Auto bailout lacks vision, imagination

My column in today's Mercury addresses the strange circumstances we now find ourselves in with regards to spending about $360 per Ontarian on one of the most heavily subsidised industries in the world. To put it mildly, I am not impressed.

In one of the newscasts covering the US' debate on the auto industry bailout, a US congressman in debate asked if we should have bailed out the horse and carriage industry when the car was invented. It is mildly alliterative, but it makes the point.

There are plenty of successful auto manufacturers left in the world, many of them manufacturing their vehicles in North America while making cars that consumers actually want, instead of asking consumers to want the cars they are making*. Moreover, if we are going to bail out American auto manufacturers, what bang are we going to get for our buck? If we invest the roughly $17 billion in the US and $4 billion in Canada to keep them afloat, what will we accomplish? Will we remain world leaders in the construction of SUVs, or could we perhaps exercise just a little imagination and use these billions of taxpayer dollars that, in Canada alone, add up to around $10,000 per affected auto industry employee to become world leaders in something that needs a little leadership?

Through part of the fall, I saw one wind turbine head up Guelph's Highway 6 just about every weekday afternoon. They were offloaded in Hamilton harbour and sent north by truck. Why? Because they had to be imported from Europe; they are not manufactured in Canada.

During the Second World War, North America's industrial might was very quickly changed from the manufacture of consumer goods and vehicles to the manufacture of war machinery including trucks, tanks, aircraft, ships, weaponry, and ammunition. Is our failure of imagination so total that, in an age when technology allows us to contemplate a manned mission to another planet, we can not re-task our manufacturing sector to prepare us for a more sustainable future?

The whole process of bailouts has been broken from the outset. The US' $700 billion bailout package is largely being used to buy up bad credit from creditors so that they can once again lend money. Had the same money been used to pay off the huge consumer and mortgage debt in the US, consumer confidence would have returned in spades, the credit markets would have been re-invigorated, and millions of people would not have had their homes foreclosed. If we are going to spend taxpayer dollars to that phenomenal extent, we should at least be helping people live rather than only ensuring that bankers' profit margins are not hurt too badly.

The big concern for me is that the failure of imagination is so comprehensive that the current governing generation is taking a huge debt-load, and doubling it for my generation -- those of us born well after the war in Vietnam -- to pay off. Recent policy in Canada has been to "give back surplus tax dollars to Canadians" in the form of huge tax cuts, but only during boom times. All it serves to do is bankrupt the country so that proper, forward-thinking investment is impossible.

Canada has a long history of building itself up only to sell itself short. It is a cycle we need to break. From being world leaders in the aviation industry until the cancellation of the Avro Arrow, a crime for which I will never forgive Diefenbaker, to turning from the most prosperous country in the G8 to essentially bankrupt under another Conservative government, Canada has a long history of getting to the top of its game, and then backpedalling with apology to those that we had outshone. The bailout Canada and the province of Ontario are offering to the auto industry here, measured as a simple function of how much the US is offering in their bail out multiplied by the percentage of the industry that is in Canada, is yet another example of how we are failing where we should be leading.

The ideas are out there. A report in the Mercury a few days ago related a new study proposing a high speed rail network for the greater Toronto area, stretching from Waterloo to Orillia to Peterborough to Niagara Falls. According to the study, the network could cost as little as $4 billion -- the amount we are giving to the auto industry.

With the prospects for my generation being as dim as they are with what we are inheriting, I feel I have to call attention to the existence of the future to those currently in power, as nobody at the top seems capable of seeing beyond the tips of their own noses.

This lack of vision and foresight extends to Guelph, which at a recent council meeting voted unanimously to ask GO Transit to set up a single station in the downtown core, not setting aside any other land for use as a future station, and committing downtown to building vastly more and more expensive parking -- no doubt at the expense of further increased transit fares. To council's credit, only three members voted in favour of a motion calling on GO never to consider any additional stations in Guelph. While the "Stone Rd extension" right of way connecting one of the main east-west strips at the south end of the city with highway 24 has been set aside for generations, preparing our transit infrastructure even a few years in advance is beyond the capability of our politicians at any level. Why are we so chronically incapable of planning ahead? Is it too much to ask that we plan as far ahead for our transportation infrastructure as we do for our water usage? We do have abstract plans, but without action, it's essentially meaningless.

With that, here's today's column.

Bail-out places a second mortgage on my generation

My generation is in for the surprise of its life.

We have never endured a recession. Sure there was one in the early 1990s, but when your parents tell you at nine years old that they are on their last $20, your reaction is "that's more than I have!" So as we head into this period of economic uncertainty, what do we have to consider?

I am a firm believer in the role of government. For the economy, government's responsibility is to eliminate debt and build a reserve when times are good. When times are bad, taxes can then be lowered and we can rely on those reserves and short-term debt to invest in our national infrastructure, stimulating the economy.

Government's role is to reduce the peaks and troughs of the economic cycle. The bigger the boom, the bigger the bust, and by taxing the boom, we can mitigate the impact of the bust.

U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and president Dwight D. Eisenhower's Interstate system demonstrated this. Both took the economy out of recession through massive investment in the future. We almost had it figured out on this side of the border this time, too.

For 10 years we paid down the debt of the previous two recessions. We were making headway, but a new government came in and opted to cut taxes when the economy could actually afford the level of taxation we had.

Both Paul Martin and Stephen Harper brag about the amount they cut taxes: Martin by $120 billion, and Harper by another $200 billion. Between them, we could have almost completely paid off our debt and could have had the money to invest in public infrastructure during this recession without mortgaging my generation.

We pay in excess of $30 billion a year from the federal pot just for interest on the debt we have.

Without any debt that would be $30 billion more per year that the federal government would have to work with before going into deficit.

Our deficit is projected to be $30 billion in 2009, all of which will be borrowed to pay interest on what we have already borrowed.

The trouble is, we called our financial situation a "surplus." There is no such thing as a surplus as long as there is a debt.

Surplus is a bad word: it implies the government is taxing more than it needs.

That way of thinking considers only the here and now, it does not account for the spending done yesterday that we could not afford. Ultimately, it means we are measuring our government's financial health in terms of cash flow, not in consideration of the long term.

You and I would not reduce our income if we still have a mortgage to pay off and a retirement to plan for. Why should we do so collectively?

Government is not some mysterious institution that robs from us. It is our way, as a society, to manage ourselves and share communal costs and responsibilities.

If we, as a society, are spending more than we can afford, it is our collective responsibility to pay off the excess just as it would be for us to do personally. When governments at any level have a debt-target that is not zero per cent of GDP, we have a problem, just as much as if we abuse our credit card, or refinance our homes simply because we can, with the deliberate intention of carrying a debt that we could have paid off.

After having quickly squandered our reserves when times were good, the governments of both Canada and the United States are now preparing to give the American auto industry thousands of dollars per manufactured vehicle to keep their inefficient business models afloat. Meanwhile, their foreign competitors continue to clean up the market with better, more efficient vehicles, built for less money that cost less to maintain.

This bailout is wholly uninspired and does nothing to invest in our infrastructure or our future.

The $23 billion being spent by the governments on the two sides of the border could be put into our national infrastructure in a way that is truly meaningful while stimulating our economy.

Canada's $4 billion figure, just to bail out one industry in one province, along with all the other money governments around the world are giving to save dated business models, could instead have been invested in rethinking our approach to infrastructure.

Why are we not refocusing the industrial might of the auto sector on redefining how our cities are built, how we move around, and how we power it all?

Why are we not taking this opportunity to invest in becoming world leaders in sustainable technologies?

The auto industry has the potential to do it. We would be better served investing our billions of dollars to convert these failed manufacturers to the construction of technologies largely made elsewhere today including buses, passenger trains, wind turbines, solar panels and the like.

Purchasing the results would improve Canada's infrastructure. This would turn our automakers into world leaders in those fields, saving hundreds of thousands of jobs, and truly preparing us for the future. All it takes is vision.

Cars are not going anywhere, but they do not need to go everywhere.

Instead of paving over my generation with poorly considered short-term fiscal policies from unnecessarily emptied federal coffers, this recession could be our chance to invest wisely in our rapidly changing world.

At least then my surprised generation could contemplate a better future.

As an aside, Guelph spends a huge portion of its annual budget building and maintaining our 538 km of public roads. Mayor Farbridge's recent State of the City address confirmed this. 538 km represents approximately 4.5 metres or 14' 8" of road for each of Guelph's approximately 120,000 residents. It is 6.1 km of road per square km of city. All of those km are funded by the taxpayer and exclude the provincial highways in city limits, bridges, boulevards, traffic signals, and the other expenses we pay for to allow our cars to run. The level of subsidy for the automobile includes all these factors. By contrast, the City of Guelph turns an actual, real profit that is returned to city coffers on its railway operations. The subsidy for cars and trucks on our roads is so ingrained in our governing attitude that, in spite of the Guelph Junction Railway's profit, Guelph has, in the past, tried to convince its rail customers to switch to trucks. I suppose, given that, it is not that much of a surprise that we would seek to bail out the least profitable or visionary auto makers in the world.

* - Although I am unable to find a car I want to buy from any manufacturer to replace my venerable 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser 8-seat wagon as it approaches forced retirement. No car on the market today can seat more than five people aside from a fuel-thirsty Mercedes C350 7-seat wagon, which is a tad outside of my price range. Vehicles built on car frames rather than truck frames with a large capacity rather than the wasted space of a sedan, and bench seats up front allowing three occupants per row (something I use more than you'd think), simply do not exist any more from any manufacturer, with half-hearted attempts to correct a decade of SUV/Minivan obsession by building slightly smaller SUVs nicknamed "crossovers." Sorry folks, they're still SUVs.

columns environment money politics 2236 words - permanent link - comments: 2. Posted at 09:56 on December 30, 2008

Harper truly gives up on Quebec

Among the Senate appointments today, a former PQ MNA who served under Jacques Parizeau during the 1995 referendum. Clearly Harper's use for Quebec is at an end.

Other interesting bits from EEE-Senate-obsessed Harper: Mike Duffy, CTV reporter extraordinaire. I suppose Peter Kent needed some conservative media colleagues to join him at the Conservative caucus table.

politics 61 words - permanent link - comments: 1. Posted at 14:20 on December 22, 2008

GO train service not to reach Kitchener?

GO has released its 2020 plan, and according to the 65MB document, Guelph is to get rush hour train service, but Kitchener, Cambridge, Brantford, Niagara region, and Peterborough are only being considered for possible future expansion. Such a move makes the need for a site like Lafarge for parking and route origination much more urgent for Guelph's service, as it would be the nearest GO train access for the entire Waterloo region market. At the junction of 6, 7, and 24, Cambridge, Kitchener, and Waterloo commuters would need a place to park in Guelph to park and ride. Refer to page 20 of the linked PDF for the GO 2020 rail service map.

The whole document is rather interesting. Page 24 of the PDF outlines operating ratios for comparable commuter services across North America. In the text, the document states "GO Transit will maintain a sustainable cost-recovery ratio of 75%." According to the chart on the same page, GO's current ratio is in the area of 90%, well ahead of second-place MTA Metro-North, New York City's system, which operates at about 62%. Page 34 outlines the plans for each of the lines on the GO system. Among the interesting tidbits, this chart shows GO considering the electrification of the Guelph line, and outlines the expected service for Guelph.

See GO's press release on the topic.

guelph transit 232 words - permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 14:02 on December 12, 2008

Welcome to the People's Republic of Canada

Today's decision by the Governor General sets the most dangerous precedent in recent history. To allow a Prime Minister to shut down Parliament to cancel a confidence vote sets us among the banana republics of this world, where the "will of the people" is nothing more than the catch-phrase of a totalitarian regime. Welcome to the New Canada.

politics 65 words - permanent link - comments: 5. Posted at 17:01 on December 04, 2008

Frank Valeriote off to a good start in the House of Commons

While all hell breaks lose in Ottawa as the Prime Minister acts too clever by half, and rumour spreads (by tories) that he is planning on sending Canada toward its constitutional minimum of one Parliamentary sitting day per year, new Guelph MP Frank Valeriote has been settling in to the House of Commons. Here are Hansard transcripts from his first interventions in the two weeks since being sworn in. Valeriote, the rookie Liberal MP for Guelph, is the Associate Critic for Industry (Automotive).

Question period, November 20th:

Mr. Francis Valeriote (Guelph, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, the auto sector has greatly suffered from the government's poor management of the economy and chronic neglect.

Guelph's economy is dependent upon the good jobs that come from a prosperous automotive and auto parts industry. Under the Conservatives, tens of thousands of good jobs have been lost, a situation that could have been avoided if they had a plan.

While the minister is on the road without a plan, auto workers are on the streets without a job. When will we see some real action?

Mr. Mike Lake (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, Canadians know that the global auto industry is facing unprecedented circumstances and the North American integrated automotive industry is no different.

The situation is changing daily. The minister is down in the U.S. right now talking to stakeholders. He has met with stakeholders here in Canada over the past couple of weeks.

The solution here needs to be a carefully considered one with a long-term view to the interests of Canadian consumers, Canadian workers, Canadian businesses and Canadian taxpayers. Any decision taken will be carefully considered in that regard.

Mr. Francis Valeriote (Guelph, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, what our auto industry needs is a coordinated, concurrent effort with the United States. Anything less than that will result in the protection of U.S. jobs at the expense of Canadian jobs. Anything less than that is only going to worsen the new Conservative deficit.

Will the Conservative Minister of Industry tell us exactly with whom in the Bush administration and in the new Obama economic team he has met to ensure that Canadian jobs are protected and not siphoned across the border?

Hon. Tony Clement (Minister of Industry, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, I would remind members of the House that the president-elect, the premier of Ontario and the Prime Minister of this country are all saying the same thing. We need long-term sustainability. We do not need back of the envelope plans. We need a business plan and a business model that will work for the future. Barack Obama is saying that. Dalton McGuinty is saying that. The Prime Minister is saying that, and we are proud of our Prime Minister.

Mr. Francis Valeriote (Guelph, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, the Conference Board of Canada stated that Canada will lose up to 15,000 more auto assembly jobs, which means 100,000 lost jobs in total by the end of 2009, 100,000 Canadian jobs. The U.S. Congress on its own will not protect Canadian jobs. That is the responsibility of the Conservatives, but all we hear from that minister is empty rhetoric.

How much longer will workers and their families have to wait before that ineffective Conservative minister finally acts to protect the auto jobs in this country?

Hon. Tony Clement (Minister of Industry, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House are serious about our auto sector and indeed the entire economy. We are not part of the ready-fire-aim gang over there. We are methodically working on the best economic strategy for this country. We are working with our stakeholders. We are working with the auto sector. Members on that side of the House have no plans, no promises, except a car tax and a carbon tax which people in Canada could not afford to pay. That is not good enough anymore.

And later on the 26th, during the debate on the throne speech:

Mr. Francis Valeriote (Guelph, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Mississauga--Streetsville.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in the House today to highlight some of my thoughts on the government's agenda outlined in the Speech from the Throne entitled, "Protecting Canada's Future".

It is indeed a distinct honour and privilege to have a seat in Canada's Parliament. I am profoundly grateful for the confidence that has been placed in me by the citizens of Guelph, a city in which one could not be more proud to live. It is a tremendous opportunity and privilege to serve one's own community in public office.

I want to take a moment to extend my appreciation to those individuals who devoted their time, resources and energy during my extensive 82 day election campaign. I am humbled by their contribution and inspired by their conviction.

My family has always been a source of love, guidance and support for me, and I am grateful for, and often feel undeserving of, their continued support. In particular, I want to thank my wife, Catherine, and our children, Olivia and Dominic, for their steadfast love and support as my young family continues along this journey into public life and public service.

In meeting my new colleagues from all parties, I am mindful that while we are divided geographically and politically, we are bound by a desire to serve the citizens of our constituencies and contribute to a better quality of life for those we are entrusted to represent. It is an ambitious goal, one that is essential for all of us to achieve in co-operation together.

I respect that Canadians want a Parliament that will work together to overcome the challenges that are on our doorstep. I have been successfully serving Guelph for 27 years as a lawyer, assisting people through the best and worst times of their lives. I have also had an opportunity to serve my community through many community boards and foundations. The people I have met and the organizations I have worked with along the way in Guelph have always had the foresight and commitment to face challenges, accept responsibility and plan a strategy to move towards a brighter future.

The people of Guelph and I are concerned about, even disapproving of, the Conservatives' lack of vision. In response to calls for economic prudence, we saw the Prime Minister irresponsibly eliminate the $3 billion contingency fund. In less than three years the Conservative government has become the highest spending government in Canadian history, after squandering the $13 billion surplus left to them by the previous Liberal government.

The Conservative minority government increased federal spending by more than $40 billion a year and, despite all respected economists' opinions to the contrary, cut its own vital source of revenue. In doing so, the Conservatives failed to stimulate meaningful economic growth and failed to be prepared for the slowdown they saw coming.

This economic crisis is an opportunity to embrace and invest in bold ideas and strategies that are going to translate into the jobs of tomorrow. I invite the Conservative government to take a look at Guelph for inspiration.

Maclean's magazine consistently rates the University of Guelph as Canada's foremost research university. The university is dedicated to maintaining this reputation through its intensive research-based programs, such as making plastic from non-food agricultural products, plastic that becomes car parts or packaging. Imagine farmers around Guelph feeding cities and feeding raw materials to industry in Guelph and elsewhere. Imagine the benefit for the economy and for the environment.

Innovation is exciting and full of economic opportunity. We need to make more meaningful investments and create strategic partners with those engaged in innovation and research in order to contribute to the kind of growth that will have our economy thriving. Governments need to play a more meaningful role in sponsoring university research and helping turn that research into jobs in Guelph and throughout Canada. There is little doubt that investments in university research yield significant social and economic returns. For example, Canadian economist Fernand Martin estimates that the cumulative dynamic impact of universities' contributions to the economy through research and development was at least $60 billion in 2007. We need to invest in talent, knowledge and innovation to continue to fully participate in today's competitive global and greening economy.

When I think about the next generation, a clean sustainable environment stands side by side with a prosperous economy. We have a responsibility to be mindful of our environment.

Again, I turn to Guelph for a stunning example of environmental sustainability. Last year, Guelph became a North American leader on energy management with its commitment to a 25-year community energy plan. Through the plan's challenging but realistic targets, Guelph could use less energy in 25 years than it does today, even with expected population growth of 53,000 people, and cut its annual greenhouse gas emissions by nine tonnes per person. This will put Guelph among the top energy performers in the world, reduce our environmental footprint and make my riding one of the most competitive and attractive communities in which to invest.

Liberals have been saying it for years, and I repeat the message at the risk it falls on deaf ears: Sound environmental policy delivers economic prosperity.

We cannot talk about the economy of tomorrow without paying heed to Canada's struggling auto sector. Communities right across this great country were built on the back of a thriving automotive industry. Today, with the industry in crisis, we see communities rightfully distressed about the loss of the good jobs provided through automotive assembly and parts manufacturing plants and the hundreds of thousands of spinoff jobs, from office cleaners to accountants and restaurateurs, to mention a few. It will negatively affect even the charitable contributions made in our communities.

Government has a role to partner with the industry to enable this sector to survive its credit limitations and emerge an industry that is committed to transition to greener and more efficient technologies.

Guelph is an auto town. Canada is an auto country. I call on the government to send a clear message to the industry and Canadians that the Government of Canada stands shoulder to shoulder with our auto industry to protect Canadian jobs.

The people of Guelph are disappointed that the funding promised to Canada's cities and communities has been delayed. Sound infrastructure is the link between healthy cities, productivity and competitiveness. I implore the government to move forward with vital and more meaningful infrastructure investments to create jobs and address the infrastructure deficit.

It is simply unacceptable for Canada to have an infrastructure deficit that exceeds $123 billion at a time when we are depending on our cities and communities for business growth and development and jobs. Guelph needs more meaningful help to repair its infrastructure, invest in public transit and for affordable housing.

My friends across the floor have asked us for ideas. I invite my Conservative colleagues to meet with me in Guelph and talk to those in the child care and early learning profession. The experience of 35 other industrialized countries, more committed than the Conservative government to early learning and child care, tells us that early learning is designed to take an entire generation out of poverty and into prosperity, better prepare them for the knowledge based economy, help children be better adjusted and less likely to be involved in crime and allows their parents to return to work or pursue their education. The Conservatives' $100 a month has left Guelph's early childhood education and child care in crisis.

Our children deserve more. I would have thought that my Conservative peers would care more about our children.

I respect the choice that Canadians made on October 14. I look forward to working in opposition to hold the government to account for the commitments it has made.

We need a bold vision that will lead us to a larger, greener economy that will restore Canada's place in the global economy.

We live in a complex, demanding, diverse nation. We govern not only for today, but for tomorrow and beyond.

Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member opposite for his comments and intervention this afternoon.

I want to go back to his earlier remarks with regard to the surplus and so-called lack of capacity. I wonder if the member might comment on the fact that Canada, of all the G-7 countries, has the greatest fiscal position and the greatest capacity to deal with this, partly because the government over the past two and a half years has reduced debt by some $38 billion.

The $13 billion surplus that keeps being heralded here by the other side has been reduced to put in the pockets of Canadians and help put Canada's fiscal position in a better light. I wonder if the member would not agree that this has improved Canada's position to address the very situation that confronts us.

Mr. Francis Valeriote:

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. I do not agree that it puts us in a better position.

If he has seen the reports from the OECD, he will know that Canada is headed for a deeper recession than we predicted and a far deeper recession than was denied by the Conservative government.

Had the Conservatives not squandered that surplus, had they paid attention to where we were headed and had they acknowledged what was clearly in their vision, which was a deficit and a recession, they would not have reduced the GST and we would have been in a better position right now to respond to the needs of all Canadians and respond specifically to those industries that need our help right now.

Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East--Stoney Creek, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, I am little confused when I hear the member opposite talking about fiscal capacity when it was his leader who spoke to the Canadian Club and demanded that the government lower corporate taxes even further than it was planning on in the last budget.

Which side are you on?

The Deputy Speaker:

I would just remind the hon. member for Hamilton East--Stoney Creek to address comments through the chair and not directly to the opposite member.

Mr. Francis Valeriote:

Mr. Speaker, I am not at all against lowering corporate taxes to spark industry but lowering taxes alone is not enough. Lowering taxes for an ailing industry, all the ailing industries that are suffering right now, would be like refusing to throw a life jacket to someone who is drowning but telling them that if they get to shore they will be treated to a good meal.

I agree with lowering taxes but it is not enough. More must be done and more could have been done had the Conservative government prepared better for this deficit and for what is looming on the horizon.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Cape Breton--Canso, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his maiden speech. I want to assure the people back in Guelph that the member has made an impact not only in a very tough situation in his own riding but an impact already not just in our caucus and as a member of our auto caucus, but in the House as well. He has brought some important issues to the House so early in his career.

We stand in this place and we talk about issues and we debate legislation and bold ideas but it is important that, as members of Parliament, we have an understanding of how these issues impact on the real lives of those back home.

As the member's community continues to wrestle with those challenges within the auto industry, how is the inactivity on the part of the government impacting on those back in his riding of Guelph?

Mr. Francis Valeriote:

Mr. Speaker, today and yesterday I have been in communication with those who are being severely impacted. Linamar Corporation has already lost 800 jobs. It has had to freeze wages and benefits. I have received letters from dealerships in Guelph that have indicated that the wheels have stopped rolling.

We are getting absolutely no response from the Conservative government. It is not coming at all to the table with a meaningful effort.

guelph politics 2731 words - permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 11:25 on November 30, 2008

An alternative to proportional representation

My opinion on proportional representation is no secret. I think electoral reform is favourable, but I think proportional representation is an inherently flawed concept. For more on that, here's my column in today's Mercury.

The recent federal election confirmed, once again, that our electoral and democratic system needs improvement.

When 70 per cent of voters in Guelph can vote for a progressive candidate, yet the Conservative candidate can come within three per cent of taking the riding, we need to do something to fix the system.

But I disagree with the conventional wisdom that some form of "proportional representation" is the answer.

Proportional representation, the system that a group called FairVote Canada seeks to implement, is not representative. It is a simple electoral system in which political parties are assigned a number of seats in Parliament based entirely on how many votes they received in the election across the country.

It sounds great, until you consider that it means that the members of Parliament the system elects are answerable only to the political parties that named them.

Proportional representation, then, allows parties to be represented in Parliament, but does not represent the people who elected them. Under proportional representation, there would be no Frank Valeriote representing Guelph, no Mike Nagy building his profile and popularity in the city, no Tom King running as a local star candidate.

MPs would live or die by how high on the party list their party put them, not by whether voters selected them to govern.

I disagree fundamentally with the concept of "proportionality" as a worthwhile value in democracy. Democracy means "governance by the people," not "governance by the parties."

On the surface, proportionality sounds wonderful: nearly everyone in the country who votes directly affects how many seats each party will be assigned. In a representative democracy, my question is: who represents who to whom? If we are electing parties to send their representatives to Parliament, we are asking for parties, not voters, to be represented in Parliament. Under any variant of "proportional representation" we have to ask: who represents you and me, and how do you fire MPs if they do a bad job if they are assigned to Parliament by their party and not by us?

Some will tell you that the system Ontario proposed in last year's defeated referendum fixed this by keeping the current plurality system.

All the system, called Mixed Member Proportional, would have done, and would do federally, is give us a system where our local decisions still have to be made strategically, and our votes are still split. Our national parties would stack their lists with friends who are accountable to the party rather than to the electorate.

In essence, Mixed Member Proportional combines the worst of both systems.

I believe our democracy needs some fundamental improvement. There should be fewer appointed candidates and fewer party-line votes in Parliament.

Since Confederation, power has been drifting from the hands of the MP to the hands of the party. Each party is becoming a dictatorship of the party leader, and any form of proportional representation would continue this trend. Power should always be handed to the people before the political party. With that in mind, there is an electoral system I would endorse that solves most of our strategic and vote-splitting problems in one go, without disproportionately empowering political parties or separating individual members of Parliament from the accountability of being elected.

Instant Run-off Voting (IRV), a system used non-controversially in Australia's lower House, is the ideal solution. With it, each voter gets the opportunity to rank their preferences within their riding. To decide the winner, a tally is done only of the first choices on the ballot.

Instead of looking for an 'X', poll clerks would look for the number '1'. If no candidate has more than 50 per cent of the vote, the candidate who received the fewest '1's is dropped, and that candidate's ballots are redistributed to the remainder counting the '2's. This is repeated until a candidate has more than 50 per cent of the vote.

Vote splitting and strategic voting essentially cease to exist under such a system, without the flaws introduced by the concept of "proportionality." By being able to rank your choices, there would be no risk in voting for a candidate you don't actually believe will win, as voting for that candidate will not negatively affect any others.

FairVote's American counterpart calls for this system to be used in the United States.

I would like to see IRV implemented at all levels of government, including municipally. I believe democracy works more in spite of political parties than because of them, a statement that even Green party Leader Elizabeth May agreed with when she spoke to us at an editorial board meeting this summer.

In an environment where the role of parties is reduced, such as in our municipal government, there is still a risk of vote splitting that IRV would eliminate.

Allowing constituents to order their preferences for whom they would like to represent them, allows the constituents to be the real winners in every election, and it allows everyone to vote their consciences without worrying about voting strategy or vote splitting. It also returns authority and accountability to the person who wins.

That's what elections should be about.

columns reform 893 words - permanent link - comments: 15. Posted at 19:44 on November 18, 2008

Assorted thoughts on leadership, recessions, and highways

Today is the 79th anniversary of Black Thursday, the first of three miserable days on the stock market that signalled the start of the Great Depression. With that, rules for the Liberal leadership race about to come forward, and new developments on the highway construction front, there's lots to talk about these days.

First off, let me say that, given the choice, I want this man to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party.

With that out of the way, down to business.

This week, Ontario posted a deficit of $500 million for the first time in a few years. I have never made any secret of my disdain for deficits, and when I see a provincial government spending more billions on building new highways than you can shake a stick at go into deficit, I really have to scratch my head.

As I have noted many times before, Guelph is currently subject of, or is close to, four major highway projects: new Highway 24 (Cambridge-Brantford), new Highway 7 (Guelph-Kitchener), new GTA West corridor (Guelph-Brampton), and realignment and upgrades to Highway 6, in four separate sections each with its own EA, from south of the 401 to north of Guelph city limits.

Last night was the 4th Public Information Centre for the first of the four sections of Highway 6 to be upgraded. I am disappointed to, again, see no consideration whatsoever for the need to connect the Hanlon industrial park to the nearby rail network, which would involve crossing the Hanlon near one of the interchanges being proposed and therefore would need at least some level of planning or preparation within this environmental assessment. The changes proposed in PIC #4 for the Hanlon in their latest "preferred plan" call for a two-way service road to run between Stone and Downey Rd on the west side of the Hanlon, connecting up to Woodland Glen Dr., and the associated construction of a large retaining wall through several back yards along Old Colony Trail.

From a traffic flow perspective, it's definitely an improvement over previous plans, but from an environmental and social perspective for that area, it's a definite setback. This never-ending balancing act is frustrating to me.

I maintain that the investment in highways is a colossal waste of money if we are not also investing to at least the same level in transit infrastructure, which here and now necessarily means rail. If the as-yet unbuilt Hanlon industrial park were to connect to rail, which could be accomplished for the cost of one or two interchanges on the highway, the highway improvements would have a net long term benefit. The rail access would allow businesses to come to this industrial park to get material out of their trucks and onto the tracks, not just move it between trucks. I am all for road infrastructure improvements that help people and businesses get off the roads, but against highways for the sake of highways. Similarly, if passenger service were restored to the line between Guelph and Hamilton, some of the car pressures on Highway 6, which runs parallel to the nearly unused tracks for the entire affected area, would be reduced.

I found out just yesterday that there is an environmental assessment public information centre on Tuesday the 28th from 5-8pm at the Springfield Golf and Country Club on Gordon discussing upgrades to Maltby Rd, which would be an ideal right of way to connect the Guelph Junction Railway to the Hanlon industrial parks with minimal cost or disruption. Tracks could easily run on the edge of the road within its right of way.

With the recession coming very much as I predicted a couple of years ago, dead-end highway projects like the Halon may finally be put on hold. Given half a moment of reflection, if we are going to go into deficit to finance infrastructure and create jobs, then we should be doing so in such a way as to have high capacity, low environmental impact, low cost transportation solutions running at the other end of the recession. It remains my belief that our existing road system would be adequate if we invested properly in rail transportation rather than heavily subsidising roads while leaving rail to fend for itself.

The reality is, though, that we will continue to rip up rails in Canada and build highways nearby. This week, work began in ripping out the Kinghorn subdivision, a 195-mile railway line that was abandoned in 2005 connecting Longlac to Thunder Bay. The track itself was primarily used as a detour route in the event of problems in northern Ontario, but its removal demonstrates that we, collectively, have still not learned our lesson in rail removal. While difficult to prove, I believe Canada remains one of the few countries, if not the only one, left in the entire world still ripping out more railway lines than we are putting in.

Earlier this week, the first federal leader of a party to meaningfully recognise this reality and put it in a platform, was pushed out of the leadership of his party in a victory of politics over policy. The Liberal platform this past election included huge sums for infrastructure, and a plan to ban the removal of railway lines like the Kinghorn sub. While this horse has largely left the barn, the Kinghorn sub demonstrates that it is never too late to close this barn door.

This leads me to my next point, which is about the leadership of the Liberal party.

We should have rules handed down soon about the structure and length of the third Liberal leadership race in recent years within a few days. While pithy, Jamie's assessment is bang on and I hope some of the suggestions in his post are reflected in the rules.

Personally, I would like to see 50% of all donations to each leadership campaign be handed over to the party in lieu of a deposit, and no spending cap coupled with a ban on coming out with any debt whatsoever. We need a leader capable of fundraising as much as any other skill, and that is one way to weed out poor fundraisers. The debt lesson is a hard learned one as some of the last round of leadership candidates still have not finished paying theirs off, and I would suggest that to enforce such a no debt requirement, any candidate who still has outstanding leadership debt by the time they reach the convention be excluded from the ballot.

And on the topic of enforcement, you can read my latest presentation, this one to the Guelph Police Services Board on Thursday the 16th on behalf of the Community Volunteer Patrol, an organisation you should get involved with.

And by the way, why do so many drivers not normally get winter tires that requiring them in one province could cause such a massive shortage?

elections environment guelph highways leadership money musings politics transit 1155 words - permanent link - comments: 3. Posted at 10:35 on October 24, 2008

Election post-mortem

If I were writing the headlines this morning, and I were as biased as many papers seem to be around elections, my headline would read something to the effect: "'Not a Leader' keeps 'Cuddly Sweater Man' to minority." It was a long, tough battle in Guelph, with an 82-day campaign. Our writ was dropped on July 25th for a September 8th by-election, cancelled on September 7th, and postponed to October 14th. But our Liberal newcomer Frank Valeriote pulled it off and Guelph, almost alone in Southwest Region, stayed red.

While I did not get home from the victory celebration until almost 3 this morning, I should note that not a single one of the opposing candidates had the grace to congratulate Valeriote last night. I have a lot of thoughts about this election, both locally and nationally, to share.

I spent a good deal of the campaign volunteering, doing everything from sign crew to door-to-door to work in the office. I haven't really slept much since July. Our campaign had no paid staff on it, yet plenty of people there seven days a week. The hard work paid off as we defeated three strong candidates and six fringe candidates. Indeed, Guelph's campaign was the longest of any in the country, tied with St-Lambert and Westmount at 82 days. We had the most candidates of any riding at 10. We had the most high profile candidates, at four. As a complete aside, I want to note that several members of the campaign, including the Campaign Manager, CFO, and director of communications, along with many others, do not drive and in most cases don't have driver's licenses. That a campaign can function and win in those conditions makes me proud of our community's ever-improving transit system.

While much was made of the Green campaign in Guelph, I have to hand it to the Green supporters who think more clearly than the campaign they supported. While Greens in Guelph clearly felt they could take this riding early on, the results show them a distant third, ahead of the NDP, but well behind the second-place Conservatives. Greens and NDPers both understood the message about vote splitting, and I believe came through for the riding and the country in uniting to defeat our Conservative candidate here.

As a result of vote splitting and wide-spread strategic voting, however, Greens and NDPers especially will continue to raise proportional representation as an issue, under the guise of discussing electoral reform. As one who worked very closely on the campaign to defeat mixed-member proportional in Ontario, I will once again offer a compromise to proponents of electoral reform. I will meet you half way between STV and SMP, and support IRV, a system that would eliminate vote splitting and strategic voting, without introducing new problems to our democracy.

The NDP nationally, on the other hand, nearly achieved their goal. I have long believed that Jack Layton's goal has not so much been to become leader of the opposition, but to ensure a Stephen Harper majority. Having spent most of his campaign trying to unseat Liberals, even where the NDP itself had no chance of winning, Layton worked hard to ensure an unrestrained far right government which could ultimately lead to an extreme far left government in response to it with Jack Layton at the helm. For a party that claims to want to work with the other parties, as it does every time it offers during an election to be a coalition partner, it works very hard not to cooperate with anyone.

The Greens are going to be interesting to watch over the next couple of years. I expected them to sweep the protest vote nationally this election and come out much closer to the NDP at the end of the day. But I believe the Greens nationally understood that a vote for the Greens right now is a vote against action on climate change, and so ballot box guilt cost a lot of their support. The Greens will, however, need to ask themselves what they need to do to get their leader in the House. Running against an entrenched Conservative MP who is one of the few members of the Conservative caucus who would make strong leadership candidates when Harper moves on was not a brilliant strategic move for the party, but I appreciate the Green Party leader's decision not to run against any Liberal or NDP candidates where should would risk hurting progressives. While in any other party, with the possible exception of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, her decision would probably cost her the leadership of her party, I believe that what she accomplished in this election far exceeds what she lost. But to really make a difference, and they will hate me for saying so, I believe the Green Party should fold, and join the Liberal Party en masse, taking over some riding assocations and their policy committees, and using the vehicle of the Liberal Party to push through an agenda we largely share in common, rather than continuing an unnecessary national division.

The Conservatives, too, will have to do some soul searching. While conventional wisdom is that Stephane Dion was the big loser last night, in my opinion it was Stephen Harper. While he kept his own expectations down, he showed that with a carefully managed campaign where the public was not invited to a single campaign event from day one to voting day, where he spent millions of dollars successfully personally destroying his opponent outside of a writ period where there are few restrictions on spending, where his main opponents were essentially flat broke, and where his secondary opponents were working primarily to unseat his main opponent, he could not win a majority. If not against a broke Liberal party with what Conservatives see as a weak leader in Dion at the helm, then Consrvatives will have to ask themselves how they will ever win a majority. The answer they will come to will ultimately be: through a more centrist and less abrasive leader.

My sense of how things would go at the start can be summarised fairly simply. I felt that Canadians, by-and-large, wanted a majority government, and didn't really care who got it. The Conservatives' gaffes, with the exception of the arts and culture cuts, didn't stick. People didn't care, they just wanted an end to the minorities, something they still did not get.

The number of times I heard at the door and elsewhere through this campaign that "all politicians are liars" and therefore "I'm voting Conservative" really caught me off guard. There is only one party that ran a campaign based completely on lies, manipulation, and deceit, and people chose it over a party that offered a clear vision and honest assessment of where we needed to go and how we would get there, because they are tired of lies, manipulation, and deceit.

This brings me to our own federal party. Readers of this blog will know that I was a strong supporter of Dion through the leadership race, and have remained loyal to him since. I still strongly believe he is the only leader in the House who has any kind of vision or true leadership skills. He is not an eloquent speaker in English, but nor is Harper an eloquent speaker in French. That, to me, is his only major flaw. While we can thank Mike Duffy for throwing Ontario -- numbers in Ontario collapsed after his partisan intervention in the campaign -- people looking objectively at the video clip he posted would realise that the interviewer asked Dion a question, Dion asked for clarification ("if I were PM 2 and a half years ago?"), the interviewer repeated his initial question instead of simply agreeing to the clarification, and slipped on his answer, so asked to reanswer the question. Why that is such a big deal to people, I am not sure. I don't think there are many politicians or interviewers who have never restarted an interview. That all said, Dion's leadership is in danger. If we lose him, we will likely get some eloquent speaker with no vision or true leadership skills other than an ability to crack a whip, and people will rejoice that we have "a leader," while pretending that someone other than Dion would have done amazingly better this election. Against today's financial machine of the Conservative party, I do not see how any winner of the 2006 leadership race would have fared any better. Dion's numbers spiked after the debates. The number of times I heard complaints about Dion's leadership dwindled. It was the first chance Canadians had ever had to meet the real Dion and they liked what they saw. If perceptions were based on reality, not on smears and attacks, we would have a very different outcome.

Which leads me to my next point: money. The Liberal Party has precisely one thing to do between now and the next election. The party must convince every supporter in every part of the country who can afford to give a dime to the cause to give that dime. The party needs money to fight elections and inter-election battles. Millions of Canadians who believe in the Liberal cause must be asked to put their money where their mouth is. We have to learn to out-fundraise our opponents, and we have the base to do it if we make that our priority. That politics is decided by money and not ideas sickens me, but that is the context in which we must learn to fight.

The Conservatives spent millions of dollars on ads between elections, something that the Liberals simply couldn't afford to do. It had an obvious and direct effect as they beat the Liberals to the punch in defining the new Liberal leader by doing so, both immediately after the leadership convention and immediately before the general election. This problem would have been essentially mooted by having a well-financed party that could have fought back. It is your responsibility, and your friends, your family, and your neighbours, to ensure that this does not ever happen again.

But this brings us to a problem. I remember reading or hearing an analysis of attack advertising some years ago. It went something like this: If Wendy's released an ad saying Harvey's burgers were made of mice, then people would stop eating Harvey's burgers. If Harvey's responded by saying Wendy's burgers are made of rats, then people would stop eating Wendy's burgers. The result, ultimately, would be that people would stop eating burgers.

This approach to politics, more than any other factor I believe, is leading to the increasingly pathetic voter turnout we are seeing in elections. It isn't that people are disaffected by the nonsense of the "wasted vote" as some would have you believe, it is that voters are tired of having to choose between rats and mice. Elections should be fought on ideas first, last, and always, but almost never are. They're fought on personality, sound bites, and scored points. The result, ultimately, is that we all lose, every time. As Chretien used to like saying, "when you throw mud, you lose ground." This election was one of the dirtiest ever. With hate ads personally attacking the Liberal leader and offering no substantive reason for doing so dominating the airwaves, and with at least five Liberal ridings having homes and vehicles severely vandalised, in many cases resulting in a direct threat to life and limb, we have reached a new low in Canada.

Now that we have a Conservative government again, what becomes of policies like the Green Shift? My bet is that the Conservatives bring in a very similar but somewhat weakened policy that will not be revenue neutral in an effort to stem the tide of deficit that they have brought on us, early on in their mandate, and claim credit for it as the best idea since sliced bread. Nothing was made of the presence of a cap-and-trade system in the Conservative Party's hastily drawn up platform at the end of the campaign.

If Obama wins next door next month, this could well be the first extended period of time in which we have a Democratic president at the same time as a Conservative government. As Conservative governments tend to draw us closer to US foreign policy, this will have a tendency to limit the damage that Harper can cause to Canada if he is there for any length of time.

As we look toward the next election, which will not be more than a couple of years out, we must consider how we will go about winning. As I said before, fundraising is the key. For a party with the support and history that the Liberal Party has to be essentially out of money is ridiculous. For my friends who blog, but who make no other contribution to the party, I will say it very simply: you are not doing your part.

We have to work together to rebuild the party from the inside out, financially and organisationally. Chretien's return at the very end of the campaign was a sign of things to come and I believe the Liberal Party has woken up to the fact this morning that it really is only one party, not two, and needs to act that way if it hopes to return to power.

May we continue to live in interesting times.

elections politics 2250 words - permanent link - comments: 5. Posted at 10:41 on October 15, 2008

Day 76... 6 to go

We're now up to no fewer than 5 ridings having Liberal supporters' cars intentionally disabled, with Mississauga-Streetsville and Niagara Falls joining in. Yesterday also saw the introduction of the Conservative party's platform, and Guelph's televised candidates' debate, with 9 of our 10 candidates attending.

I read the entire Conservative platform shortly after it came out. It struck me as a slipshod document that the war room threw together after hearing Harper announce that there would be a platform available in a few days. It's not well organised as a document, and offers nothing of substance to a country struggling under the weight of a weakened economy.

The Guelph debate last night was rather bland. As we had so many candidates, only six questions were asked from the floor during the two hours of debate, at least five of which were asked by known partisans, three of those Conservatives. For the first time in this 3-month campaign, and to the chagrin of the Green candidate, the room was not stacked with Green supporters. I had not planned on asking a question, but I drew a number from the hat for kicks and was more than a little surprised to pull out the '1'. So I asked a question that I think should be asked in every riding at all levels of government. I first heard a variation of this question asked by someone else in a debate in the municipal election here in 2006:

Do you live in this riding? If so, do you believe candidates should have the right to run in a riding in which they do not live? If not, why are you running here?

At least three of Guelph's 10 candidates do not live in the riding, and it seems to me with such a requirement our ballot would be somewhat more manageable, aside from my personal disdain for the practice of parachuting candidates. One candidate chose to take it personally, describing me as "Frank's assistant" which is not entirely accurate, though I do volunteer for him and believe he is far and away the best man for the job of the 10 people on our ballot, before saying that he does not live in the riding but has close ties to it, and that he was nominated in Guelph-Wellington before the 2003 redistribution. That's fine, but when Guelph-Wellington was redistributed, it is disingenuous to suggest that he had to run in Guelph, as he still lived in one of the two resulting ridings: Wellington-Halton Hills, and could have run there (perhaps leaving Guelph to his stronger provincial counterpart, Ben Polley). Later, that same candidate declared his opposition to strategic voting, but by this earlier answer admitted that he believes in strategic running. Running in a riding where you believe you can win rather than one in which you live is opportunism, pure and simple.

On the topic of strategic voting, I do believe it makes sense to work within the electoral system you have, and not live in some dreamland where a different system exists in your head, but not on the ballot. Strategic voting in Single Member Plurality is a necessity when the ballot is over-crowded with people with similar values who have abstract reasons for running against, rather than with, eachother. Would I like reform? Ya, I think we should have a preferential ballot and make some other structural changes, but not throw the baby out with the bathwater as proportional representation advocates would like us to do. But that is not the system we have here and now, and we must work within the context of what we do have.

elections politics 612 words - permanent link - comments: 4. Posted at 10:14 on October 08, 2008

There is no morning-after pill for federal elections

In the five days since I submitted my latest column for today's Mercury, a lot has changed. Stephane Dion owned the French debate, Harper has been accused of plagiarising no fewer than three speeches, Liberal supporters in two Toronto ridings have had their homes vandalised and their lives endangered through damage to their cars exactly as happened in Guelph six weeks ago. But one key thing hasn't changed: Harper and the Conservatives, in spite of all evidence that they are permanently unfit to govern, still lead in the polls.

While Vote for Environment, a website dedicated to helping people reconcile split votes into a non-Conservative MP, warns that Guelph is one of the hottest ridings in the country, some people in Guelph point to an obviously bogus poll released by the Green party during the by-election showing themselves a distant second as evidence that this is not the case.

During the leaders' debate last week, Elizabeth May stated that her top priority for the country is electoral reform. We need proportional representation, she asserted, preempting any policy issues like the economy or the environment. I can understand the sentiment, but not the priority. Under single-member plurality, the proper name for what we have today, we have this problem with vote splitting. But it is the system we have, and the system that we will have on voting day next week. I am in favour of electoral reform, although against proportional "representation," and look forward to that national debate, but it is not the number one priority of this country.

While I am generally sympathetic to the Green Party and believe they have a major role to play in our democracy, their push for proportional representation irks me greatly. The notion was soundly defeated with nearly identical margins in referenda in PEI and Ontario and will be nationally if presented nationally. The electoral system we should be turning to is the one used by the lower house in Australia known there as Alternate Vote, or Instant Run-Off vote. It is, or is similar to, the system all parties use to select their candidates and leaders, and benefits the voter first, the party second. It gives constituents the right to choose their MP without worrying about vote splitting, without giving MPs the right to choose their constituents as proportional representation does. I also believe in other reforms, such as the banning of candidates from running in ridings in which they do not live, and the elimination of much of the role of the Party Whip.

My latest article to the Mercury bears this disclaimer: Editor's note: Community Editorial Board columnist David Graham is a member and supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada. He has volunteered with the Frank Valeriote campaign in this federal election.

It is true. I am a Liberal, and I put my money where my mouth is. I have never made a secret of that. I joined the Liberal party and volunteer for it because I believe it is the party best suited and most capable of governing this country, and I believe by being a member of it, and serving on its policy committees and in elections, I can help steer it toward the most productive policies, something I cannot do from the outside or by working against it.

Anyway, my column...

We can't afford another Conservative government

There is no morning-after pill for federal elections.

With the very real threat that we will wake up Oct. 15 to find ourselves tied to Stephen Harper, we have to ask ourselves: do we want this man who violates his own laws, while denigrating his opponents, to be in charge of our country and our economy?

Aside from the disdain he has shown for the rule of law by suing Elections Canada, the world-renowned organization responsible for ensuring our democracy, he is the leader of the first governing party in Canadian history to have its headquarters raided by the RCMP and has called this election in violation of his own fixed election date law.

Under that law, we were not scheduled to go to the polls until October 2009. As we know here in Guelph, our byelection was cancelled the day before we were to go to the polls, as Mr. Harper evidently feared losing here.

There are few countries in the world where elections are cancelled when the leader fears the result. Canada now counts itself among the members of this exclusive club.

Harper inherited a booming Canadian economy and a well-balanced federal budget from the Liberals less than three years ago. At the time, our economy was stronger than that of our neighbour to the south, and was the strongest of the G8.

Now, as the United States prepares to bail out an economy on the verge of collapse, we find ourselves with no more budget surplus in Canada and an economy no stronger than theirs.

This Conservative government has raised billions of dollars through the wireless spectrum auction and by selling off government assets to lease them back. The effect of this is to put extra money in the budget now, from the sale of our assets, and increase our expenses later by having to pay to lease them back.

It is a budgetary time bomb.

The claim that our federal budget is actually balanced is highly dubious. If we count the assets the Harper government has quietly sold, we are likely already in a substantial deficit.

Harper's actions are the equivalent of selling your house to pay off your mortgage.

This fits the pattern of federal Conservatives through this country's history.

By the end of Brian Mulroney's government, Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio had achieved its worst peacetime level since the Great Depression, something Jean Chrétien's Liberals had to remedy in their first term in office.

Before this current Conservative government squandered the healthy budgetary surplus left to them, the last time a Conservative government balanced a budget was in 1912, the year the Titanic sank.

Since then, not a single economic boom has taken place in Canada under a Conservative government, and that trend is set to continue under Harper.

We have seen this movie before.

The job losses in Ontario since Harper came to power in 2006 add up to more people than there are working in Guelph, after a decade of unprecedented growth under the Liberals.

We cannot afford Harper for the next four years. The last time we made the mistake of giving the Conservatives power, the result was a $40-billion deficit and a strong separatist movement in Quebec.

We sent a clear message and soundly rejected this approach to managing Canada then by leaving only two lonely Progressive Conservative MPs in the House. We should learn from our mistakes.

In Guelph, our choice is clear. We have a city councillor who claims she will take our voice to Ottawa, but she has already demonstrated that instead she will be Harper's voice here in Guelph.

Asked by this paper for her opinion on Guelph resident Steven Truscott's compensation for his wrongful murder conviction, she referred the matter to Stephen Harper's office to answer for her.

As a long-time member of council, one would expect her leadership on council to bring about the support of her colleagues, but at this time not one sitting member of council has endorsed her candidacy.

Voting for the Green candidate in Guelph, who does not live in our riding, does nothing to push Green values forward. As Elizabeth May herself said recently, she would "rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as prime minister, because his policies are too dangerous."

The reality in Guelph is that this riding is a swing riding, not the safe Liberal seat that some seem to believe. Voting for the Green candidate only helps ensure that the Conservatives carry this riding on the split environmental vote, and that the cause of environmentalism and good government is set back for years to come.

When you cast your ballot next week, consider the true ramifications of your vote.

You cannot take it back if you do not like the result.

columns elections guelph politics 1377 words - permanent link - comments: 1. Posted at 10:26 on October 06, 2008

Vandals threaten the lives of more Liberal supporters

Six weeks after vandals tried to kill Liberals in Guelph, they've done it in exactly the same way to Liberals in Toronto. Anyone still think it's random violence?

To add to the "coincidence," the Guelph attack took place exactly eleven days before by-election voting day, and the Toronto attack took place exactly eleven days before the general election voting day. h/t Scott.

elections politics 70 words - permanent link - comments: 9. Posted at 12:14 on October 05, 2008

Is the US bailout the largest heist in world history?

I'm baffled by the American reaction to a proposal to buy 5% of the country's entire GDP worth of privately held debt, drive the national debt to over ten trillion dollars -- that's $10^13, or about $1560 for every person on the planet -- and not help a single person that actually needs the help in the process.

With the US deficit already running at half a trillion dollars per year under Conservative-style mismanagement, this move will drive that number up dramatically. With Canada's GDP being about $1.3 trillion, the US deficit this year could well equal 100% of Canada's GDP. Anyone who claims at this point that who is in charge of the government has no bearing on the state of the economy needs to take a good long, hard look in the mirror.

While injecting $700 billion (plus or minus $700 billion) into the economy sounds great, one has to wonder where it will come from, and where it will go to. Near as I can tell, it will come from the people across the country who have lost their homes, and go to the people who took them. But don't worry: the trickle-down effect will save the economy!

Canada has gone from boom to bust in just two years of Conservative government, with only Alberta's oil boom keeping Canada out of a textbook recession. Just a month after taking office, CMHC under Conservative guidance started permitting longer mortgages that would drive Canadians deeper into debt. That has changed very recently, but it shows the mentality currently at the top in this country.

foreign money 275 words - permanent link - comments: 2. Posted at 11:02 on September 26, 2008

GO trains to run to Guelph and Kitchener by 2011

Last night I, along with at least 75 other interested citizens, attended GO Transit's public information centre for its proposed expansion to Guelph and Kitchener. It is an accelerated EA and trains will be here under the plan at least 4 years earlier than I predicted just this January. There are a number of comments to be made about this plan.

The good news is that GO is willing to consider two stations in Guelph, and as many in Kitchener. The proposed station locations are (not all will be used, these are just possibilities):

Layover facility (no passengers) at Petersburg, a few miles west of Kitchener
Layover facility and station at Ira Needles, immediately west of Kitchener
Kitchener downtown VIA station
Layover facility and station at Breslau, just east of Kitchener
Guelph former Lafarge property (park-and-ride), at the Hanlon
Guelph downtown VIA station
Guelph Watson Road
Acton downtown
Acton East (Hide House)

My position on which stations should be used in Guelph is well documented. I believe the Lafarge property, which is readily accessible from highway 6 with minimal surface street driving, is the ideal location for Guelph's park-and-ride. Guelph downtown's invaluable connection to downtown residents, city busses, Via trains, and inter-city busses is also a necessary stop. Connecting to cars at Lafarge and busses at the downtown station would be ideal, given the lack of any sensible or economical parking options in the downtown core.

I am told that the Guelph downtown business association does not agree with my assessment, and I can understand their concern that the Lafarge station would be built at the expense of a downtown station. I strongly believe both are needed and that it is not an either/or scenario.

There is talk of building as many as three parking garages downtown. Wilson and Baker street lots would be 500 stalls each, a net gain of only 700-800 stalls, and for the first time I heard last night reference to a possible third lot of comparable size on the south side of the tracks in Guelph specifically to accommodate commuter train service. I do not personally believe this solution makes sense. GO wants at least 800 to 1000 stalls to start out with. That volume would eat $30 million of parking garage space off the bat, when a 1000-spot lot could be made at either Lafarge or Watson Rd for a fraction of that price, and it would deprive downtown business of nearly all of the freshly built parking. Commuters parking to take the train to leave the city will get there well before commuters arriving in Guelph by car, using up all of that downtown parking. Let us not forget the lessons of Barrie, whose 480 spot lot was full within two months of the start of service, massively exceeding projections, or the Lakeshore line whose 2000+ stall lots are so full that GO is preparing to build parking garages at several stations.

I prefer the Lafarge option over the Watson Rd option for a number of reasons.

While Watson Rd will serve the new developments around Grange Rd, the bulk of commuters in the city live in the south end off Downey and Kortright, and Claire roads. The Hanlon is the fastest way downtown for most of the city, and for our dramatically under-serviced neighbours like Cambridge. The sensible thing to do is build a station as close to the major highway as humanly possible so that drivers are not sent down surface streets. Having the station at Watson Rd means that the bulk of commuters will either go down the Hanlon, through downtown and across York Rd, or across Stone and up Watson.

The Lafarge property is also approximately geographically central to the city of Guelph, while the Watson Rd site is not even within city limits and is outside of our development territory as Guelph tries to conform with Places to Grow. Lafarge property also exists at the junction of two tracks, one which connects Kitchener and Guelph, and the other which connects Cambridge and Guelph. I see long-term opportunity in preserving Lafarge property as the major park-and-ride station for Guelph-Cambridge and Guelph-Kitchener commuters. Such LRT service could stop there and at the Guelph downtown station, but stretching its legs another 4 miles out to Watson Rd to connect to parking is not sensible.

That all said, while Lafarge property has most of the advantages, Watson Rd does have a couple. First, commuters who do live in the east end of the city would not be backtracking through town to get on the train (though they could proceed eastward to Acton, which would be faster anyway), and second: the proposed station parking lot off Watson Rd is at the end of the runway of Guelph airfield. If that were to be used, Guelph's airfield would be the first airport in Canada to have its own train station, beating Pearson with the 16 passenger trains per day that pass it without stopping. Dorval airport in Montreal does have a Via station, but you have to be taking the train from the Toronto side, not the Montreal side, to make use of it, so I don't count it.

The proposed plans call for GO trains to be running to Guelph by 2011, with the Guelph subdivision -- the name of the track that runs from Georgetown to London -- to be double-tracked within the study limits no later than the year 2031, with immediate upgrades to CTC (centralised traffic control) and welded rail to get us started. I suspect that the double tracking will take place far sooner than that, as traffic builds on the line.

One thing that struck me was a chart weighing relative values of road expansion versus rail expansion. As this project is run by GO, rail is recommended, in contrast to the MTO's various studies on road expansion which say that roads are better. It will be interesting to see if GTA West's study takes the same values on the same chart for the same corridor and gives "new roads" strong recommendation when GO's study gave that option the least possible preference.

While a copy of GO's 10-year plan I acquired last year did not even mention Guelph as a site to expand rail service, this EA which has come out of nowhere recently is great news for this region. I am very encouraged by the proposed plans, the timeline, the dedication of all the members of the EA from Burnside and GO who were in attendance last night, and by the number of people who came out from the community to see it all. I am looking forward to seeing progress as this environmental assessment moves forward. Transit is the future and our region is finally leading that charge.

guelph transit 1142 words - permanent link - comments: 1. Posted at 11:11 on September 24, 2008

First public meeting for GO train expansion to Guelph and Waterloo region

There are three public information centres scheduled for the "Georgetown to Kitchener Rail Expansion Feasibility Study and Class Environmental Assessment and Preliminary Design" by GO Transit. These will take place on:

Tuesday Sept. 23rd, 2008
18:00-21:00
Italian Canadian Club
135 Ferguson St.
Guelph

Thursday Sept. 25th, 2008
18:00-21:00
St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church
54 Queen St. North
Kitchener

Wednesday Oct 1, 2008
18:00-21:00
Halton Hills Cultural Centre
9 Church St.
Halton Hills

Needless to say, I will be at the Guelph one.

I consider the expansion of GO Transit to Guelph and Kitchener (and Cambridge, but that is not covered by this environmental assessment) to be years over due, and will be actively encouraging this project.

As I have mentioned many times before, Guelph has a perfect location for an excellent multi-modal transit station with a lot of parking, and space for high density residential targeted to commuters. It is in immediate danger as an application to turn this perfect property into a Costco is currently winding its way through the Ontario Municipal Board.

The study area is much larger than just Guelph and, interestingly, stretches from the relatively new Mount Pleasant GO station, built about 3 years ago, to Baden, almost 10 miles West of the Kitchener VIA station, and quite a bit further than I anticipated this study area to cover. While the announcement from GO does not say so, I expect that the stretch from Kitchener to Baden will be without passengers to park the trains at night, but I may be wrong about that. This study area represents nearly 50 miles of main line tracks, 43 miles of which GO trains do not currently service.

The vision I have for this line may be somewhat more ambitious than the current plans being studied by GO, but what I would like to see is 4 GO trains continuing to originate at their current home at the Georgetown station, with only 1 or 2 more starting at Baden. I would like to see the ones at Georgetown commence their journeys by travelling west to Kitchener before heading back east to Toronto, and continuing all the way to Kitchener before returning to Georgetown at the end of the day. This would, for minimal extra cost to GO, allow Guelph and Kitchener to have meaningful inter-city rail commuter service of its own.

I hope for the placement of the initial GO stations to be at, approximately:

There is no reason for the train's night parking to not also handle passenger boarding. Guelph Junction's GO terminal, which was in service for some 27 years, never allowed passenger boarding even though 5 commuter trains parked there every night. Had that been the case, Cambridge and Guelph residents would have had easy access to Milton-line GO train service with no substantial difference in cost for GO, except the addition of a parking lot at Guelph Junction (near Campbellville).

I look forward to the results of the Public Information Centre next week and hope that you all come out to show your support for rekindled rail service in this region.

transit 550 words - permanent link - comments: 0. Posted at 12:52 on September 18, 2008

Day 50 of the Guelph campaign

With only 32 days left to voting day, it's just about the home stretch.

Yesterday, Guelph NDP candidate Tom King said "I consider (the Liberals) to be in the same bed as Stephen Harper." The irony and hypocrisy are palpable in light of the exposure of collusion between Stephen Harper and Jack Layton to keep the Greens out of the federal debate.

In the same article, Green campaign manager Stan Kozak is purported to have said, paraphrased by the paper, that "none of the major parties have ever advocated for proportional representation, which means they're not serious about working together." This grates me particularly because it is the push for proportional representation itself that tells me that the Green party is not sincere about democratic values.

A single-winner, single-seat preferential ballot would offer more honest choices to electors and would have my unqualified support. The system would allow most-liked instead of least-disliked candidates to win as strategic voting is weakened. Preferential balloting allows voters to always vote for who they truly want to win, without ever worrying about voting for someone they don't like to keep out someone they really don't like. Preferential balloting allows them to make a statement about a particularly bad candidate by ranking them dead last on their ballot.

Proportional representation offers none of this. It is all about dis-empowering and unrepresenting voters to the benefit of political parties. Under proportional representation, an MP is not entitled to exercise judgement of his or her own. The system works by eliminating ridings as we know them, and putting the whole country on list systems. Parties provide lists to Elections Canada, voters vote for the parties, and seats are assigned as a proportion of the vote. 30% of the vote in a 300-member parliament means 90 seats, with no geographic requirements.

But who are those 90 people? Under proportional representation, it does not matter who they are; they could be chicken sandwiches, because they have no effect on the decision making process, they exist only to rubber stamp the policies of their parties. The demographic representation in parliament could improve, but it would be hollow. A parliament made up of 50% women who are completely muzzled is not an improvement over a parliament with 25% women who are free to speak their minds. Under proportional representation, they do not represent anyone but their party and have no recourse if they step out of line. While having 50% (or perhaps more) of parliament be empowered women would be hugely beneficial to the function of government, proportional representation completely misses the mark.

If an MP from a list system is kicked out of caucus, they lose the legitimacy of having a seat in parliament at all. They do not represent a constituency, only a party list, and have no recourse to re-election outside of that list. Someone ranked highly on a party's list has no danger of not being returned to parliament.

But I can see the appeal of this to the Green Party in Guelph, whose own candidate does not even live in the riding. Their slogan here is "Guelph is Going Green," their message clearly that they want the Green Party represented in Guelph, not Guelph represented in Ottawa.

While the Liberal candidate here has made it clear in that same article that a cooperative left-of-Harper movement is needed and worthwhile, the Greens and the NDP candidate in Guelph and the NDP's leadership have shown that the only cooperation they are interested in is collusion to break the fabric of our democracy, the NDP by working with the Conservatives to keep out the Greens, and the Greens by pushing to take the weak electoral system we have and turn it into a completely dysfunctional one.

politics reform 631 words - permanent link - comments: 7. Posted at 09:30 on September 12, 2008

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