The Fair Elections Act will no doubt go to the SCC if the 2007 legislation requiring ID to vote doesn’t get there first and knock C 23 for a loop.

The rhetoric will revolve around the “activist judges” who are imposing their will on the “People’s Representatives” rather than just enforcing the laws that the government writes and enforcing them unquestioned.

I’ve no doubt it will be said in ways that make it look more palatable, but the argument will be that the courts need to answer to Parliament, not the other way around… and the loonies and the toonies will fill the coffers of the Harper Party war chest for the 2015 election.” Thus foretells the Bear.

This frightens me.

We have few checks or balances on the government in Canada. Our national police force, the RCMP answers to the government.  Our Crown Prosecutors answer to the government.

The only layer that has any real distance from the government is the Judiciary.  They are government appointed, but many, if not most hold the law to be higher than the government.

We have a Constitution and part of that is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  This is a very important document.  If you told Americans that the government there was going to erase parts or all of their Constitution they’d reach for their guns.  Here the government makes that threat to raise money from their supporters.

The Supreme Court is the final arbiter, they consider the arguments and they measure our laws against the highest law in the land, the Constitution and the Charter.  If the law is found lacking, it is struck down.

Stephen holds that Parliament should be the highest authority, that any laws enacted by the House of Commons should not be impeded by the unelected Senate, or the Governor General, or the Judiciary at any level.

This is dangerous.

Parliament has long lost its original purpose, which was to make the government accountable for its actions.  The “government” is only the Prime Minister and the Minister in the Cabinet.  All other Members of Parliament are Private Members charged with trying to ensure that only bills that have been carefully vetted pass on to the Senate.

This does not happen, any Member who votes against the Party line risks sanctions or even expulsion from the Party.  This isn’t particular to the Harper Party, all parties tend to this sort of discipline.  Members get their marching orders in caucus and go and do their duty in the House.

Committees are made up of Private Members as well.  They are supposed to do the heavy lifting to ensure what the government proposes is good for us.  But Party loyalty and the risk of sanctions force these committees to divide along party lines as well.

That leaves only the Judiciary to protect us, and if they lose or give up that power, the genie will not go back into the bottle.

This is what I want you to think about, and think hard.  If the courts are answerable to Parliament, (and Parliament no longer does its job) the government is no longer accountable to anyone save themselves.  And that is a recipe for disaster.

Even if you think the Harper is the bee’s knees and that he can do no wrong, what about the people who will be in charge 2 years from now, or 20 years from now.

The Supreme Court of Canada said unanimously that Marc Nadon did not meet the requirements to sit on the SCC.  Even the justices that Harper appointed were in line with that decision.

The Supreme Court of Canada found that the government could not unilaterally impose changes on the Senate nor could the government abolish the Senate.

Without the Supreme Court, Marc Nadon would be sitting on that bench and the Senate would be whatever the Harper government decided it should be.

The Constitution would be relegated to just being a law, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the same.

With a stroke of a pen, the rights that you think you have could be taken away by a majority government.  Forever.

If you want to say that Harper would never do that, please be my guest.  But would you give that kind of power to Jean Chretien? to Pierre Elliott Trudeau?

The power you let Stephen Harper have today will be the same power that future leaders will have, are you willing to take that risk?

We’ve already seen what happened when Parliament lost its teeth.  It has devolved into a party driven marionette theatre.  They only support their team, pull one string and they say “Yea” and pull the other and they say “Nay.”

History shows us what can happen if there are no restraints on government.  1930s Germany where having the wrong religion could stop you from operating a business or get thrown in jail… or worse.

You might think that something of that order could never happen here, just have a look at the news from the past week in Brampton.  It ain’t pretty folks.

A couple of former Reform Party members are trying to revive the power of the Private Member.  It’s a long slow process and in the end, I fear it will not come to pass.  With MPs bound by party partisanship and voters blinded by it, it will be a cold day in Hell before the government of Stephen Harper will give up one iota of power.

God help us if he gets it all.

BC

Long Live the Wage Slave

A friend of mine, someone who I worked beside, used to refer to “us” the employees at that company as “wage slaves”.  What he meant by that, as he explained to me, is that companies generally pay only enough to keep employees. 

Not to keep them happy, just to keep them.

There is a point, he explained, at which people will stop looking for work because they are earning “enough”.  Now we were not getting rich by any means, but we were content.  Most of us were able to pay our bills, buy some luxuries, and set some aside for savings.  Depending on your priorities you could do pretty good working there.

Actually it’s an old idea.  Henry Ford was one of the first, if not the first to use it.

Henry had a problem.  He was selling Model T cars faster than he could make them.  Or rather he could have sold more if he had been able to make them, but there was a problem with production.

Ford Motors at that time was paying the same wages as most other manufacturers at that time.  So it really didn’t matter if you worked for Ford or someone else, you were going to make similar wages.

Now working in an auto plant at that time was dirty and dangerous, people would just quit because they didn’t like it, people would take sick days or whatever because there was no incentive to stay.  Ford realized that he was spending more money training new people than these new people were producing for him (trainees are slow and require a trainer) and absenteeism was slowing production even more.

Ford needed a new idea.  He decided to pay his people an outrageous wage and to shorten the work week and shorten the work day as well.  His competitors thought he’d lost it.  He’ll be out of business in no time they claimed.

What actually happened was the opposite.  Productivity soared, people were willing to work and to work hard to keep their Ford Wage, absenteeism dropped dramatically for the same reason.  Will all the workers showing up and not needing to train new people every day, Ford had hit the mother lode.  His laughing competitors stopped snickering and started to copy him because they were losing their workers as everyone wanted to work for Ford and worse, they were losing sales.

Contrast that with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFW) that we have in place here in Canada.  If Henry Ford could have done this, the world would be a vastly different place.

Businesses apply to the government to allow them to bring in foreign workers because of a supposed lack of available people to work those jobs with the appropriate skill set. 

Arguably there is a need to bring in some out of country workers for jobs that require a special set of skills.  Let’s say the company purchased a new piece of equipment from a foreign supplier and needs someone to come with that piece of equipment to train the staff on how to use and maintain that equipment.  That makes sense.

TFWs in the service industry?  That’s another thing all together.

It’s not just the service industry, there are others that are using the TFW to displace or to avoid hiring people who have or are willing to learn the necessary skills to perform the duties required by these employers.

Why would they do that?  Employee retention is a big issue here.  These companies spend time and money to train people to be valuable to their company and these people may leave if they see a better offer or a job closer to home that needs the same skills as they learned with the original company.

This is where Henry Ford shook up the world.  He was willing to make life better for the workers to retain them.  With TFWs, employers don’t have to.

What happens when you become a TFW?

In some recent news stories these workers are used and housed by the employer.  They make close to the same wage if not the same wage as Canadian workers, but the Canadian worker has the ability to quit.

The TFW is under contract to work for the employer, the TFW cannot simply quit for another job.  If the TFW doesn’t keep the employer happy though, the TFW can be fired back to wherever he or she came from.

How would you like to live under those terms?

If your employer was abusive, let’s say scheduling your 8 hour shift to the morning rush for 4 hours and the supper rush for 4 hours, how long would you work there? 

We have labour standards about safety and hours of work and overtime but they are only available to people who have the ability to complain to the authorities.  If your boss had the power to ship you back to the Philippines or Belize because you were a “bad worker” who went to the Labour Board because you were doing unsafe work, would you report it?

We saw the case with the Royal Bank where current employees were being forced to train their TFW replacements before they were tossed into the street.  We’ve seen the reports of Canadians in the fast food industry having their shifts reduced to accommodate TFWs who have to be given a full week of work each week.  Employers who allegedly won’t even look at Canadian resumes because they would rather hire TFWs, the list goes on.

The employers argue that the TFWs are better workers, and that may be, but fear is a wonderful motivator.  And living in fear is no way to live.

I’m sure that TFWs are good workers even without having to be scared of losing their jobs to perform well.  Many of them see this as a means to emigrate to Canada because they see a better life in Canada than they would see back in their native countries.

I’m equally sure there are good employers who treat their TFWs with the same respect that they would show a Canadian employee.

But the question still remains, why are we importing workers to work at burger chains and coffee chains when we have so many people looking for work? 

Being a wage slave used to be a voluntary position.  If you were treated OK and the pay wasn’t bad, you’d stay with your employer.  The TFW model has flipped this on its head.  These people are locked in to jobs that they may be overqualified for and they have no real ability to change things.  They are virtual slaves to their employers, but they do get a wage for their work.

Displacing the parttimers.

Flipping burgers and pouring coffee used to be the domain of the part time worker, usually students.  They were able to buy themselves the things that they wanted or to save for the future, maybe towards a university education.  These young part timers were often working their first jobs, they were learning the skills to work in full time positions down the road, and they are being cheated out of this part of their education by greedy employers and a government that just doesn’t seem to have a clue.

The solution is simple.  The government could very easily change the policies to prevent abuses of the system, but they seem loathe to do that.  Why?  I don’t know, maybe it’s because employers tend to have more money to donate to political parties than their employees do?

Around the corner from where I live is a variety store.  When I go to that store, the person working the counter is usually one of the owners.  When I get pizza, I see the owners working in the shop as well.  This used to be normal for smaller businesses.  More and more if you look at the ownership signs that often appear at the entrance was you’ll see that the business is owned by XYZ Enterprises or a numbered company.

These are the guys that need the cheap labour that can’t walk away.  They fronted the money for the franchise and that’s all they think they should be required to do.  If you cannot make a go of it by paying a decent wage or without risking high turnover then you’re in the wrong business.  If you’re not willing to stand behind the counter or flip burgers yourself, you’re in the wrong business.

And the government should not be in the business of letting you import slaves, even if you do pay them (the slaves, that is).

Laters, BC

Pierre Poilievre and the Not So Fair Elections Act

Here is just a taste of irony to start things off.

Following the 2011 General Election there were charges of voter fraud in the riding of Etobicoke Centre.  What happened was that there were a number of votes challenged because some people had voted outside of their own polling station even though their name was stroked off in their home polling station meaning they may have voted twice. Others had been allowed to vote without showing their voters card or any other ID, and some had been “vouched votes” but the paperwork for these votes were incomplete or in some cases nonexistent.

The Harper Party took the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada, but they weren’t the ones trying to get these votes removed.  They were defending these votes.

They argued successfully at the SCC that the removal of these votes which would have turned the seat over to Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj that would be an affront to the voters that had supported their winner Ted Opitz.

Fast forward to today and Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act. 

Suddenly the Harper Party has decided that under no circumstances should these “vouched votes” be accepted.  If you do not have proper ID, you do not vote. 

I’m not sure if this is a flip-flop or just hypocrisy.

Pierre (Skippy) Poilievre says his bill is terrific, that it isn’t based on expert opinions but on common sense.  That’s how he can so easily brush aside any criticism from knowledgeable people like Sheila Fraser, Marc Mayrand, and so forth.  If you’re not one these ivory tower elites and question this bill you are some lefty nut job and not worthy of the time to refute your case.

Well let’s try some common sense.

If voter fraud caused by vouching was a real issue wouldn’t there have been complaints from across the country about this?  Aside from the Etobicoke Centre challenge, I really haven’t heard any complaints about it.

No, but I have heard plenty of complaints from across the country about RoboCalls.  Why aren’t they controlled or banned in this bill? Wouldn’t that make sense?

Skippy’s bill wants to let the winners of the elections pick the officials for the next election.  I sooo certain they would only pick honourable people and that there would be no favouritism shown at all.  That would be like the Chicago Black Hawks getting to pick the refs for the next season because they won the Stanley Cup.  How sensible does that sound?  Think Chicago would make the finals again the next year?

Bill C-23 looks to constrain the powers of the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada.  To hear the Harper Party talk, there is an obvious bias against the Harper Party by these officials.

To tell the truth, the only cases of impropriety that I’ve heard about are with Harper Party candidates.  What does common sense say to that?

The Harper Party says elections at the local level are run by amateurs and mistakes will occur, Elections Canada is chasing only their party for these minor offences.  Well, maybe, but it’s more likely that these minor offences were dealt with by the other offenders when they arose.  Common senses says that mistakes would likely happen about the same amount of time for all the parties, but only one party makes it a habit of not correcting these errors promptly.  Or maybe there is only one party that broke the rules?

Skippy complains that Marc Mayrand only wants more power and more money to run Elections Canada.  Well it does take years to get anything done through Elections Canada when questions of impropriety arise.  Shouldn’t EC be able to get a warrant to compel witnesses to speak?  Shouldn’t EC have the people available to investigate allegations and inform the public of these charges and whether they find enough merit in these cases to proceed with a full investigation?

Skippy, if you have issues with EC having the power to actually investigate and take action then maybe YOU have something to hide?

No, Common Sense wants elections determined on who present the best case on why Me and My Party have the best options for Canada, not who can raise the most money.

Common Sense wants a neutral party to oversee elections and to challenge and punish rule breakers.

Common Sense wants the same type of rules that govern income tax to cover elections.  If you show campaign expenses, those expenses need to be accompanied by receipts to show how that money was spent.  We refund a portion of those expenses, we want accountability.

And Common Sense wants anyone who is a Canadian Citizen and who is of legal age to vote to be able to vote. 

We have come a long way from when an MP was selected by a show of hands by men who held property.  It took a long time before we allowed women to vote and an even longer time before we allowed the First Nations to vote.  These were steps in the right direction.

When I first voted, I simply walked into the polling station, told them who I was and they handed me a ballot.  We didn’t have widespread voter fraud then, we don’t have it now.  But now I need to provide ID or at least have someone who has valid ID vouch for me.  The same routine you’d probably have to do if you take your 18 year old to vote if they don’t have a drivers licence.

For over 100 years we could vote with no ID required.  If you are truly worried about voter fraud Skippy, why not put in a rule where I need to stick my finger in the inkwell when my ballot goes into the box?  I don’t have an issue with this, it would be a source of pride to show that I have voted.

But I get to choose the finger.

Cheers! BC

In the mean time, since this flawed bill is going to be rushed through the pipes faster than any bill in the history of Canada, if you are concerned that you don’t have enough ID to vote, march your tuchas down to the nearest Provincial (or Territorial) Government office and get your Provincial/Territorial ID.  In Ontario it will cost you $35.00 and is good for 5 years, but maybe paying $35.00 will give you the initiative to get your butt out to vote?

Laters, BC