Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Did Baird let slip the truth?

It would be a lot easier to take federal cabinet ministers at their word if they would make some effort to get their stories straight. When they contradict each other, it’s natural for Canadians to conclude that someone’s lying. Or, to be more charitable, that the full truth gets doled out in bits, when and if the government feels like it.

This year’s budget eliminated an arms-length agency with a parliamentary mandate to provide advice on sustainable development.

The government has every right to cut agencies and programs if their services could be better delivered by some other part of government, or by the private sector, or not at all. I have no opinion as to whether the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, in particular, should have been cut.

What I do expect, though, is that the government will tell the truth about why it’s cutting certain services and not others. The way our government spends our money is our business. It can and should make cuts, but it should never do so for reasons that are secret or arbitrary. We need to be able to judge whether the government’s losing valuable services, or making decisions based on false economies.

And if it’s cutting research agencies because it doesn’t like what the research says, that’s likely to lead to bad government.

The budget explained this particular cut as part of an effort to “eliminate redundancies, reduce costs and improve service to Canadians” in the environment portfolio. “For example, while the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) filled an important need in the past, a mature and expanded community of environmental stakeholders has demonstrated the capacity to provide analysis and policy advice to the Government.”

Environment Minister Peter Kent elaborated on that in the House of Commons, saying, “the reality is that the round table was created a quarter of a century ago. It was created before the Internet, when there were few such sources of domestic, independent research and analysis on sustainable development. That is simply no longer the case. There are now any number of organizations and university-based services that provide those services.”

So Canada’s environment minister goes to the Internet for his sustainability-research needs, presumably to the websites of those “environmental stakeholders” whom he doesn’t accuse of money-laundering. Fair enough.

But then, on Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird suggested that there was a different reason for defunding the round table.

“They have tabled more than 10 reports encouraging a carbon tax, Mr. Speaker,” he said. “Why should taxpayers have to pay for more than 10 reports promoting a carbon tax, something that the people of Canada have repeatedly rejected? And that’s a message the Liberal party just will not accept. They should agree with Canadians. They should agree with this government. No discussion of a carbon tax that would kill and hurt Canadian families, Mr. Speaker.”

So, here’s Baird’s logic: In 2008, the major party that was proposing a carbon-tax plan (not a particularly good one) didn’t get elected. That means (a) Canada can never have a carbon tax and (b) nobody gets to talk about it again, ever. No discussion!

Baird’s suggestion is troubling. If the government thinks it doesn’t need the round table to advise it on carbon policy, fine. If, however, the government doesn’t think anyone who supplies analysis to the government — say, the public servants it employs — should ever study or recommend a carbon tax, well, that’s a problem. The only way to ensure that level of ideological purity in the research would be to select a small group of advisers that only tells the government what it wants to hear. Why would taxpayers pay for a report saying the emperor has no clothes? No discussion!

If the government doesn’t want to take advice from anyone who’ll recommend a carbon tax, it’s going to have to ignore advice from a lot of people, economists in particular.

I’m not sure which Internet Peter Kent’s using, but mine’s full of reports from independent organizations recommending some form of a price on carbon, either cap-and-trade or tax-shifting or both. Just to take one example, there’s the Canadian Chamber of Commerce report from 2008 that explained why “market-based mechanisms achieve environmental goals in a more efficient and effective manner than traditional regulation.”

It’s possible that the government’s decision to kill the round table relied on both Kent’s and Baird’s reasons, and perhaps a few more. Trying to get a handle on the government’s reasoning shouldn’t be like groping parts of an elephant in the dark and trying to figure out what animal it is.

It reminds me of the time Jason Kenney said in a speech about Israel and anti-Semitism that “we have defunded organizations, most recently like KAIROS, who are taking a leadership role … in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign,” and then Kenney and his cabinet colleague Bev Oda insisted the decision had instead been a simple matter of CIDA priorities.

We have the right to examine the reasons behind the government’s funding decisions. The real reasons.

Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Kate Heartfield

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