Le printemps whatever…

Suis-je le seul à croire qu’absolument rien a changé depuis un an?

Et si le PQ avait juste utilisé la marque de commerce du «printemps Érable» pour gagner une faible minorité. 

Le gouvernement péquiste coupe en ce moment dans l’aide sociale, les soins aux aînés, les hôpitaux et même dans la recherche dans les universités. Ça prouve véritablement une chose, si tu casses rien et tu n’as pas un porte-parole qui est un kid kodak, on va te presser au maximum.

Pire encore, ce gouvernement veut imposer des politiques anti-pauvres (comme le protectionnisme alimentaire) comme le nec le plus ultra de la politique. Je n’étais pas un fan du précédent gouvernement du PLQ, mais autant dire que le PQ n’est pas vraiment mieux et même pire avec son côté imprévisible et souvent brouillon.

Mais bon, ça prouve comment les penseurs au Québec ont une drôle d’idéologie. Celui qui est vraiment dans la pauvreté risque de jamais aller à l’université. C’est justement pour cette raison qu’un gouvernement de centre-gauche en Grande-Bretagne à la fin des années 90 a rendu l’éducation universitaire payante, afin de mettre plus de fonds pour favoriser l’enseignement technique et éviter que les jeunes de milieux moins nantis ne décrochent pas.  

Et malheureusement (j’y suis passé moi-même), malgré qu’il n’y existe pas de diplômes universitaires «bidons» en terme d’efforts, je ne crois pas que l’université est véritablement une fin en soi comme beaucoup pensent encore de nos jours. Aujourd’hui, dans beaucoup de cas, avoir une qualification plus technique ou se partir une entreprise basée sur une idée permet d’avoir une bien meilleure vie qu’avoir un diplôme et être sur-qualifié comme des milliers d’autres personnes dans la même position. Il est même possible de nos jours de prendre des cours universitaires en ligne gratuitement ou à un coût minime si on aime apprendre en ligne.

Avoir le beurre et l’argent du beurre n’est pas quelque chose qui fonctionne dans le monde réel. Soit que les études supérieures sont accessibles à une élite méritocratique et coûtent presque rien ou bien qu’un diplôme plus ou moins cher va faire beaucoup de diplômés, tout en ayant une valeur réelle de moins en moins grande.  

Sur ce, le «Printemps Érable» va peut-être passer à l’histoire. Pourquoi? Comme l’exemple le plus concret qu’un parti à l’opposition peut dire n’importe quoi comme opposition tout en faisant de nombreux virages à 180 degrés rendu au pouvoir. Mais bon, surement mais lentement, la réalité commence à rattraper le Québec comme d’autres juridictions en Occident. Vivre à crédit pendant de nombreuses années risque d’avoir de grosses conséquences lorsqu’il est temps de payer la facture.

Fordophobia, a disease made in Toronto

Firstly, I am not Rob Ford biggest fan, his policies are sometimes too shaky, incoherent and unpredictable. He also sometimes seems strange, but he won’t be the first nor the last mayor of a major city to look eccentric. He also have many skeletons in his closet, but many electors don’t care about this considering that it was part of the whole package before he was being elected.

But then, when I see the tactics that Ford’s detractors are using, I say, perhaps Ford is not so bad after all. Many (but not all) of Rob Ford’s detractors are using tactics which are close to full blown bullying. It’s goes way beyond his policy or his ideas, it’s about his persona, his weight, his tastes which are going against the bien-pensants. For some people in Toronto, Ford had become the bogeyman in person, a sort of person which had become politically correct to bash. Funny to see that so-called progressives find it cool to let loose their political correctness when it’s Rob Ford. Of course, bashing overweight people is usually wrong for do gooders, unless it’s Rob (or Doug) Ford.

Many in the media who are bashing Ford actually don’t understand why Ford got elected at the first place. He was the underdog and this was seen as massive blowback to how people in the former separate cities of Toronto seen David Miller administration or anything associated to it. Sadly, many Ford-haters have a short memory without understanding that Ford’s populist message struck a cord among a good number of voters in Toronto for a perfectly legitimate reason. Many people who are not traditional Conservatives have voted for Ford. And yes, Toronto have a weak mayor system and Ford only have one vote like other in the city council. Note that many so called "progressives" in Toronto City Council are sort of mini-Michael Bloombergs, to give you an example, they don’t mind banning plastic bags.

Funny that as I am myself a classical liberal, I find it hilarious that many progressives are like people who wanted to prohibit liquor in the early 20th century. They both have the same motto, if they don’t like something, why not just ban it?

The other inconvenient truth that many Ford haters don’t seem to understand is that Ford won massively because of New Canadians who are living outside the Old City of Toronto. For some in the city of Old Toronto, Ford represents everything they hate. He is living in a house which have a driveway, he loves football (perhaps a bit too much) he don’t take the streetcar to get home and he loves to eat at low-class non-trendy restaurants where they serve a lot of food in their plates.

And yes, for Mr. Singh living in Rexdale or Mr. Wu living inn Agincourt, Ford seems like the average neighbour  unlike the people who live in condos, apartments or houses in the old City of Toronto. People there hated Ford so much that they voted for George Smitherman. Yes, the same George Smitherman who was minister of everything and nothing in the McGuinty government.

In conclusion, if Ford’s detractors are continuing this Rob Ford as bogeyman play, in 2014, Rob Ford could well be re-elected by a greater margin than in 2010. Of course he could screw up of something which will probably be stupid and be forced to resign (like substance abuse), but his "scandals" are making people in other cities laugh. In London, I am sure that many people are angry at Joe Fontana, yet, he will probably not resign until the next election. In Laval (which is sort of Quebec’s version of Mississauga in an island called the Jesus Island), they even had Al Capone as mayor for close to 25 years.

Five myths about #UKIP

1)The party is racist

Everywhere in the world, political parties which go up in the polls fast have members which have a maelstrom of views. It’s no surprise that UKIP is basically a "popular" coalition of people not at ease with major British political parties. Indeed some of these people are attracted to UKIP because they are against the European Union which they consider responsible for immigration from Eastern Europe. This is a wedge issue that the party is trying to play  in some areas in the UK.  Difficult to see any truth in this stereotype that Farage (or his inner circle) are hating immigrants who make their life in the UK by wanting to live and contribute to their community in the UK.  Remember that both the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have a vaguely similar position on immigration especially since the last few years. Many tend to forgot this important point. Some Labour MP have even made comments in the past (for example on non-British hotel staff) which are much more xenophobic than the average of British politics including UKIP members.

2)UKIP is a "libertarian" party

No doubt that some people who are UKIP members are libertarians or classical liberals. I know personally a few of them and they have principled values even if this sometimes goes beyond the party line. Many are younger than the average UKIP membership age being in their 20 and 30. They consider both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats as too social democratic. But except on some long standing party policies (such as smoking laws and opposition to the European Union superstate which is quite intrusive at times) and some economic policies (such a reform of fiscal laws to make it more simple even through the party seems to flip-flop on the flat tax issue), UKIP is a populist party. There is nothing wrong with that and there is this sense that some libertarians see UKIP as a way to "kick out" the old dirty laundry. UKIP also have a mish-mash of policies to please (almost) everyone in their coalition. This makes UKIP similar to Beppe Grillo’s political party in Italy without the whole direct democracy concept. They both have the similar "anti-system" discourse. No need to mention that Beppe Grillo’s party is now a very important player in Italian politics. UKIP could well do the same thing, because there are an sizable base of voters which want to try something new.

3)Only former Tories vote for UKIP

Many voters are not ideological. They usually vote for a given political candidate based on the leader, the platform, their local candidate or a mixture of the three. Especially in a place like in the UK, some will never vote for a given political party that they consider toxic or rotten. What UKIP does is that as a newer alternative,  it is making the party an alternative among voters of all three parties and especially among people who usually don’t vote or don’t vote very often. Of course, for many, Farage seems like a real person, the kind of guy who loves talking to people at pubs and who loves fishing. He is in deep opposition to any other major party leader which many people frankly consider out of touch.  Does this means that UKIP is a protest vote? Possibly in some cases. But the former SDP (and Liberal Democrats) were for a long time playing the same card as UKIP as playing the "third way" card. It’s no surprise that UKIP is trying to build a local base first, as the Liberal Democrats had done in the last decades.

4)UKIP is against Europe

No surprise that some people in UKIP are British nationalists. However, even if the party is against the European Union (it’s one of the main points uniting almost everyone in the party), the party is not against Europe as a concept. Many UKIP members go regularly in other places in Europe. With the technological progress and the fact that’s it’s relatively inexpensive to travel and communicate everywhere in Europe , the myth of having a party of members who think that the world ends at Dover and who love drinking warm beer and watch cricket is close to total nonsense.

5)UKIP is like a British version  of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National.

Considering the specificity of politics in France, it’s difficult to see any correlation with ideas of the Front National and ideas of UKIP. UKIP is much more pro-free market than the Front National, this considering that UKIP is more for civic nationalism (aka patriotism) than the FN ethnic nationalism. Note that except on immigration, law and order and cultural issues such as opposition to Islamism, the Front National policies are more left-wing than the left of the Labour Party. Especially under Marine Le Pen leadership, the FN is akin to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Left Front when it rails against "ultra-liberalism", the "market" and "anglo-saxon ideology". For a non-francophone, these are indeed weird terms, but it is something quite common in the strange world of French politics. UKIP is far more similar in this case in France with people associated with proto-Gaullism such as Debout la république and to people like Philippe de Villiers which don’t have a lot in common with the Front National.

In conclusion, being an humble spectator, I am probably much more optimist of UKIP than many detractors of the party or people who had quit the party.  UKIP is far from perfect, the party is really centralised in term of leadership which has positive and negative sides as entryism is indeed a problem like in any newer party which become popular quickly in the polls. However, the British political world is probably past the stage of thinking of UKIP as a fluke, a flavour of the month or as a sideshow which exists only to divide the vote. Let’s just hope that the party don’t become a nest for lobbyists and careerists and that the party have a coherent manifesto for the next general election.

The Paradox on Capitol Hill

From an interesting article available here.

Welfare state Democrats are willing to vote for an aggressive foreign-policy and a larger Pentagon budget, as long as they get to maintain the federal government’s high expenditures on welfare projects. Similarly, conservative Republicans are willing to vote for the welfare state projects, as long as the Democrats continue to fund the Pentagon

Why I won’t be nominated senator…my take on Senate reform

Senate reform is probably the biggest unfinished business in Canadian politics. Very few countries which are considered to be liberal democracies in the world still have an upper house which is so undemocratic and unaccountable. Is it supposed to be a chamber of review, yet in 2013, the Senate debates are not even televised. Very few people care what is going on in the senate and very few senators (except a few exceptions) are people known to the general public or to anybody other than political geeks.

 

 Of course, not all senators in the Canadian Senate are bad people, many of these people have done great things in their career before being nominated as senators. But unlike the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, many senators are more noted for being patronage appointment (or were former candidates or MP for the party in power in an election who are senators as a consolation prize) than being household names in their domain of expertise. They "serve" time with a good salary until they turn 75 unlike the House of Lords where peers don’t have a fixed salary. This is why many Canadians (of all parties) are seeing the Senate as a country club for the well connected and advantaging friends of parties who are (or were) in power whatever their colour. It’s of course an interesting job and a way to put people of minorities into a political post, but it’s not a symbol of accountability. 

 

So, how to reform (or abolish) the Senate? No easy solution is possible at the moment. The Atlantic provincial governments would never want to abolish an institution which they had such an high weight in term of seats. Even if all provinces accept any Senate reform or abolition, very few federal politicians (of all colours) are keen on having any sort of national referendum. Having a national referendum had become a quasi-taboo in Canadian politics. The bad taste of the 1992 national referendum on constitutional reform (which was a failure for all mainstream political actors at the time), is still alive among many politicians in Canada.

 

Add also that federal and provincial wings of a giving party are divided on senate reform. Even if the federal NDP wants to abolish the Senate, I am not sure that the Nova Scotia provincial wing of the NDP don’t want anything else than the status quo.

 

However, some mini-reforms could be possible.  

The first one is having senators elected by convention as a gentlemen agreement where big electors or legislative assemblies (in a sort of electoral college like in the French case) could elect senators (after each provincial or territorial general election) while having a non-official term limit. For example, if senators are also provincial legislators, this while being elected by their peers in the legislative assembly, there will be a "unofficial" term limit. This will also makes that the Canadian Senate will become a Chamber of Provinces and it will bring an outlook which goes further than the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle.

 

But a more radical reform will be having elected senators with a four year mandate. The twist will be that they will chosen like for jury duty with one four years term limit. However, the problem is that I cannot see how it would be good in any in a liberal democracy to force people having a given position by law. And if you give exceptions to certain people, a sortition-based senate will not be very representative of the population. 

 

In conclusion, there is no easy path to senate reform. The best case for senate reform was during the 1992 referendum, but alas, right now, any reform will have to be minimalist for the moment. Even an outright abolition will be close to impossible right now.

What the UK could learn about Quebec’s education system on "grammar" schools

The question of grammar schools had been an hot topic in British politics for many decades. Should they be reinstated (or not) like they were decades ago as a meritocratic tool to achieve social mobility?

Let me talk to you about a system that I know quite well, which is the education system in Quebec (a Canadian province). It’s far from a perfect education system and many things done in British education system (such as free schools for example) should  be put forward as ideas in the Quebec’s education system.

Like in the UK, many reforms in education in Quebec done in the last few years were atrocious both for students and teachers. High school dropout rates are also much too high in Quebec and this will bring big problems  in the future. However, one interesting thing is that they are a lot of quasi-grammar schools which are owned by organisations or religious orders.  They are in a way semi-private schools, they usually have fees but they are usually affordable even for people of modest means. These schools had also become a shield against a sometimes unpredictable public education system, while forcing public high schools to reform and try to attract students in new ways. 

But why these schools are existing as the exact opposite of the situation in  the rest of North America?  It was an accident of history. Before the 1960′s, education in Quebec was usually a responsibility of the Church and of religious orders as Quebec (and French Canada in general) was a very Catholic society akin to the Irish Republic. In the 1960′s, reforms were done both by the Liberal and Union Nationale governments during the Quiet Revolution, and a formal ministry of education was formed and comprehensive schools (known as polyvalentes in Canadian French) were created.  But the problem is that these comprehensive schools were not quite ready to accommodate all the students after the massive baby boom after the Second World War, so the Quebec government (education is a provincial responsibility in Canada) have decided to fund partly fee-paying schools if they accept to comply to a few standards as a temporary measure. Of course, parents who send their children in these schools will also have to pay the education tax (which is paid with Quebec’s version of the council tax called the municipal tax) to fund the public system of education on top of school fees (which remains quite modest).

You may think why these schools had never been removed their funding by the state? It’s very difficult to know exactly why, but one interesting theory is these schools were able to form a meritocracy. Decades passing by, this had made removing the subsidies to fee-paying school no less than a political suicide. Some people who come from modest backgrounds were able to achieve social mobility because that went to good high schools which choose their students with entrance exams on Year 6 (like British grammar schools) while keeping costs affordable. Even in the political arena, when you have a minister of (public) education who have sent her children to a fee-paying school, it’s difficult to argue against the quality of these schools. Some are no better than average public comprehensive schools, but other had forced comprehensive schools to find new ways to innovate, by offering for example, the International Baccalaureate or things which are similar to a fee-paying school. 

In conclusion, even in Quebec.  which have a state which is quite social democrat, corporatism and statist considering North American standards in many areas, the high school education system is somewhat less statist and top-down than in many other places in North America. Even more so than in many places in the United States which you go to your high school based on where do you live, which sometimes bring horrible results as a vicious circle.

Stephen Harper, the socialist of convenience

I read the other day a poll that says that about half of Canadians think Stephen Harper has a hidden agenda.

Well…I don’t know what his exactly his hidden agenda. No tax cuts, no sizable cuts in the size of the federal government  he is not a social conservative even through some people in his party is (but this is not a surprise at all as people of all parties have members who are pro-life). Even if it was good political branding at first, it’s ironic to see someone other than a social-democrat thinking of an Economic Action Plan (with the tacky and horrible advertising that comes with it) as a cornerstone of government policy.

The big problem with Stephen Harper’s government is the emphasis of micro-policy or designer policies. For example, giving multiple tax credits only add to the burden of the tax code. It’s not sustainable in any way in the long term. Also, I cannot see how Stephen Harper is reforming anything important, in fact his small «cuts» are minimal as compared to the expansion of the state in his first two mandates between 2006 and 2011. Another example, instead of having a bold policy of reducing tariffs, across the board, the government is more interested in using tariffs as a quick way to raise taxes in a weird exercise of picking winners and losers in tariff policy. And what’s sad is that a real free trade policy will help the poorer Canadians the most, whatever in tariffs, in cell phone competition or in ending supply management.

The opposition in Canadian politics is also clueless. They are like the boy who cry wolf. In late 2008, they think the that government is not doing enough, while in 2013, they think the government is spending too much. The Liberals and the NDP both have difficulty having any policy who goes beyond quick fix populism. Except being «more transparent» or not «being Harper» none of their policies are really representative of reality or offer anything else of substance considering the current challenges. Nothing is easier than bashing Tony Clement’s gazebos or fake lake rather to talk about things which could affect the future of every Canadian.

Could we also stop having parties who think that their polices are all magically branded as evidence-based? Both the Liberals, the NDP and the Greens have some awfully bad policies in their platform like the Tories.

Take EI reforms. These reforms came from the idea that a social-democratic government had in Denmark. Ironic, no, to have the NDP being critical of these reforms while their Danish colleagues at Socialist International were those who invented the concept of flexicurity.

In conclusion, the next political hot potato will probably being the question of pensions considering that the system will explode sooner or later. This is indeed just like the massive amount of state and personal debt that each Canadian have based on easy money and low interest rates which seems to last forever. Of course, nobody wants to raise interest rates in fear of having a credit crisis. How wonderful indeed!

The good thing is that when the situation will explode, the colour or the ideology of the government in power will not matter, tough decisions will have to be made. Of course, it’s not a vote-getter talking about difficult and complicated things, whatever who’s in power and this will probably never change.

Like they say in French, plus ça change, plus c’est pareil.